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Turning MP4 vids to WMVs

PostPosted: Tue Oct 19, 2010 10:43 pm
by airichan623
So I have some video from my parents camera that i want to use in windows media player, but cannot because they are mp4 files. I have a converter (PMB), but it always says these files are 'not valid' or 'corrupted' or 'unavailbale'. many of these i have put on youtube with success, so they cant be too corrupted. any ideas?

EDIT: I actually am trying to use them in Windows Movie Maker.

PostPosted: Tue Oct 19, 2010 11:45 pm
by Midori
MP4 is a very common format these days, so you shouldn't have to convert them just to view them. A media player that cannot play them is, in my view, deficient. But this can be fixed.

On thing you can do is download a codec that allows Windows Media Player to play mp4 files. You can get more information about how to do that here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/316992#34

Another (probably easier) thing you can do is to get another media player that can play more filetypes by default. Some common recommendations for this are Winamp, VLC, and Media Player Classic.

If worse comes to worse, and you have to convert the format of the video, I usually use a tool called ffmpeg, which is quite versatile, but only runs on the command line, so if you're unfamiliar with the Command Prompt it could be difficult to use. I think there's a graphical interface version of it somewhere but I don't know a whole lot.

Anyway, I hope that was of some help.

PostPosted: Wed Oct 20, 2010 9:47 am
by battletech
Every thing Midori said should work. If it does not work for you. You can search for a new free converter online. There are a lot of free converters out there. Keep trying them out until you find one that works for you. You can also get a converter for those specific file types.

PostPosted: Wed Oct 20, 2010 2:43 pm
by airichan623
battletech (post: 1432096) wrote:Every thing Midori said should work. If it does not work for you. You can search for a new free converter online. There are a lot of free converters out there. Keep trying them out until you find one that works for you. You can also get a converter for those specific file types.


Tried, practically all of them, when i tried to download them, my virus software told me they were very very dangerous, and I'm milking my computer as it is.

I tried to convert it on zamzar.com [which requires no download to convert :)] but it also said they were corrupted.

in case ur wondering, i have a windows vista [hence the issues]

PostPosted: Wed Oct 20, 2010 9:31 pm
by Hiryu
Use Youtube Downloader. Trust me, it is safe.

PostPosted: Thu Oct 21, 2010 11:19 am
by Straylight
Download and install VLC media player, and try playing it with that. It pretty much plays anything :thumbsup:

PostPosted: Fri Oct 22, 2010 2:40 pm
by airichan623
Hiryu (post: 1432258) wrote:Use Youtube Downloader. Trust me, it is safe.


where can i get that?

PostPosted: Mon Oct 25, 2010 2:14 pm
by armeck
well you can download youtube video from http://www.zamzar.com or http://www.keepvid.com or http://www.youconvertit.com or you can covert video using "super" from erightsoft, that can convert more stuff than you have ever seen before XD when you run "super" windows may say it is a virus, it isn't it can convert so many types of videos (like blueray for example) that some of the plugins and stuff are stuff that virus protectors may not recognize and see them as viruses (avg may say it is a threat) and it is all free

PostPosted: Fri Oct 29, 2010 5:24 pm
by Mithrandir
airichan623 (post: 1432619) wrote:where can i get that?


VLC is available for download from videolan.

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/


I'll second this recommendation - I use it almost exclusively to view movies on my media 'puter.

PostPosted: Sat Oct 30, 2010 10:01 am
by Hiryu
You can get YT downloader at http://youtubedownload.altervista.org/

PostPosted: Sun Oct 31, 2010 11:26 pm
by Bobtheduck
I think DownloadHelper is much better than youtube download, because it works in other video sites, too, and can also pull MP3s off sites. I'm not sure if they have it on Chrome or Safari, but they have it for Firefox. I love it. They keep it updated to work around youtube's blocking, too, but you usually have to get the lowest quality ones (or one of the MP4s, which work about half the time) for the download to work. Hopefully they fix the high def downloads.