There are so many video formats out there today. AVI, DIVX, MPG (MPEG), MOV, RM, WMV, and of course even flash FLV video formats which is what sites like youtube uses. People have often asked me "how do I convert videos to WMV formats?". Many people are starting to chose WMV files as their favorite video format since they seem to have the fewest compatibility or least number of compression issues (also known as codec related issues). WMV is also a very good compression ratio, meaning the quality of a WMV (Windows Media Video) is very good quality of image and yet is fairly small in size. To give you an example, I have a canon digital camera that records in AVI format only. I bought a large flash card because these avi files are very large, and the quality is excellent. When I upload to my computer, I always use Windows Movie Maker to convert the AVI videos to WMV. Windows Movie Maker is on all Windows computers already, it is free and located under programs - accessories - entertainment (note it may move on different Windows systems, so look around if it is not in that location). Why do I convert the AVI to WMV file formats instead of leaving them as AVI? It is because I can take a 40 meg AVI clip and it becomes around 15 meg when I convert it to WMV, sometimes even smaller. So the larger the AVI video size, the bigger the trade off I get. I have plenty of space on my computer, but the smaller the video then the faster it loads and plays, etc. The WMV also has less compatibility issues as mentioned earlier, so as long as the quality is just as good (and it is), I prefer to have everything as WMV. I wish the camera created WMV itself but it does not (usually cameras that do not use WMV format or DIVX is because they have to pay royalties to use these better formats, so they choose a cheaper option and the video saved ends up much larger in size). DIVX is also a great format for this but I choose WMV simply because it plays in any player. I also compared the 2 videos playing side by size (AVI and the converted AVI which is now WMV) and the quality was identical, I couldn't see any difference at full screen even though the WMV format was much, much smaller in size. So how do you convert videos to WMV? It is simple, open your Windows Movie Maker and choose File - Import. Choose your AVI video (or MPEG, etc.), and then you will see it load with thumbnail images showing on the video. Highlight all the clips and drag and drop them on the bottom. It splits the files automatically sometimes thinking you want to edit the video. If its only one thumbnail then thats the whole video so just drag that one file to the bottom section. Then choose file - save movie, and it will save as a WMV file. There are many qualtiy options to go through, and these features will change a little based on different versions of Windows Movie Maker. You can go through the options and try each, look at the size and video quality and choose which one you like best, as everyone has different reasons for choosing different options. Note that you can edit your videos here also, and add captions or add music and MP3's to your videos. There are many features available in this software, you can even crop or cut out various scenes of the video if you want, or move or combine video scenes together with other videos, which is another great feature as often you may only want to save or keep parts of the video before saving it as WMV.

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