Windows Movie File (WMV) - Background

As Quicktime is to Mac - Windows Media is to PC. The player will show a variety of file formats and supports 100's of codec's, but do you think M$ will make it easy for us Mac users to export Windows Media? No... When the MPEG-4 standard came out, did they "truly"support it? No! Not fully. i.e. The same MPEG-4 you make on Windozes will not play on a Mac and vice-versa. Sad... but I have hopes for the DVD-HD format.

Pros

• Very good quality
• Compatibility on PC's (95% of the computer market if you like)

Cons

• Terribly expensive
• Mac users will need to download the player

Implementation

Currently only three (3) companies make a Windows Media encoder for the Mac. Discreet's Cleaner is good but, you are talking almost $600 dollars (US) and it uses the V7 codec. Oh... it is pricey but, it also does quite a bit of other type encoding. Another "total export solution" you may want to consider is Compression Master 3

Recently released

Flip4Mac has finally released their Windows encoder for only $50 and Popwire has released an encoder for just $30

Standard Export Component Features:
• Windows Media Video 9
• single-pass video encoding
• constant (CBR) and variable (VBR) bit rates
• Windows Media Audio 9 Standard
• up to 48 kHz audio sampling rates

Pro/HD Component Features:
• two-pass video encoding
• up to HD video resolutions
• Windows Media Audio Professional and Lossless
• 5.1 channel audio
• up to 96 kHz audio sampling rate

Flip4Mac

Cleaner

1. Buy Cleaner
2. Choose a "Quick Pick"
   
3. Export!

Related Pages

• Compression format comparison

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