Converting ASF to AVI (DivX).

This is my first article on Digital-Digest, any error or comment please send me a e-mail to sunisgoingdown@hotmail.com

We Need:

- ASFTools 2.30 or 3.10
- VirtualDub 1.5.1

From the 1.3d version of VirtualDub cannot process ASF or WMV files. It's doesn't mean that we can't use VirtualDub to edit our ASF files. The point is convert those files before use the VirtualDub; for a lot of reasons VirtualDub is a excellent alternative to edit, compress, recompress, joint, cut, etc. video files. I'm going to use  ASF 3.10 because I have it. (personally I think is more easy to use the 2.30 version)

Conversion

1. Open ASFTools (This is from version 3.10)

    In this screen we have a lots of options, Basics (Add, Remove, Joint, Cut & Clean); Repair (Basic Repair, Advanced Repair, Make Seekable, Lost Chunks); Convert (Convert to Avi, ... to Wav, Re-Encode) and Others (Make ASX, About, Exit)

2. Add the files to convert. Adding from Basic --> Add or dropping to the list area

3. From Convert tab we select Convert to Avi, and we get the next windows:

4. Usually the options selected for default gets good result. Press "Convert".

5. In two passes ASFTools converts it into an AVI file. The program takes just a few seconds depending on the files size. If ASFTools shows any error message, go to Repair --> Basic Repair, give it a new File Name and try the Conversion again. (If doesn't work try to "Advanced Repair")

At this point we have an AVI file. The two formats are similar, using the same video codec (MP4V3, MP4V2 or MP4V1 depending of the original ASF file codec) and audio codec (WMA). Now it's easy to edit in Virtual Dub or other AVI editor.

Re-encoding

First at all, it is recommendable re-encode the video part. The audio usually works well, so it isn't necessary to re-encode.

1. Open VirutualDub and Open the file created before.

2. On "Video" menu select "Compression" and pick your Favorite Codec (I'm going to use DivX Pro 5.0.5); then press "Configure" button.

3. Keep on mind the bitrate of the videos file (you can use GSpot to know it or floating over the "sun" icon on Windows Media Player on the ASF file).

It's not recommendable reencode with a higher bitrate than the original; it's only made the file bigger with the same quality.

4. Press Ok to set the changes. Now we have three options to re-encode the AVI: Full Processing Mode, Normal Recompress and Fast Recompress. The first is necessary if we are going to apply any Filter, Fast Recompress make it faster but without YUG correction. We select Normal Recompress.

5. Finally we select "File"--> "Save as AVI", put a file name and OK. VirtualDub star the recompression.

Ok, I hope it was useful to you.
Any question or something please write me

Written by Luis Alberto Cárdenas
June 20th, 2003
Mail me sunisgoingdown@hotmail.com