Well, kind of. I was all jazzed up when I downloaded my (not so secret ) weapon for some of my video and audio conversion jobs – SUPER – and saw that it now converts any video file into WMV9.
I’ve been using SUPER for years because it can do some amazing things and astoundingly it’s free. The limitations of SUPER however were severe: you couldn’t convert your stuff into WMV9 (VC1), or On2 VP6 based Flash, only Sorenson.
That’s unfortunate because WMV9 is the standard for web bound WMVs, and if you’re watching Flash videos chances are those were encoded with the On2 VP6 codec which is far superior to Sorenson.
SUPER is basically a graphical user interface (GUI) program that uses encoding tools like FFmpeg, MEncoder, theora/vorbis, x264, and others to convert nearly any video or audio file to any other video or audio file.
It can even do some stuff that those expensive encoders can’t, like integrating the AAC audio codec with the H.264 video codec, and letting advanced users use AviSynth to add even more capabilities.
And now SUPER can convert your stuff into WMV9 and WVC1.
Or at least it’s supposed to because SUPER kept crashing >>> during each and every one of my tests. I hope this is a just bug those guys over at eRightsoft, makers of SUPER, are working on.
SUPER’s WMV encoding capabilities (previously only up to WMV8 … which, frankly, sucks) aren’t nearly as smooth compared to using the actual old Windows Media Encoder from Windows. For example, SUPER can’t use input file or output them in WMV if the video dimensions aren’t divisible by 16.
This is not a limitation of Windows Media itself though because I’ve been encoding and publishing odd-sized videos for years without problems.
I tried several different source videos of different dimensions, on different encoding machines, and with different settings. All crashed when trying to encode to WMV9 using SUPER.
Regardless, I recommend SUPER for converting, particularly if you are looking into converting your source files into formats for iPod, Zune, or most mobile phones.
Here is the link to download SUPER for free. You’ll have to hunt around a bit to get to the actual download page. I think it’s so you have to stare at ads as much as possible. That’s okay though, SUPER is worth that time.
View: SUPER screen shot with WMV9 option
Read: Using SUPER to get around Apple’s proprietary MOV encoding bullshit (useful if HDV tapes were captured with Final Cut Pro and need to be worked with on a Windows machine; Dirty workaround, YMMV)
Tags: audio converter, convert to ipod, convert videos, erightsoft, free encoder, free media converter, h264, ipod format, media converter, mobile phone format, play on ipod, play on zune, SUPER, vc1, video conversion, video converter, video encoding, windows media video 9, windows video encoding, wmv8, wmv9, zune format
