hello!

first i need to ask what is the standard for video files...
i mean like, mp3 for music, jpg for graphic, and for video? mpg? something that doesnt need a codec and can be seen with no problem.
why am i asking this? because i have some BIG .avi and even some .wmv wich i want to change to the normal video file type, wich is .mpg mpeg2 i think, right?

i tried in microsoft windows... but i cant find anything that works for a microsoft windows 98 se system with no internet explorer and no windows media player. so for linux, what can i do? some .avi (one of them i think is encoded with indeo) and a .wmv, want to turn them into mpg, thanks!

by the way, the "real" standard for example for audio is "wav" for video is "avi" and graphic? "bmp"? am i right or wrong

thanks!

Unless you intend on using RAW video, where absolutely every bit of information is recorded, then you're going to have to use a codec of some sort. MP3s use codecs, and your WMV files need codec to work. As far as the 'standard' goes, that all depends on what you want out of it. Do you intend on keeping the files on your harddrive? Burning them to a DVD or VCD?

I would suggest getting MPLAYER and having a read around what it can do. It is a remarkable piece of software.

actually, afaik, you can't watch any videos without some sort of codec installed (otherwise how does the computer know how to handle the different formats?)

most distros can play normal mpeg and avi files out of the box, as well as handle the basic graphics formats (non-program specific) such as bmp, jpeg, etc...

basically, there isn't a "standard" that is just automatically recognizable in linux (after all, linux is simply a kernel)

for video, take the time to compile mplayer

*edit: darn, too slow...

okay! what about converting them?

Converting them to what though? After these responses were posted you probably would have wanted to follow up with:
Thanks, so how to do I convert from wmv to avi?

Or whatever it is you desire to convert to. However, either way it's likely going to be mplayer to do it. You can take a variety of inputs and convert them to several types of outputs, and it's all spelled out in the documentation that comes with it:
man mplayer
OR the online DOCS at the mplayer website:
http://mplayerhq.hu

What you probably want to figure out is what will be the overwhelming source for displaying the video:
Standalone DVD Player, your computer, your friends computers (what OS?), a special type of DVD player, and VCD player...
And then go from there on "How do I author a DVD in Linux" or whatever it is you are looking to do.

Cool

thanks for your time!

no no no! no dvd, im anti-dvd. (lets not waste time talking about that)
well for example, for audio files... the real standard is .wav thats what i see everywhere and everything plays, then you have the mp3 wich is the standard compression.
for graphic i think it started and the base is bmp, then everything now supports and wants jpg.
for video, the start was .avi (but i dont know what avi is, maybe it has always a codec) anyway, what i want is the standard compression wich is .mpg mpeg2 i think.

For audio files, the 'standards' are WAV and AIFF. They both, however, require codecs as pure audio would be RAW, but WAV and AIFF are the closest common ones you'll get. MP3s use common Fraunhoffer (sp?) compression, but that doesn't mean it is 'standard'. There are actually many variants to plain ol' MP3, but let's not get into that.

For graphics, it did not start out as BMP. Again, pure graphics are in RAW format. The closest you'll get to that, I believe, would be TIFF. Both BMP and JPG require codecs in order to read/write them.

For video, AVI stands for Audio & Video Information (I believe). It is a common filetype but it can contain all sorts of differing codecs. DivX files usually end in AVI, as do many of the older Video For Windows files.

As I mentioned above, have a look at MPlayer. It is not just the player, it also contains mencoder, which will allow you to encode any supported codec encoded file into another supported-codec encoded file. It really is good.