Not displaying saved Moviemaker 5 projects- please help us!!

[taylorclan]

My son did a movie for nana with titles and the lot. It was done with xacti plugged in and downloading the files into MM5. Saved to MM5 but would only open when camera plugged in. I then unplugged camera and saved it. but then tried to open and nothing comes up!! The saved file of 2Mb or so is still there in moviemaker, but I cant see the project anymore.
Anyone had symilar problems with saved projects?
Thanks, Donald

[lazael]

You mean MovieFactory 5.
Did a forum search on Xacti and came up with 37 matches. Maybe there's an answer in one of them for you .
http://www.letsgodigital.org/en/news/ar ... _8008.html
Does your MF5 version have the required plug-in for the Sanyo camera ?

[taylorclan]

Thanks, yes, moviefactory 5. I will look though those listing and see what is there. Thanks again

[heinz-oz]

There is a fundamental misconception at work here and in other posts of a similar nature. It is not your fault either. Many people are believing that, when they save a project, they save everything. I have to tell you that that assumption is false. That goes for any of the other video editing or DVD authoring programs I have used also.

A saved project does not include the source files nor does it include any output files. It is just that, an outline of the project you did. Think of it as a text file which tells MovieFactory or VideoStudio or, indeed, MediaStudioPro where the source files are on your PC, what these were called, in what order they were included and which segments were used and what you did to them, that's all. Change any of these above aspects like renaming or deleting a folder or file, disconnect the location of any of these files and your project is doomed unless you can relink your project to the missing files. When you unplugged the camera and saved the project again, you saved it with your source files missing. Now, MF doesn't know anymore which files you used to have and where they were located.

[taylorclan]

Thanks Heinz Oz. I sort of thought that was the case when I looked at the the size of the saved file. I guess what I now find frustrating is that I cant go back. I have since put all the mpeg video files that were on the camera on the hard drive, and I am wondering if there is anyway that I can redirect MF to look on the hard drive for the files rather than the camera. Any suggestions? Thanks for your help.

[heinz-oz]

If MF 5 is not asking you to "Relink" (not even sure if it would) then there is nothing you can do but recreate the project. It is much better practice to move/capture all the associated files from your cam to the PC before you start a project. Unless you are sure you are done with it and have burned your final copy/copies of your work to DVD, don't do anything to the source files.

[taylorclan]

Ahhhhhhhhh.

my son did another movie... got all editied and I am trying to burn dvd. I click on burn, and after 20min or so it stops at 2% done, and comes up with an error message.
" ulead dvd movie factory has encountered a problem and needs to close. "
and asks if I want to send error message to microsoft. This occurs during converting video of the title (002/009).
It is a 1.7gb dvd file , and there is about 7gb free on HD, 512mg ram, .
I did to a little test dvd in the past- just threw a few files in MF5 and burned video- it worked, but very slow.

Any one got any help- I freed up another GB or so on the hard drive but that didnt make a difference.....Aaahhhhh.

[Ron P.]

One possibility is that you only have 7 gig free, and just 512 megs of RAM. The first is really more important then the latter.

With a 1.7 gig video file, that is being edited, MovieFactory will need a bunch of space for temp files, at least 2 to 2½ times the size of the video file(s) being edited. So in your case that's about 4 gig that it needs free. Well you say that still leaves 3 gig, correct..

What else do you have on your PC, that may be running in the background? Anything that runs "behind the scenes" may at any given time, need space. Your PC then will need to decide who gets priority. So try minimizing that as much as possible.

The background applications also relate to your available memory (RAM). With 512 megs, that has to be divided between those background services, and everything that you're currently working on. I know DVD MF6 + requires a minimum of 512Mb RAM, and recommends 1+ gig. I think that DMF5 requires at least 256Mb RAM. That is just for DVD MF5. Your OS (Win XP) needs a certain amount of RAM. Now figure in all those other background services, how much are they using. When you run out of available RAM, then Windows uses a "swap file", which is a reserved section of your Hard Drive. If this swap file is large enough, then now your 3 gig is not really 3 gig, it may be less than 2.

Sorry for all the "tech babble", but when I seen that you had this whopping 7 gig of free space, and you're working with a 1.7 gig "mpeg" file, it seems that the program may be screaming that it needs some elbow room to work..

[taylorclan]

Thanks so much, Kansas Rocks..!!!
I shut down a few background programs and freed up a little more HD and it worked!!!! WOW. Thanks so much.
Donald