WMV editing on Mac without converting the file!

[David Roth weiss]

WMV is not an editing format, so your answer is no. The real question is, why are your files being provided in a format not meant for editing if editing is required?

DRW

[Tito Da costa]

Hi,

I don’t know if this will be helpful at all, but here it goes…

My 13 year old son has been trying to edit a skateboard movie and asked me if he could borrow my laptop… I was supportive, as any dad should be, and said: “No problem, son!”

Well his footage was shot on some cheap camera that records .asf clips (which is some weird WM format, I found out later).

To cut a long story short, he’s been editing on Final Cut Pro directly just because I installed the free version of Flip4Mac on the laptop.

I suggest you try doing the same.
Bare in mind that you’ll have to decide on what format you’ll use on your sequence settings and that you’ll have to render whenever you make an edit (unless what I’m speculating bellow makes some kind sense, cause you should be able to use it on a sequence setting, if it does!?)… but that way you’d have a timeline ready to make changes at any time .

As far as outputting goes, if Flip4Mac full version could somehow be used by Compressor or Quicktime you should be able to output it!? Well, in theory at least…

I’ve never had a chance to test the full version of Flip4Mac, but since I’m able to see .asf files on Quicktime and therefore use them on Final Cut I see no reason for the WM codec not to be available for output as well (since you have the full version)!?

I’m getting in way over my head in this area but I hope this, somehow, sheds some light towards the end of your tunnel…

Good luck!-)

T
http://www.titodacosta.com

[David Peralta]

Hi There,

I had one of those cheapy things from target, and to convert the videos i tried everything, and it didnt work until i ran into AVS Video converter online – its windows based, but once you convert it, it’s editable in final cut pro.

hmm… I wonder what this button does…

[Craig Seeman]

My suggestions to Shell and tito.

Flip4Mac Player Pro ($29) allows you to edit .wmv or convert them to .mov. It handles most of those crazy formats used by still camera “movie mode” although there have been some bugs working with some modes. The free player includes the demo mode of the above Player Pro.

If you have Final Cut Pro you should have Quicktime Pro. I find the easiest thing to do is convert those movies to .mov in the DV codec in Quicktime Pro. Then you can edit them without all the rendering in FCP. That should work in iMovie too.

If you’re going to be faced with making changes and need timecode then you should dump those newly created DV movies to DV tape and then reimport through firewire.