Foo - anyone use MS moviemaker?

I'm trying to edit some videoclips, but when I add them to the storyboard/timeline and try to play the clip, it runs the audio but doesn't show the video except for the first frame.

In othe words, if I have a 2 minute clip, I see the first frame, but hear the audio for th entire 2 minutes.

Anyone know how to fix?

Dumb question, but do the clips work in Windows Media Player ok? Also, if you happen to have any Nero software, which comes with many burners, try NeroVision Express for editing. Any different?

There are two types of codecs installed in Windows for playing videos, older VFW types and the new WDM codecs. Videos using either one will work with Windows Media Player. However, the MovieMaker can only use the WDM codecs. Most likely in this case, you've got a movie that's in an older format. MovieMaker sucks anyway.

Get this Avid FreeDV (http://www.avid.com/freedv/) NLE video editing package. Gives you 75-80% of the functionality of the professional programs like Premiere or FinalCutPro for FREE!!! :)

VirtualDub is another good package. Gives you very fine control on the encoding of your video. Even has plug-ins to add additional features like Photoshop! :)

I have made a lot of good movies in Movie Maker. It is very easy to use and also doesn't require a lot of resources. This guy is the king of movie maker. (http://www.papajohn.org/) He has done it all with WMM.

this was recently shot video from my own camera - and yes it plays fine on media player. it even plays fine on moviemaker when I import it. But once I drag it to th storyboard I can no longer view it....

this was recently shot video from my own camera - and yes it plays fine on media player. it even plays fine on moviemaker when I import it. But once I drag it to th storyboard I can no longer view it....


This seems sort of familiar, i will have to think about it some more. One thing....where is the file stored? Keep in mind that the story board is just a set of instructions, and it has to know where every file is. If you ever move or delete one, you will find this out.


First we need to find out what file type the file is that you got from your camera. How did you save it? Is it DV-Avi? Or what?

Turn down the hardware-acceleration in your Display control panels.

Start -> Settings -> ControlPanels -> Display -> Settings -> Advanced -> Troubleshooting

The video-players use an overlay that's not part of the frame-buffer and this messes up some applications. Keep on turning it down one click at a time and restarting MovieMaker. At some point, the video should show up.

If you're using the DV codec, who's are you using and which version? Type-1 DV-avi files are typically more compatible with more applications.

Here's a cool add-in filter I use with VirtualDub that really smooths out hand-held shots:Deshaker (http://www.guthspot.se/video/deshaker.htm). There's also a different product for Premiere.

ANother thought is that MM doesn't do mpeg 2 if i recall correctly. Make sure you didn't save the movie as that.

Yeah, how are you getting the video-footage off the camera? You should download it as native DV format without any conversions to preserve as much quality as possible. The workflow looks kinda like this:

1. download video from camera as type-1 DV file (problem is MM splits the incoming stream into a type-2 DV)

2. edit video in DV format with application of your choice; I like Premiere

3. render video, if you've added transitions and moving titles or After Effects, you need to create a "final-results" DV footage of these clips mixed in with the native unmodified DV clips

4. export video, depending upon your final goals, it'll be MPEG-2 for DVD, or ASF/flash/WMV/avi for web-videos

You want to minimize the conversion and scaling processes down to a minimum to preserve as much quality as possible. In the above workflow, the video is only converted once at the very end in step #4 . Actually that rendering step#3 might be your problem. Once the video is in the timeline, you have to render it to see previews, especially if you've made manipulations to it such as changing frame-size (resolution).

Yeah, how are you getting the video-footage off the camera? You should download it as native DV format without any conversions to preserve as much quality as possible. The workflow looks kinda like this:

1. download video from camera as type-1 DV file (problem is MM splits the incoming stream into a type-2 DV)

2. edit video in DV format with application of your choice; I like Premiere

3. render video, if you've added transitions and moving titles or After Effects, you need to create a "final-results" DV footage of these clips mixed in with the native unmodified DV clips

4. export video, depending upon your final goals, it'll be MPEG-2 for DVD, or ASF/flash/WMV/avi for web-videos

You to minimize the conversion and scaling processes down to a minimum to preserve as much quality as possible. In the above workflow, the video is only converted once at the very end in step #4 (twice for transition & effects). Actually that step#3 might be your problem. Once the video is in the timeline, you have to render it to see previews, especially if you've made manipulations to it.
I have a question....how do you clear up fuzzy audio when you import mpeg video into movie maker?

