Convert MP4 to WMV

Who still needs WMV

• PowerPoint 2010 and older play WMV inside a slide without any extra software, where MP4 can be hit and miss.
• Windows Movie Maker, long retired but still in use on some PCs, imports WMV readily.
• Old Windows PCs: Windows Media Player before Windows 7 had no MP4 support of its own.
• Kiosks, training systems and in-house software written years ago around Windows Media.

If the video is for PowerPoint 2013 or newer, convert nothing: Microsoft recommends MP4 with H.264 video and AAC sound for those versions, which is what you already have. The same goes for anything on a phone, a Mac or the web. WMV is for the machines and programs that were never updated, and for them it is still the file that works first time.

What Octoolo writes

The WMV is Windows Media Video 8 with Windows Media Audio sound, in the ASF container Windows Media has always used, saved with a .wmv ending. It plays in Windows Media Player and in the Windows programs that take Windows Media. Some details:

• The H.264 in your MP4 cannot go into a WMV, so the picture is always encoded again, on the processor, since graphics cards have no Windows Media encoder.
• WMA gets 192 kbps at High, 160 at Balanced and 128 at Small, and surround tracks are folded into two channels.
• A WMV keeps one sound track, the first, and no subtitles.

Some programs list this kind of file as ASF or as Windows Media rather than WMV. It is the same thing: if a dialog offers any of those names, the WMV will do. Windows 10 and 11 still play WMV in Windows Media Player, so you can check each file on the PC that made it before passing it on.

Expect a bigger file

Windows Media Video 8 is an older codec than H.264 and needs more bits to look as good. Octoolo allows it about 1.6 times H.264's data rate, so a WMV made at High tends to be heavier than the MP4 behind it. To keep it in check:

• Choose Balanced, which aims at about half the size, or Small for email.
• Set Size to 720p under More settings. An older PC or a projector gains nothing from a 1080p or 4K WMV, and it plays smaller files more smoothly.
• Lower Frames a second to 30 if the MP4 runs at 60.

The bit rate is also held against the MP4's own, so a WMV comes out larger than the MP4 but never wildly so. For a deck, try one WMV in the presentation on the PC that will show it before converting the rest.

Check what the program takes first

Before converting a batch, open the program that needs the video and look at its import or insert dialog, at the list of file types it offers. If .mp4 is there, you can stop: the MP4 you have is the better file. If it lists only .wmv, .asf or .avi, convert, and choose between this page and MP4 to AVI according to which name it shows.

Then convert one video, open it in that program and play it through. Old software can be picky about frame size and frame rate, so if it stutters or refuses the file, try again at 720p or 480p and 30 frames a second. Once one file works, drop the folder and convert the rest with the same settings; the converter keeps your last format and quality for next time. Keep the original MP4s as well: if the old program is ever replaced by something newer, the MP4 is the file it will want.