Client wants WMV or AVI at DVinfo.net

Mike Watson · February 7th, 2017, 01:36 AM

Hi,

I started freelance about 10 years ago on FCP (legacy) and then moved to Premiere Pro (mac) a few years back. I taught college for a while and lectured to students how lucky they were to live in a world of h.264 where you no longer had to worry about compatibility. For the last 10 years I've outputted nearly everything as an h.264 .mov or .mp4, literally thousands of videos. It's all we do.

Last week, a client (big client, Fortune 500 corp) couldn't put my .mov in a powerpoint. We re-wrapped it and sent it over as an .mp4. No go. After some troubleshooting, found out they were on a legacy version of powerpoint that didn't support mp4 (?!). Referred them to their in-house IT and didn't hear back, I assume they got something going. Rolled my eyes at a multinational corp using a legacy MS version so old it didn't support MP4.

Today, 8pm, different client frantically trying to put together a powerpoint for 8am tomorrow, same story. No in house IT to rely on at this hour. Client says ppt is demanding WMV or AVI. I haven't used AVI in 10 years, maybe 15, WMV perhaps 5 more than that. Client eventually embeds a YouTube video in the ppt (which, ironically, is surely using mp4 video) and seems satisfied.

Are WMV and AVI a thing again? Anybody else running into this?

Noa Put · February 7th, 2017, 03:10 AM

I used to work for a company that currently has over 150.000 employees worldwide, my experience there was that they would delay upgrading software as long as they could. Something as simple as installing the latest version of ms office costs such a company a lot of money and if the older software would serve it's purpose and if a upgrade would have no financial benefit they would wait.

Also IT departments from such companies have other things on their minds then dealing with one videographer who has problems getting a video to play in a powerpointpresentation, they probably will think that if it has worked before (with wmv's or avi) it should work now and therefore they consider it's your problem to solve, not theirs.

But since the solution is as simple as exporting a avi or wmv then I don't see what the problem is?

Gary Huff · February 7th, 2017, 09:05 AM

Flip4Mac is what you want.

Nate Haustein · February 7th, 2017, 09:25 AM

A few years back I bought a little Mac video converter by iSkysoft. It does quite a lot of things for the $30 or so that I paid for it, including formats like AVI and WMV. It downloads videos from YouTube and even encodes H265. I find it handiest in situations like you mention. Another option for you.

Noa Put · February 8th, 2017, 05:54 AM

Another example how long bigger companies can wait to upgrade, where I used to work we where still on windows xp while windows 7 was already out for a while, they just skipped windows vista all together. The only reason why they eventually upgraded to win 7 was that they where implementing a new software that was critical for warehouse operations and that did not run on win xp.

I have been making videos for business events in the past years, a part of my job for one particular yearly event was to edit the presentations of all different participating companies for a supply chain award, for that all the companies would send me their companyvideo for me to incorporate in the presentation.

You would be surprised with how many different kind of codecs I had to deal with, sometimes I also got mov files that refused to open on my pc which appeared to be a mac specific codec that only could be read on a Mac, at least, that was what I found out. In that case I contact a company with Mac's in their office who converted the file to something I could work with.

It just shows that the videographers who made the films also had to deliver the film to their client with a specific codec and that there doesn't seem to be a standard.

Seth Bloombaum · February 8th, 2017, 07:03 PM

This is the dark side of corporate IT, at least as far as video producers are concerned!

Consider upload to Youtube or Vimeo. Either can be private, though Vimeo's privacy requires the "Plus" version at $60/annual, IIRC.

Of course the darkest side of corporate IT is where they identify and kill access to video on the network or VPN.

Note that while MOV used to be compatible with PPT if you knew how to configure it, Apple decided to stop supporting QT for Windows.

IIRC Sorenson Squeeze for Mac also supports encoding to WMV and AVI. I think.

