Exporting for Windows Media Player?

Report · Feb 12, 2012

I work on a Mac and am switching from FCP. In FCP the option was to export as QT or h.264. I'm noticing in CS5.5 on a Mac that there is no .WMV option.

1. Is .WMV not used anymore?

2. What is the best format to export for Windows users?

Thanks.

Report · Feb 12, 2012

WMV is used a lot ( by me and my clients and I assume many others on all platforms because no one ever tells me they cant use it).

WMV is a great option for Windows Users. It avoids Quicktime issues such as gamma and PAR weirdness.

What are you going to do about it?

Report · Feb 13, 2012

You need a third-party component to export WMV files on Mac OS. One such piece of software is Flip4Mac: http://www.telestream.net/flip4mac-wmv/overview.htm

Report · Feb 13, 2012

1. For the kinds of thing you'd use WMV, I'd say H.264. is by FAR the more common choice.

2. This depends on what it will be used for, but H.264 wil offer the best image quality at any given bitrate, far superior to WMV.

Report · Feb 13, 2012

I use wmv to avoid the QT gamma issue.

Unfortunately many clients use the review files to make IQ judgements. I get more negative comments when I do QT (h264) than I do with wmv despite the fact there are no issue with the files they are produced from.

Report · Feb 13, 2012

I prefer to make H.264 for client reviews, but a lot of clients can't or won't figure out how to play them, and insist on WMV. Being on Mac, I export ProRes from Pr, and then use QT Pro to make the WMVs. There is a gamma shift using this process. The MP4 looks like the original, is a far superior looking codec at lower bit rates than WMV.

I suggest that clients install the free cross-platform VLC player, which is the Swiss Army Knife of media players. But, a lot of corporate IT departments won't let them install any software.

I look at the extra transcoding steps as a revenue generating opportunity.

Report · Feb 13, 2012

Export the video as H.264 and container it in MP4 instead of MOV.

Windows Media Player will play .mp4 with no extra plug-ins required.

You also have the bonus that in doing so you'll avoid the gamma problems of QuickTime (and requirement for the client to install it).

Report · Feb 13, 2012

Seems like it ought to. But, I keep getting mail from my clients saying, "I can't open this." My movies have the mp4 extension. What can I tell them to get them to play?

Report · Feb 13, 2012

Hi Jim,

post your exact export options (screen capture of the AME gui video,audio & multiplexer tabs will suffice) - I'll have a look for you.

MP4[h.264 + pcm] or MP4[h.264 + aac] etc should absolutely play on Windows 7 (and Vista?). Now if it's Windows XP then yes I don't think h.264 is supported as a video codec and it also doesn't understand the MP4 container.

!tip! if you bring up WMP->Help->About then click on the bottom "Technical Support Information" you'll get a page showing all the codecs WMP has to work with.

eg here is my virgin work computer (windows 7) that plays mp4[h.264] just fine...

Video Codecs

Type	Name	Format	Binary	Version
ICM	Microsoft RLE	MRLE	msrle32.dll	6.1.7601.17514
ICM	Microsoft Video 1	MSVC	msvidc32.dll	6.1.7601.17514
ICM	Microsoft YUV	UYVY	msyuv.dll	6.1.7601.17514
ICM	Intel IYUV codec	IYUV	iyuv_32.dll	6.1.7601.17514
ICM	Toshiba YUV Codec	Y411	tsbyuv.dll	6.1.7601.17514
ICM	Cinepak Codec by Radius	cvid	iccvid.dll	1.10.0.13
DMO	Mpeg4s Decoder DMO	mp4s, MP4S, m4s2, M4S2, MP4V, mp4v, XVID, xvid, DIVX, DX50	mp4sdecd.dll	6.1.7600.16385
DMO	WMV Screen decoder DMO	MSS1, MSS2	wmvsdecd.dll	6.1.7601.17514
DMO	WMVideo Decoder DMO	WMV1, WMV2, WMV3, WMVA, WVC1, WMVP, WVP2	wmvdecod.dll	6.1.7601.17514
DMO	Mpeg43 Decoder DMO	mp43, MP43	mp43decd.dll	6.1.7600.16385
DMO	Mpeg4 Decoder DMO	MPG4, mpg4, mp42, MP42	mpg4decd.dll	6.1.7600.16385

Report · Feb 13, 2012

Thanks. I'm guessing that for a lot of big corporations I'm dealing with are on old OS builds of Windows. Probably not Windows 7, probably not Vista.

Here's a typical export setting I use:

The irony here is that one of my clients who can't view mp4s is a high-tech provider of cloud services and internet devices.

Report · Feb 13, 2012

Your settings are fine.

Your clients most likely run Windows Server 2003 or 2008; both of which are perfect for use in cloud services but don't have extensive multimedia support.

The no-codec-required answer is to render to mpeg2 not h.264.

The get-them-to install a codec answer (QuickTime, FFdshow, VLC, MPlayer etc etc) all add h.264 and mp4 container support.

Most likely these machines don't have WMV with VC1 anyhow - so even if you could render to WMV it won't work.

Report · Jun 23, 2016

I've been having the same problem when Exporting from Premiere Pro to send on to clients that want to view it on Windows Media Player.

I had two different videos that I sent onto a client, exported using H.264 HD 1080p 25 .mp4 and one of the videos worked and the other one didn't.

They were both exported using the same settings but one of the videos was a larger size than the other.

So I reduced the size of the video that didn't work to below 500MB (it was 403.9MB in the end) and this seemed to work.

Maybe see if this helps with you.

Hope that this solves the problem.

George