Windows Media Video

WMV is not built solely on Microsoft in-house technology. From version 7 (WMV7) Microsoft has used its own non-standard version of MPEG-4. The video stream is often combined with an audio stream of Windows Media Audio.

WMV files are customarily played by the proprietary Windows Media Player on Microsoft Windows and Macintosh systems. Some third-party players also exist, such as MPlayer for Linux which play back WMV by using the FFmpeg implementation of the WMV codecs.

Usually WMV video is packed into an Advanced Streaming Format (ASF) container. The resulting files may be named .wmv or .asf, but .wmv files are to be files with audio/video content only. WMV also features digital rights management facilities.

Influence on DivX

The DivX video format is originally based on an extracted WMV codec using the Microsoft MPEG-4 derivative, but combined with an MP3 audio stream instead of WMA (which is usually used inside WMV files) and with the file format changed from Advanced Streaming Format to AVI.

See also:

• MPlayer - third-party open source cross-platform media player capable of playing many WMV files
• Windows Media Audio - the sound-only counterpart

Referenced By