February 7th, 2017, 01:36 AM	#1
Mike Watson Trustee Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: San Diego, CA Posts: 1,082	Client wants WMV or AVI Hi, I started freelance about 10 years ago on FCP (legacy) and then moved to Premiere Pro (mac) a few years back. I taught college for a while and lectured to students how lucky they were to live in a world of h.264 where you no longer had to worry about compatibility. For the last 10 years I've outputted nearly everything as an h.264 .mov or .mp4, literally thousands of videos. It's all we do. Last week, a client (big client, Fortune 500 corp) couldn't put my .mov in a powerpoint. We re-wrapped it and sent it over as an .mp4. No go. After some troubleshooting, found out they were on a legacy version of powerpoint that didn't support mp4 (?!). Referred them to their in-house IT and didn't hear back, I assume they got something going. Rolled my eyes at a multinational corp using a legacy MS version so old it didn't support MP4. Today, 8pm, different client frantically trying to put together a powerpoint for 8am tomorrow, same story. No in house IT to rely on at this hour. Client says ppt is demanding WMV or AVI. I haven't used AVI in 10 years, maybe 15, WMV perhaps 5 more than that. Client eventually embeds a YouTube video in the ppt (which, ironically, is surely using mp4 video) and seems satisfied. Are WMV and AVI a thing again? Anybody else running into this?

February 7th, 2017, 03:10 AM	#2
Noa Put Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Belgium Posts: 9,510	Re: Client wants WMV or AVI I used to work for a company that currently has over 150.000 employees worldwide, my experience there was that they would delay upgrading software as long as they could. Something as simple as installing the latest version of ms office costs such a company a lot of money and if the older software would serve it's purpose and if a upgrade would have no financial benefit they would wait. Also IT departments from such companies have other things on their minds then dealing with one videographer who has problems getting a video to play in a powerpointpresentation, they probably will think that if it has worked before (with wmv's or avi) it should work now and therefore they consider it's your problem to solve, not theirs. But since the solution is as simple as exporting a avi or wmv then I don't see what the problem is?

February 7th, 2017, 09:05 AM	#3
Gary Huff Inner Circle Join Date: Jan 2013 Location: Austin, Texas Posts: 2,006	Re: Client wants WMV or AVI Flip4Mac is what you want.

February 7th, 2017, 09:25 AM	#4
Nate Haustein Trustee Join Date: May 2007 Location: Minneapolis, MN Posts: 1,313	Re: Client wants WMV or AVI A few years back I bought a little Mac video converter by iSkysoft. It does quite a lot of things for the $30 or so that I paid for it, including formats like AVI and WMV. It downloads videos from YouTube and even encodes H265. I find it handiest in situations like you mention. Another option for you. __________________ Nate Haustein PXW-FX9 / FCPX www.flightcreativemedia.com

February 8th, 2017, 05:54 AM	#5
Noa Put Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Belgium Posts: 9,510	Re: Client wants WMV or AVI Another example how long bigger companies can wait to upgrade, where I used to work we where still on windows xp while windows 7 was already out for a while, they just skipped windows vista all together. The only reason why they eventually upgraded to win 7 was that they where implementing a new software that was critical for warehouse operations and that did not run on win xp. I have been making videos for business events in the past years, a part of my job for one particular yearly event was to edit the presentations of all different participating companies for a supply chain award, for that all the companies would send me their companyvideo for me to incorporate in the presentation. You would be surprised with how many different kind of codecs I had to deal with, sometimes I also got mov files that refused to open on my pc which appeared to be a mac specific codec that only could be read on a Mac, at least, that was what I found out. In that case I contact a company with Mac's in their office who converted the file to something I could work with. It just shows that the videographers who made the films also had to deliver the film to their client with a specific codec and that there doesn't seem to be a standard.

February 8th, 2017, 07:03 PM	#6
Seth Bloombaum Inner Circle Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Portland, Oregon Posts: 3,420	Re: Client wants WMV or AVI This is the dark side of corporate IT, at least as far as video producers are concerned! Consider upload to Youtube or Vimeo. Either can be private, though Vimeo's privacy requires the "Plus" version at $60/annual, IIRC. Of course the darkest side of corporate IT is where they identify and kill access to video on the network or VPN. Note that while MOV used to be compatible with PPT if you knew how to configure it, Apple decided to stop supporting QT for Windows. IIRC Sorenson Squeeze for Mac also supports encoding to WMV and AVI. I think. __________________ 30 years of pro media production. Vegas user since 1.0. Webcaster since 1997. Freelancer since 2000. College instructor since 2001.