I have several .WMV videos from around 2004–2006. They play normally in standard video players, but portions of the image become corrupted when the files are imported into video-editing software. The problem is especially obvious around on-screen text, which can become almost unreadable. The glitches appear at the same timestamps in every editor and remain after transcoding to MP4 with Shutter Encoder, even when trying different settings. The only workaround so far is opening the files in an older version of Windows Movie Maker and exporting them in HD. That removes the visible corruption, but sometimes skips or duplicates frames and adds mild compression artifacts. Is there a better way to decode or repair these files while preserving the original frames and quality?
4 Answers
FFmpeg is worth testing because it uses a different decoding pipeline and lets you control timestamps and encoding explicitly. Start with something simple like `ffmpeg -i input.wmv output.mp4`, or use H.264 and AAC settings for a more predictable result. If the underlying issue is bad timestamps, regenerating presentation timestamps can help, although that usually fixes timing problems rather than image corruption.
Another approach is to index the file through AviSynth using a tool such as MeGUI, then open the script in VirtualDub. If the frames look correct there, export an uncompressed or lossless AVI and use that as the editing source. This can bypass problems in the editor’s built-in WMV importer.
You could try a different conversion frontend, such as VidCoder, and encode directly to H.264 in an MP4 container. If the issue is caused by the editor’s WMV decoder, a completely new decode-and-encode pass may eliminate it.
The source of the WMV files might matter, since older cameras, screen-recording tools, and capture software sometimes produced files that newer decoders interpret differently. I’d try decoding them with VirtualDub or HandBrake, possibly exporting to an AVI intermediate before importing into your editor.
I already tested Shutter Encoder with several H.264 settings, but the corruption remained at exactly the same points. I’m trying the other decoding methods now and will compare the results.