Thread: Asf to ???
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Old 09-29-05, 08:04 AM   #5 (permalink)
OddbOd
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The whole point of WMRecorder is that it does not compress videos at all, it simply saves the video stream which has already been compressed by the server that is sending it to you.

The seeking problem is only present in live streams as seek information is missing from the original stream, that is why WMRecorder has the "seekable" switch in its options, the idea is to re-"play" your video through WMRecorder with this switch on and it should generate a seek table. No recompression is performed and is undesirable at the low bitrate you are dealing with, do not use WMEncoder on the video as it will recompress.

If it still does not seek correctly you can use AsfTools to fix it, so far it has never let me down.
Originally Posted by goodguy20k
Maybe if I tweak the settings just right in Windows Media Encoder? There's got to be a better file format and compression then ASF, isn't there?
In this particular case no there isn't, when downloading a stream you have no control over the encoding method that is used. Most of the objections to using Windows Media format are not technical in fact it performs at least as well as DivX/XviD and in some cases better. The major problem is that Microsoft holds patents which it can use (and has) to prevent outside development other more open formats are not at the mercy of one company and consequently see more development and broad support.

FYI - Files with a WMV or WMA extension are in fact ASF (Advanced Systems Format) files, a good explanation is given in Wikipedia.
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