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Proper FFmpeg code to convert AVCHD 1080i Format to WMV files.

The image size of the input file is 1440 x 1080 and I would like to keep it in HD if at all possible as I am going to make DVDs from these videos.

I have FFmpeg on my system and have used it once or twice before so I know that I need it in the folder I am going to use and I need a .bat file as well.

Please note, I want to convert several files at one time using the .bat file.

I have Windows Vista, 32 Bit, AMD 64, achlonx2 dual core processor, Nvidia Gforce 6150SE video card, 3gig memory and I use Windows Movie Maker to edit the video.

Thank you.

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    You know that DVDs aren't HD, right? PAL DVDs have a height of 576 lines (pixels), and NTSC have 480 lines. So that part of the process will require downscaling, at least.
    – evilsoup
    Apr 23, 2013 at 14:52
  • ...also, can't Windows Movie Maker output to WMV? I think that ffmpeg can encode WMV, but not the latest versions, and I don't know how good the ffmpeg WMV encoder is... unless you have a specific need for WMV, in general you'd be better off using h264 video in an MP4
    – evilsoup
    Apr 23, 2013 at 16:55
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    The videos were recorded in .m2ts format using a Sony camera and I need to convert that into .WMV so that I can work with it in the Windows Movie Maker to edit and make the DVDs.
    – BHR856
    Apr 23, 2013 at 18:05

1 Answer 1

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From what I've read new versions of Movie Maker actually support AVCHD .m2ts files, so you shouldn't need to recode. If it can't read the files I'd simply suggest you use another editor, because that format is pretty common and any decent NLE – which I honestly don't think Movie Maker is – should be able to handle it.

You might be able to get more support for the old Windows Movie Maker versions with the ffdshow tryouts codec library. Windows Movie Maker seems to have an option to enable them (after you've installed them) in the compatibility settings:

All you need to do is rename your file so that it has the file extension .avi. Using this trick you should be able to import FLV, MP4, and other file types. Don't forget to rename your files back to their original extensions when you are done using them in Movie Maker. Renaming may not always be necessary. You should always first try to import using the original filename!

Another configuration tweak you you might need to make is to adjust the compatibility settings of Movie Maker.

Movie Maker menu -> Tools -> Options -> Compatibility -> enable "ffdshow video decoder" (and other audio/video decoders from the codec pack that may be listed there)

The main problem is: you can't create WMV 9 (or SMPTE VC-1) video with ffmpeg. Only WMV 7 and 8 are supported, but I would generally not recommend using those, as their visual quality isn't the best compared to most competitors.

You can also try creating a high bitrate MPEG-2 intermediary file or so, but this is a far from ideal solution:

ffmpeg -i input -c:v mpeg2video -b:v 10M -c:a pcm_s16le output.mpeg
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