An example of what I'm talking about is in this video I put together from crewing RAAM. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCYDMblzC54

The audio gets distorted when I transition from still montage to video and clears back up when I go back to montage again. That's the only real complaint I have about MM.

There's two kinds of distortion that can occur with audio: sampling-rate differences and amplitude clipping. Like with the video, you want to start with as high-quality source-material as possible as each manipulation along the way will degrade the quality. The first step is to map out the "envelope" of your project. That is the specifications of the final product. If you're doing a DVD, then you want resolution to be 720x480 (576-PAL) and 48khz uncompressed PCM audio.

So, if you're adding soundtracks to your videos, rip it directly from the CD if you can with the same sampling-rate as your final video (or integer multiples higher). What happens a lot with audio conversions is when you convert one sampling-rate to another, you have a common beat-frequency that shows up as a slight hum or buzz in the background. The beat is caused by areas where their waveforms reinforce their amplitudes. A 48khz waveform downsampled to 22khz will have a beat-frequency of 26khz. If you can do integer scaling, then that would be cleanest, like 48khz -> 24khz. Also stacking two audio-tracks on top of each other of different sampling-rates will also result in a beat-frequency. A 32khz track added to a 48khz track will have a beat of 16khz. Such as:

http://www.cord.edu/dept/physics/p128/Images/wave_sine_sup1.gif added to this http://www.cord.edu/dept/physics/p128/Images/wave_sine_sup2.gif

goes to this:
http://www.cord.edu/dept/physics/p128/Images/wave_sine_sup3.gif


The other form of distortion is amplitude clipping. When you stack two waveforms on top of each other, their peaks will be the additive sum (they get louder). It's like two waves meeting up in the ocean, they add up to a higher peak. This increased amplitude (loudness) runs into the limit of what can be described by the digital data and all loudness above a certain point is clipped at maximum. For example, let's say you add two sounds together:

add two waveforms (blue & red):
http://www.ymec.com/hp/signal2/images/check01-4.gif

we get this (blue is result)
http://www.ymec.com/hp/signal2/images/check01-3.gif

Clipped by maximum and minimum possible values:
http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en-commons/thumb/6/61/400px-Clipping_1KHz_10V_DIV_clip_A_5ohms-1-.jpg

What's happening in your video is when you add the sections of video with its own audio to the background soundtrack (which is loud enough by itself), the combined sound is twice as loud. This runs into the clipping limits and you no longer get nice smooth even sinewaves. You get squared off waves or multiple-waves are cut into one.

MovieMaker does have a way of normalizing (adjusting) volume of the entire clip as a whole, but you can't adjust volume at precise spot within the movie. So when you run that feature on your video, the volume is adjusted for the entire clip such that sections of maximum-volume won't exceed 100%. But what will happen is that the audio during the stills slideshow montage will end up being at 1/2 volume 50% and 100% volume during the videos segments.

To make the final movie with the results you want of constant volume, you'll have to slice it up into pieces.

1. create master time-line of movie and detemine times of transitions between slideshow and video
2. slice up soundtrack audio into sub-clips that line up with the transitions between slideshow and video
3. in the video segments, adjust (lower volume) of audio of video -50%
4. in the video segments, adjust (lower volume) of audio of soundtrack -50%
5. render & export movie, sound should be more constant

Alternately, you can do the audio by itself first if you want. You can edit with Goldwave and add the audio from the video to the right spots on the soundtrack and you can then adjust volume to balance the two. Then export a final audio-clip and import that into MM. Then export final video with audio.


I prefer Adobe Premiere and here's how I do it:

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e346/DannoXYZ/ComputerTech/TDFjumper.jpg

Notice that the areas with the two added audio-clips have the volume reduced for the main audio-track as well as the added clips. The final combined volume will then match the single-track volume before & after. The edges are also sloped (cross-fade) so that there's no sudden popping at the transitions.

