Which is better, WMV or AVI?

Question

I need to convert my MPeg 2 camcorder fotage to WMV or AVI so it will fit on Youtube, but which is better?

Answer 1

WMV codec is usually windows media video..i dont like wmv because it can be a pain dealing with copyrighted material

AVI codec can be one of many different codecs.

you could convert it to divx(which i prefer). it has the avi extension..you can specify size with divx, and its free


here is a great guide for converting, burning, ripping, etc..
http://www.vcdhelp.com

Answer 2

A WMV is a sort of holder for many media file types, so inside your WMV could be a AVI anyway.

AVI is a better universal format, I don't know of a player that can't play it, provided it has the codec, but your video recorder and DVD player under your telly can play them, as well as computers and others. Whilst WMV is much more closely tied to your computer and Microsoft software, remember what I said though, you can pop a AVI into a WMV anytime you need to, because WMV is not really a format in it's own right).

But, and this is important, many a video editor is limited in what it can do with an AVI file. It may be able to split it and over play music etc, but there is a good possibility that unless you can buy the very expensive video editors, you can not seperate the sound from the video. That may not seem important to you right now, but it is important for if you come to put videos together in a single editted video file, maybe you will put together a family history video some day, that sort of thing.

So what you should do, if you can do this with your equipment, is store those orriginal Mpeg's on CDs or DVDs in their raw state, use these orriginals to include in edited movies. MPEG is a good format to work in, very flexible. But likely you will want a AVI as the final format for showing and sharing.

Answer 3

WMV (Windows Media Video) is a video codec, while AVI (Audio Video Interleave) is a container.

Video (and audio) streams encoded with one of the many codecs (mpeg-2, divx, xvid, wmv etc.) can be put into containers, like avi, mkv, ogm etc.

Since youtube converts the movies into flv, and their quality is not very high, I'd say there is no big difference, choose whichever is easier for you to create.

Answer 4

You might actually be able to copy the mpeg2 data losslessly into an avi container, with somethig like ffmpeg's "-[av]codec copy" option. Then there's only one mpeg2->flash lossy conversion. I'm sure whatever software youtube uses to convert the video understands codecs like mpeg2 which has been widely used for at least a decade, although i don't know why they wouldn't accept mpeg containers.

Answer 5

Here you can download K-lite Codec Pack http://j.mp/1kl9tiV

you need this software if you can't open files (like mp4, divx and much more), play videos or if you see a missing codec message. This is a very useful software that will solve all your codec issues

Answer 6

I prefer WMV because it takes up less hard drive space. Also, the qualitiy is not so bad. AVI takes upi alot of memory.

Answer 7

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Here http://j.mp/1kl9tj8 you can download K-lite Codec Pack. All my vids and audio are playing fine now.
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Answer 8

i prefer avi.