Well, to start with a WMV file and try to get it into any other format is difficult if not impossible. It is sometimes easiest to just start over, although this isn't always an option. For example I recorded some stuff directly in wmv that I wanted to use in my thesis... and didn't want to re-do the experiment.
That said, if for some reason you have to do it and can't re-generate the video, the following method with graphedit is worth trying. At one time the method that I describe below worked, but somehow it won't work on my machine anymore. I still get reports from various people that it works, and doesn't work. It seems kind of random but it does work sometimes. The instructions are a little sketchy, but fool around and it might go. (I seem to remember it also messed with the framerate of the video too actually..).
Also worth mentioning - I found a utility (mentioned here) called TMPGEnc that converts to mpg, but again Premier wouldn't read those files correctly, and I suspect it's microsoft's fault..? Another one called VirtualDub has promise in converting from mpg to avi, but I had marginal luck. Maybe it works better if you fuss with it for awhile, or have uncorrputed mpgs in the first place. It looks like a nice utility.
Why I needed to convert wmv files was that I was doing screen captures of my programs in operation with windows media encoder 8, which makes nice small and pretty high-quality files. But the problem is that they are near impossible to edit.. Premiere (6.0) can't read them and the only editor (that I'm aware of) for wmv (bundled with Windows ME) doesn't do a very good job at all and is generally a pain.If all you need is a screen capture I would suggest using something that exports to avi like Snagit or Camtasia. Makes life infinitely easier, at least for my application.
I found a way to convert Windows Media files (.WMV) to AVI files, seemingly something Microsoft doesn't want people to be able to do. This may or may not work for you, I've estimated a 40% success rate on various computers so far. I found this posted at: hitsquad.com by Si
*****************************************You can do this with a utility called GraphEdit which lets you drag/drop compressors & decompressors and such. Very cool actually, I've never seen anything quite like it. GraphEdit is a utility which comes with the Microsoft DirectX 8 SDK, which you get with MSDN or download from Microsoft's web site. Check here.
Select your OS then do a keyword search on directx Download the 8.0a SDK (previous versions may work too) - 141M for W2k
Thanks to sikander, you can also download only the graphedit utility instead of the whole DirectX SDK.
The graphedit tool is under the utilities of DirectX, you don't have to install everything I think, although I did a complete install because I have plenty of HD space. What it does is let you see and alter the path of software (codecs and drivers) used to read and play or write a multimedia file.
: When I get GraphEdit, what do I do?
: 1) Use the File->RenderFile menu option to load in a file.
: 2) Remove the last two "filters" (or software components) from the graph. These default to your sound card driver and your video card driver. We don't want that, we want to convert to a different file format.
: We'll do AVI, because that's what you'll want if you're using AVI editors to edit the movie.
: 1) Use the File->RenderFile option and choose your ASF file (can use WMV, etc)
: 2) The default graph is built for you
: 3) Delete any filters after (but not including) the Windows Media Audio Decoder filter
: 4) Delete any filters after (but not including) the ASF ICM Handler filter
: 4) Insert a new filter (Graph->InsertFilters) called "AVI Mux" from the DirectShow filters section
: 5) Link the ASF ACM Out to XForm In of Windows Media Audio Decoder
: 6) Link XForm Out of Windows Media Audio Decoder to Input 1 of AVI Mux
: 7) Link ASF ICM Out to Input 2 of AVI Mux.
: 8) Insert a new filter called "File writer" from DirectShow section and choose a file name
: 9) Link the AVI Out of AVI Mux to the In of your file writer
: 10) Right-click the AVI Mux filter and choose Properties
: 11) Choose the Full option of the Interleaving section and click OK (this makes the sound and video match up and is the whole point of the AVI format)
: 10) Press the play button
: 11) Wait until the play button is active again - this means the thing is finished (you can right-click on AVI Mux and look at the Current Position and Duration count to see how far in seconds the conversion has progressed during the conversion)
: 12) Have fun editing your AVI Enjoy!
Have a great day