Hello!

I really need your help. Recently I travelled the great world wide web and somehow found some files that were said to be .asf format. (Apart from that fact that I couldn't download these files) didn't I know this format... hte files were supposed to content video data. How do I acces them? What is the quality? How much space does it need?

-- Sandros (none@the.moment), June 27, 2000

Answers

ASF=Advance Streaming Format. This format is mpeg-4 compression which is geared for internet transmition. Most files you can accessed on the internet is only through the ASX(you author the transmition), which is the pointer to the actual ASF file. These files can be accessed through the Window Media Player version 6.4 and above. The advantage of ASF is that you can access it live even while the encoding is going on! This means the instant you click on the pointer (ASX) or the actual file(ASF) you will see the video/audio while the rest is buffering in memories. The quality are ranging from poor(low baud rate 28K-56K dialup modem) to VCD equivalent or better (T1, T3 baud rate). You probably have heard of DivX AVI(not the same as the DivX on DVD): ASF is similiar to this format. You can create these files yourself through WindowMedia Tool version 4.1(free) or Sonic StreamAnywhere10c(commercial). I create ASF(750K Single baud rate) with windowmedia tool4.1 through my ATI AIW128 card using live video/audio feed. You can also convert mpeg to ASF with Sonic StreamAnywhere software and AVI to ASF with windowmedia tool as well. ASF to MPEG VCD conversion you'll need VirtualDub1.3c software (free).

-- lnguyen (wingstarzz@hotmail.com), June 28, 2000.

regarding VirtualDub supporting ASF format: it USED to support it, but Microsoft doesn't want anyone else but Microsoft to use their proprietary format. They contacted the author of the free software and asked him to remove support for .asf files. I think virtualDub 1.3c is the last version before .asf support was removed. So, if you can find the older version from somewhere, then you can edit them. In theory, that is.

And really, why do people have to be such assholes?

[gaijin]

-- gaijin (john-doe@anonymous.com), May 19, 2001.

Don't feed the trolls! Yes, 1.3c does support it if you can install the beta version of the mpeg 4 codec (MPG4C32.DLL version 4.00.0.3688) on your system. VCD Cutter also works if you change the extension to MPG ... perhaps because of the beta codec, perhaps not. Anyway, 1.3c will work with asf files as long as you have that version DLL installed.

-- no (Random.@ziplip.com), May 24, 2001.

In fact,.asf file is a file format in which support many stream format file include MPEG stream. It uses header to recognize what stream in file.

-- vns (johnson2003vn@yahoo.com.au), January 19, 2003.

im going to answer with a question how come i cant play this videos on my computer it says rendering error but i think i have all the codects what do i need

-- camilo ramirez (camiloisdumb@aol.com), September 21, 2003.