If for whatever reason, you feel the need to convert Windows Media Video files (that can be either WMV or ASF) to a Quicktime format, here's how to do it:
First off you'll need a PC running Windows XP, Windows Movie Maker, Quicktime Pro (iMovie will also work) and a couple gigs free of hard drive space.
Get the file on your PC and open up Windows Movie Maker. Import the file into it, wait for a bit until its done and drag the clip(s) into the bottom reel. Go to File/Save Movie and in the window that pops up, click on the pull-down menu beside "Setting" and choose "Other". In the "Profile" one below it, click on the menu and near the bottom there should be a couple options for a DV-AVI format, NTSC or PAL. Choose whichever one fits the original file best, click OK and save it to wherever you please.
This will take a couple minutes depending on the speed of the PC and the size of the file, go eat a bananna or something while you wait.
When it completes, you'll have a (probably massive) 720x480 AVI file (assuming you chose NTSC) which is now readable natively by Quicktime! (Mac or Windows)
There is one problem I can't seem to get around though, when the video gets converted to the DV-AVI, it may have some black bars around the sides, if anyone knows how to crop these out, please reply and I'll edit this post to include it.
Edit: I did find a cropping tool, unfortunately it only outputs in MPEG-4 so if you don't want that then there's just more conversion to do...
http://openshiiva.sourceforge.net/
Now that you have the file, open it up in Quicktime (or iMovie if you don't have Pro), export it into the format and size you wish and viola! You now have a Quicktime-native version of a WMV file!.
Another thing that I've found is that the audio seems to be more lossy in the conversion than the video, you may want to extract it somehow and add it on later before it gets converted, otherwise I've done a couple myself and there doesn't seem to be a very visible loss in quality for the video.
If you don't want any loss in quality, just use MPlayer, VLC or Windows Media Player, but if you need the file in Quicktime format, this is how you do it.
First off you'll need a PC running Windows XP, Windows Movie Maker, Quicktime Pro (iMovie will also work) and a couple gigs free of hard drive space.
Get the file on your PC and open up Windows Movie Maker. Import the file into it, wait for a bit until its done and drag the clip(s) into the bottom reel. Go to File/Save Movie and in the window that pops up, click on the pull-down menu beside "Setting" and choose "Other". In the "Profile" one below it, click on the menu and near the bottom there should be a couple options for a DV-AVI format, NTSC or PAL. Choose whichever one fits the original file best, click OK and save it to wherever you please.
This will take a couple minutes depending on the speed of the PC and the size of the file, go eat a bananna or something while you wait.
When it completes, you'll have a (probably massive) 720x480 AVI file (assuming you chose NTSC) which is now readable natively by Quicktime! (Mac or Windows)
There is one problem I can't seem to get around though, when the video gets converted to the DV-AVI, it may have some black bars around the sides, if anyone knows how to crop these out, please reply and I'll edit this post to include it.
Edit: I did find a cropping tool, unfortunately it only outputs in MPEG-4 so if you don't want that then there's just more conversion to do...
http://openshiiva.sourceforge.net/
Now that you have the file, open it up in Quicktime (or iMovie if you don't have Pro), export it into the format and size you wish and viola! You now have a Quicktime-native version of a WMV file!.
Another thing that I've found is that the audio seems to be more lossy in the conversion than the video, you may want to extract it somehow and add it on later before it gets converted, otherwise I've done a couple myself and there doesn't seem to be a very visible loss in quality for the video.
If you don't want any loss in quality, just use MPlayer, VLC or Windows Media Player, but if you need the file in Quicktime format, this is how you do it.
