does anybody know any programs for Mac OSX that will convert my WMV files to MPEG2 or some other file so I can burn with a DVD? Thanks for your help!
I had never done this before but after playing for a while with ffmpegX (http://homepage.mac.com/major4/) I got it working. There are (at least) 3 kinds of .wmv files. ffmpegX will handle wmv1 and wmv2 files. I have not been able to convert wmv3 files. When you open the .wmv file with ffmpegX it will tell you above the "Open..." button which type of file it is. Select a destination for the output using the "Save As..." button. [/bold]wmv1 files:[/bold] You can author them straight away by choosing in the "Quick Presets" drop down menu "DVD ffmpeg". In the "Video" tab set the Framerate to either PAL(25) or NTSC (29.97). In the "Audio" tab tick the "Invert mapping" option. For best results set the "Channels" to Stereo. Click the encode button and you will get in your chosen destination a folder containing a "Video_TS" and "Audio_TS" folders (it is fairly fast the encoding process at least in my computer). [bold]wmv2 files:[/bold] follow this process as well for wmv1 files if you want to edit them before you author them. Install the latest codec from 3ivx (http://www.3ivx.com/download/macos.html) and Divx (http://www.divx.com/divx/download/). You will also need QuickTime Pro (http://www.apple.com/quicktime/buy/). You need first to convert the .wmv file to an .avi file. So select in "Quick Presets" either "XviD mencoder" or "DivX mencoder", set the Framerate (PAL or NTSC) and click "Encode". You will get an .avi file without sound (at least in my testing). To get the Audio select "Movie Audio to mp3" in "Quick Presets", in the "Audio" tab select "Invert mapping" and click "Encode". You will get and mp3 file. Now open this mp3 file with QT and in the menu bar click Edit>Select All. Then Edit>Copy. Now open the .avi file that had no audio with QT. Click Edit>Add Scale. The audio has now been added to the .avi file. Save it but make sure you tick "Make movie self-contained". Now you should have a .mov file that can be edited using QT pro or you can import it to iMovie, FCP, DVDSP, etc. To author the file you can drop it in Toast ("Video" tab / "DVD-Video") or you can do it with ffmpegX (much faster and better results). Open the .mov file in ffmpegX and select either "DVDmpeg2enc" or "DVD ffmpeg" in "Quick Presets" and click encode. If you have several "Video_TS" folders that you would like to burn together in the same DVD you can use the "Join" option in DVD2OneX. As I said at the beginning I found this out after just playing around with ffmpegX for a couple of hours so you are welcome to report back your experiences and/or correct me.
