MF5-Video plays disorted, but is fine under "enhance vi

[dll]

I downloaded a trial version of MovieFactory 5 to try and I'm having trouble with the video on my clips.

Every video file I have added (avi-divx, mpeg, vob) looks fine on a still picture and when I use the jog wheel. But when I actually play it, the video is greenish/pinkish on a white background. (All these clips play fine on Windows Media Player.) Then when I go to "enhance video", the video plays fine on that screen. Why would this be?

I hope this is something simple, but I'm very new at this and can't figure it out. I updated my divx codec thinking that was the problem with my first clip, but it does it with all of them. If it plays ok on the "enhance video" screen" will it actually burn ok? I am very confused.

Thank you for any help!

[DVDDoug]

If it plays ok on the "enhance video" screen" will it actually burn ok?

I think so... I don't know what's going on... Maybe Movie Factory and your video driver just don't "like" each other. (Some file formats tend to cause trouble, but if all of the formats are causing the same problem, that's probably not it.)

Try making a DVD. When it comes to digital video, sometimes you just have to experiment. (I keep a couple of erasable DVD-RW discs around to "play with".) If you use a lot of different video files & formats from lots of different sources, you will be doing lots of experimenting. If all (or most) of your video comes from the same camera, it's easier to find a procedure that works for you every time.


A few things to be aware of -

- Any color changes to the digital video files (intentional or not) are done by the CPU. The video card, driver, and monitor just allow you to see what you are doing. The DVD will come out the same if you have a super high-quality "gaming" graphics card, or a cheap low-quality graphics card. But, you still have a problem if you try to adjust the color, and you can't see what it's going to look like.

- Computer colors are generated differently from TV colors. The colors on a DVD played on a TV will look different than when it's played on a computer. This usually isn't a big problem, unless you are trying to adjust the colors. (Video professionals use calibrated NTSC/PAL monitors on their computers instead of regular SVGA computer-monitors, but most home-computers don't have the right connection for this.)

- Whenever you convert from one lossy compression format to another, there is some quality loss. If you convert from DivX to MPEG-2 (DVD) the file has to be decompressed, and then re-compressed with a new "lossy" compression algorithm. If you use a high-enough MPEG-2 bitrate, you may not notice any quality loss, and I wouldn't expect this conversion to affect the color.

- The more compressed the format, the more likely you are to have trouble. You might run-across files that play perfectly, but are "difficult" to edit or convert. Make sure to try-out all of the formats you are planning to use. If you have a camera that records to DivX, you might get lucky, but if you are downloading files from the Internet, you will run across "problem files" sooner or later. The most compressed formats like DivX, Xvid, MOV, WMV, and MPEG-4, seem to cause the most trouble. Some MPEG-2 files (the DVD format) can cause trouble too. The only foolproof format is AVI/DV from a MiniDV camcorder. (AVI/DV is 13BG per hour... Not all AVI files are DV... AVI is a "container" format, and it can contain video with any type of compression.)

[dll]

Thank you for your reply and the tips! It makes me feel a little better that it you (an expert) don't know, I certainly never will!! I don't feel quite as stupid! I will try to burn a DVD sometime this weekend and see how it goes.

With my VERY limited knowledge, it seems like it's a codec problem. It reminds me of when I didn't have xvid installed a long time ago and was trying to play a video. So now I made sure I had everything updated, but it didn't help.

Then when it played ok on the "enhance video" screen, I was really confused. Plus I tried playing the other video files and it happened with all of them. (I have downloaded music concerts so that's why I have the different formats.) I do have to say that's I've tried some other software and it seems that the video played like this on most of them. Don't know what that means!

I'll keep my fingers crossed that it will work!