WMV2

WMV2, or Windows Media Video 2, is a video compression format developed by Microsoft as part of the Windows Media family. It is also known by its formal designation MS-MPEG4v2, reflecting its implementation of MPEG-4 Part 2 tools with Microsoft’s enhancements. Introduced in the late 1990s, WMV2 was used for digital video in both streaming and file-based workflows and was commonly encoded into Windows Media formats such as those used with Windows Media Player.

Technically, WMV2 is a block-based video codec that relies on the standard tools of MPEG-4 Part 2, including interframe and intraframe coding and transform-based compression. It was designed to deliver relatively high quality at moderate bitrates and to be compatible with a broad range of hardware and software decoders available at the time. The format supported typical features of its era, such as motion compensation and prediction techniques intended to achieve efficient compression.

In the market, WMV2 served as an early, widely used option within the Windows Media ecosystem, particularly before newer Windows Media codecs were introduced. It coexisted with other formats for video on the Windows platform, and content encoded with WMV2 could be delivered in various containers supported by Windows Media technologies.

Today, WMV2 has largely been superseded by later Microsoft codecs (notably WMV3/VC-1) and by modern standards such as H.264/AVC and newer codecs. Legacy WMV2 content remains accessible for compatibility, though it is rarely used for new productions.

See also: Windows Media Video, MS-MPEG4v2, VC-1.