Turn down the hardware-acceleration in your Display control panels.

Start -> Settings -> ControlPanels -> Display -> Settings -> Advanced -> Troubleshooting

The video-players use an overlay that's not part of the frame-buffer and this messes up some applications. Keep on turning it down one click at a time and restarting MovieMaker. At some point, the video should show up.

If you're using the DV codec, who's are you using and which version? Type-1 DV-avi files are typically more compatible with more applications.


The clips asve onto the cameras as AVI files. I did as you said and turned down the buffer one click at a time until I turned it off - no dice. Any other suggestions?

Quick background, AVI is a container file-format, like Tupperware or tin-cans. What you put inside the container can be different. The data-format within an AVI file can have video-data & sound encoded in various codecs like Indeo3/4/5, WMV7/8/9/10, H261, H263, DivX, DV, PCM, MP3, AU, etc. It could be that the particular format your camera uses make MM unhappy, although it displays fine in the Media Player preview.

This little utility is handy to determine what codec is used inside an AVI file: AVIcodec (http://avicodec.duby.info/). Just have an icon on the desktop and drop the video-file in question on top of it. This Yet Another AVI info tool (http://yaai.sourceforge.net/) is also very handy as you can just right-click on the video-file and get more detailed information about the various codecs formats stored within. Also stay away from codec-packs, they really mess up your system by installing too much junk that ends up conflicting. Install codecs just one at a time as you need them.


1. What codec is used in the AVI from the camera? It could be that MM doesn't like that particular format.

2. What resolution is the input video? and the output video? Framerate? If the output is not exactly the same size and framerate as the input, you have to render the video to create the actual files that's displayed.


Here's a great site with tools and forums relating to video-production: VideoHelp.com (http://www.videohelp.com/).

output video shouldn't be an issue, since I haven't tried to output thefinished product yet, right? Anyway:


Yet Another Avi Info (YAAI) Output File
visit http://yaai.sourceforge.net/ for more information
AVI Informati
Filename: AVI_0001.AVI
Filesize: 18720152 Bytes (17.85 MB)
Streams (i.e. Video, Audio): 2
Video Stream
Compression: mjpg - Motion JPEG
Avg. Bitrate: 3199.90 kbit/s
Resolution: 640x480
Color Depth: 24 bits
Running Time: 46.00 s (46s)
Framerate: 15.0000 fps
Microseconds Per Frame: 66666 ms
Frames: 690
Keyframes: 690 (Every 1)
Audio Stream
Wave Type: 17 - Intel's DVI ADPCM
Avg. Bitrate: 44.70 kbit/s
Sample Rate: 11025 Hz
Bit Depth: 4 Bits
Channels: 1
Audio Delay: 0.00 s
Author Details
Artist:
Comment:
Copyright:
Name:
Product:
Source:
Subject:
Display Name:

the camera is a cheapie helmet cam - oregon scientific atc-1000. the weird thing is, I was able to use it to edit video ONCE. After that it stopped working correctly. I'm wondering if I've messed up a setting in moviemaker.

Quick background, AVI is a container file-format, like Tupperware or tin-cans. What you put inside the container can be different. The data-format within an AVI file can have video-data & sound encoded in various codecs like Indeo3/4/5, WMV7/8/9/10, H261, H263, DivX, DV, PCM, MP3, AU, etc. It could be that the particular format your camera uses make MM unhappy, although it displays fine in the Media Player preview.

This little utility is handy to determine what codec is used inside an AVI file: AVIcodec (http://avicodec.duby.info/). Just have an icon on the desktop and drop the video-file in question on top of it. This Yet Another AVI info tool (http://yaai.sourceforge.net/) is also very handy as you can just right-click on the video-file and get more detailed information about the various codecs formats stored within. Also stay away from codec-packs, they really mess up your system by installing too much junk that ends up conflicting. Install codecs just one at a time as you need them.


1. What codec is used in the AVI from the camera? It could be that MM doesn't like that particular format.

2. What resolution is the input video? and the output video? Framerate? If the output is not exactly the same size and framerate as the input, you have to render the video to create the actual files that's displayed.


