Running MovieFactory smoothly!

[janlafata]

I have Vista Basic x64 and am running Ulead DVD MovieFactory Plus, version 6.10.0194.3 My system is fairly stable with an AMD x64 processor, 2.3 GHz, 2 GB's of DDR RAM, a good power supply and an NVidia GeForce video card.

Although fairly tech savvy, I'll never be able to claim I can diagnose issues related to performance and stability but I think I am a good judge when things just "don't seem right" with a particular software program.

DVD MovieFactory 6 Plus opens just fine and seems to navigate fairly well between menu's and setups fine, although. slowly. However many times, right when I go to load my compressed avi file into the video project, it will lock up for awhile and display a "Not Responding" message on the title bar.

Usually this will last anywhere from 10-30 seconds, however I've also had it not recover at all, so then I usually have to kill the program in Task Manager and open it up again.

My first thought is that it's a memory resource issue. Do concur that could be a possibility?. But I'm usually not running anything else in the foreground other than antivirus and firewall.

Could it also be some setting in the program that's not yet enabled? I'm grasping for straws here, because I'm clueless!

[DVDDoug]

when I go to load my compressed avi file into the video project, it will lock up for awhile and display a "Not Responding" message on the title bar.

Some file formats can be trouble... The more compressed formats tend cause the most trouble.

You can try using a 3rd-party program such as SUPER (FREE!!!) to convert your files to DVD compatible MPEG-2. You can look at one of the Movie Factory Project-Templates to find the settings (resolution, framerate, bitrate, etc) for a DVD compatible MPEG-2 file.

[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.

[lathompson]

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

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.

While surfing for an answer to a problem I'm experiencing right now, I ran across this older thread and noticed this part of your post. This prompts me to ask: If I have a video file from a camcorder and the file name is M22456_AB.AVI then is this a specific type of AVI? Are you saying that this must be more specificly stated, and if so, how would I go about determining any further breakdown of the file's type? I'm not trying to be smart, I'm just wanting to know if there's something I've not been aware of. I have always considered that if a file extension is AVI, it is an AVI and not one of the several you mentioned in the quoted line.

Thank you

[Ron P.]

You're correct, the file name having an extension of avi just means that it is wrapped in the avi container. To determine the actual file type, which would be the codec used, when you're navigating to your video file to insert it, in that dialog window, there is a button called info. Click on it, and the properties box will open. That will tell you, or just right-click on the clip in the timeline and select media clip properties. There's one more way to view the properties, highlight the clip in the timeline, and press the i icon located on the left..

The properties specified in the Properties dialog are what we need to know..

[Velojet]

I have always considered that if a file extension is AVI, it is an AVI and not one of the several you mentioned in the quoted line.

To illustrate how an AVI file is just a container and you need to investigate further (as vidoman suggests) to find out the actual type of the contained video file, you can think of ZIP files.

ZIP files have the extension .zip, just as AVI files have the extension .avi, but the .zip tells you nothing about the actual type of file/s contained within the ZIP file - DOCs, JPEGs, EXEs ... whatever. You have to peer inside to find out, just as you have look into the properties of your AVI file.

So an .avi file can be both an AVI and "one of the several [sjj1805] mentioned in the quoted line" at one and the same time.

HTH

John V

[lathompson]

Well, that was very interesting. I had no idea. Thanks to both of you for giving me that information. Tell me, does knowing the exact type of file making up the AVI have an advantage? Does knowing this exact file type help in any other area other than troubleshooting?

[GRDVDjunkie]

Anyone interested in video editing and disc authoring, will do a favor to
himself by finding and using a freeware utility called "GSpot". The great
thing about it, is that you don`t have to install it, you simply extract the
contents to a folder on your hard drive. It`s OK with Vista, too. This
little wonder, presents every video and audio codec installed on a u-
ser`s PC, and when you "feed" it with a video or audio file, it analyses
it and gives you its properties, and then tries to perform playback, so
you know if and how you can use it. The latest version I know of, is 2.70a.