[ale] opinions needed for MPEG2 conversion

[Preston Boyington]

I have an mpeg file (VCD format) that i edited from my daughters
ballet recital.  it's 54 meg in size and I had wanted to convert it to
something my windows using friends could play.

needless to say the file would need to be much smaller to email.

while i normally would use something to convert it to DiVX (for
myself), some of these people won't have or be able to install
additional codecs.

i know they can play wmv's, but i don't know how i would convert to
that format using Linux.

is there an open format that i could use that plays easily on Windows?

any help will be much appreciated.

Preston