Here's a great site with tools and forums relating to video-production: VideoHelp.com (http://www.videohelp.com/).

Thats just a plain brilliant description. Most excellent :D

Thats just a plain brilliant description. Most excellent :DWhy thank you. :)


output video shouldn't be an issue, since I haven't tried to output thefinished product yet, right? Anyway:

Yet Another Avi Info (YAAI) Output File
visit http://yaai.sourceforge.net/ for more information
AVI Informati
Filename: AVI_0001.AVI
Filesize: 18720152 Bytes (17.85 MB)
Streams (i.e. Video, Audio): 2
Video Stream
Compression: mjpg - Motion JPEG
Avg. Bitrate: 3199.90 kbit/s
Resolution: 640x480
Color Depth: 24 bits
Running Time: 46.00 s (46s)
Framerate: 15.0000 fps
Microseconds Per Frame: 66666 ms
Frames: 690
Keyframes: 690 (Every 1

the camera is a cheapie helmet cam - oregon scientific atc-1000. the weird thing is, I was able to use it to edit video ONCE. After that it stopped working correctly. I'm wondering if I've messed up a setting in moviemaker.Ah, now we've got more data to work with. Ok, the MJPEG format is actually a very old standard, so just about anything can play and import it. Maybe some settings did get corrupted with MM somehow. Does your original video straight off the camera play in the Windows Media Player? What about the earlier clip that did work with MM, you still have it? Does it work?

If you've installed any codec-packs recently, that could be what messed up your configuration. If you've got two codecs that are trying to decode the same format, they'll be confusing WMP and WMM as to which one to use. Download this Video Codec Swapper (http://members.chello.nl/p.bekke) utility which will list all the codecs you have in your system and which ones are decoding what formats. You should see "MJPEG Decompressor" listed under the Direct Show Filters section using the built-in quartz.dll decoder. If not, then disable whatever other decoder has taken over. Might need to reinstall DirectX to restore the factory settings.

BTW - you are trying to play the preview in the timeline setting that shows a continuous stream with timecodes right? Not the setting that shows individual frames?

1. What codec is used in the AVI from the camera? It could be that MM doesn't like that particular format.



This is the most likely cause. Just because you can play it in windows media, doesn't mean Movie Maker is going to "like it." Might be helpful if you describe how you got video onto PC. (in detail) Click on provided link to see supported formats.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308464


Although you can play a file in Microsoft Windows Media Player, you may not be able to import the file into Windows Movie Maker even though this article lists that kind of file. You may not be able to import the file if the codec that was used to encode the audio or video is not a codec that is included with Windows XP. In that case, you may be able to re-encode the video or audio by using Windows Media Encoder, and then import the video or audio

They mention Windows media encoder. I have never used it but it is found here. (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/forpros/encoder/default.mspx) I usually use Tsunami.

Yeah, that's what I thought too. But he mentioned that it did work before... hmmm....

Then he confirmed that the video is MJPEG, which MM can import. Despite the similar sounding name, MJPEG is quite a bit different than the MPEG-2 that MM has trouble with. Rather than being a series of IPBB frames with widely-space key-frames (MPEG-2), this early MJPEG format is simply a series of JPEG files one after another. Each frame is completely independent of the ones before & after and doesn't have any spatial or temporal comparisons with other frames at all.

Actually, it's a lot like the slide-show montage that Tom made. You place a series of still photos one after another on the time-line, that's MJPEG. I suspect something changed in his system, like something got installed that messed up his codecs, or some setting he changed in MM, can't imagine what though as the only thing you can really do is modify the temp file locations... bizarre...

I'm about out of ideas, but one more thought i had was trying to drag the clip onto the timeline and then save the movie file. IOW, render it. Then after that try and play it and see what it looks like. I have had occasions where movie maker wouldn't play the movie correctly in the preview screen but once it was saved it played fine.

That's what I've been doing with my stuff. I've also found that saving it in the .MSWMM format before switching between storyboard & timeline modes, it seems to prevent hangups etc.

Yeah, there's something with temp-files maybe? Using the built-in sample.asf file, I found that it doesn't play correctly in the storyboard mode. But if I switch it to timeline, then it does work.