AVI problems

[woolfie]

Hi Guys,
I hope someone can help me. I am trying to import files to MF6 and I keep getting AVI is not accessable errors. I dont know what i am doing wrong? Just finding things a bit over whelming!!!

[Ron P.]

avi (audio video interleave) is a wrapper, not a file format in itself. Wikipedia-AVI.

Can you provide the properties of these "avi" files? Where did they come from?

[woolfie]

Hi there,
Saved from Sony Vegas Premium. Not sure if i am doing something wrong but I can save to WMV and then open in DVD MF so i think thats going to work

[Ron P.]

That doesn't really answer what type of file format is being used. For example are you aware that a WMV file can also be wrapped in AVI ? WMV is a highly compressed format, that is meant for distribution, not editing. Also your WMV files will have to be recoded to MPEG-2, so they can be burned onto a DVD. Unless you're making a data-dvd.

It could be that Sony outputs a Type-2 DV (avi), and MF is having problems with that. For DV, Type-1 generally provides less problems.

[sjj1805]

....It's an AVI file ......

Sorry but that doesn't help much.
There are a small handful of file extensions that describe that a computer file is a video. These include
avi, mpeg, mov, rm, wmv, qt, swf
Plus a few others.
Think of these as groups of of a certain form of video, within those groups are lots of individuals. Liken this to animals, there are dogs, cats, snakes, birds, rodents and so on.
Within these groups are several types. For instance a dog can be a Poodle, Jack Russell, Alsatian, King Charles, Greyhound etc.

The term avi can mean any one of perhaps a hundred different types such as DV, MPEG4, uncompressed, MJPEG, DivX, Xvid, RLE, YUV, Cinepak and lots more.

You need to be more specific.

[skier-hughes]

The term avi can mean any one of perhaps a hundred different types such as DV, MPEG4, uncompressed, MJPEG, DivX, Xvid, RLE, YUV, Cinepak and lots more.

You need to be more specific.

Apparently there are over 800 different avi file types!!!!!

You can use avicodec to find out what it is,

http://www.myvideoproblems.com/Tutorials/avicodec.html

[JoReneA]

I was also having that problem (in Vista) and solved it by installing the update files using the "run as administrator" option. (right click the setup or install file and choose "run as admnistrator". It must have something to do with Vista's security layers. The program would import the avi files when first installed and not updated, but as soon as I applied the update files, it stopped working. You could also try just runnning the program with the "run as administrator" option to see if that helps, assuming you are running Vista.

[KWD21]

I think I may be having the same problem with MovieFactory. Every time I try to open an AVI file I get the mesage 'unable to open file." Here is the information given by AVIcodec: Under the V. codec name tab it says "DivXNetworks Divx v5"; under the A.1 codec name tab it says "Mpeg-1 audio layer 3 (MP3)"; under the F. Info tab it says "VirtualDubMod 1.5.10.1 (build 2366/release)." This info is the same for all of the AVI files I have tried to open.

[DVDDoug]

Ty converting your file to MPEG-2 (MPEG II) with SUPER (FREE!!!). If you're making a standard DVD, you'll need MPEG-2 anyway. If you're making a DivX disc, you'll have to let Movie Factory convert it back.

Whenever you convert from one lossy format to another, you'll get some quality loss. A higher bitrate will minimize the quality loss (and a higher bitrate will give you bigger files).

With MPEG-2 video, SUPER allows you the choice of MP2 or AC3 audio. (AC3 is generally better for DVDs. MP2 is non-standard for for NTSC DVDs.)