First, I am definitely a newbie at all this, so please bear with me. I tried searching here for an answer prior to creating this thread.

Captured some video with my Elura 100. Successfully uploaded to my laptop. Created and edited my first few movie clips using Windows Movie Maker (WMM) as my edit/rendering software. YEAH!!!

So I purchased Adobe Premiere Elements 4 for some additional spiffy editing capabilites. Just getting started with PE4 but I am having a problem. I am editing and rendering all clips in PE4 and viewing them in WMM to see if a movie clip is being created correctly.

If I render using their DV AVI option (.avi file format) the movie plays fine in WMM. But when I render a clip using the MPEG option (.mpg file format for PC usage) the audio plays in WMM but the video shows just the first frame frozen in time...no video playback at all. I did check entire file name, and it ends as .mpg, not .mod as many of the other threads I reviewed mentioned, so I do not think renaming the file extension is the problem...but what do I know?

I have not used the "burnt a DVD" option yet as I was trying to learn editing options and how to correctly render a movie before I burn thru many DVDs trying to "perfect" my abilities.

There are some advanced settings available when rendering a movie, but I dare not change any of those until I understand what is happening. I have noticed rendering the .mpg file takes approximately twice as long as creating the .avi file.

So what am I doing wrong?

Thanks for any help in advance,
Dan

The avi file format that WMM can read is a format that windows had the codec for. codec = software decoder needed to display the mpeg compressed file.

I don't use WMM so I don't know much about it, but I don't think Windows comes with an Mpeg decoder.

This is what I can tell you for sure. I just installed a fresh copy of Windows XP on a computer I built. While testing the DVD drives I happened to install a commercial DVD movie into one DVD drive. Windows Media Player couldn't play the movie. No codec.

I installed my copy of Nero on the computer, and low and behold now not only Nero but Windows Media Player can now play the DVD. It used Nero's installed codec.

I'm assuming Adobe can play it back ok with its mainconcept mpeg codec.

Yes compressing your AVI movie or a timeline project to mpeg will take much much more time.

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So much information... the more I learn, the more questions develop. If I keep learning at this pace, soon I'll be too dumb to continue!

Windows Movie Maker does not handle MPEG-2 very well. It sometimes works for some people, or they claim it works. But Microsoft has stated in the past the it does not work with MPEG-2.

And then there is Windows Movie Maker which comes with Vista. Since Vista is said to be able to create DVD's something has to encode to MPEG-2.

You would be better off learning to use Adobe Premiere Elements 4.



Rich

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FireWire Survey

Thanks to both of you for the quick responses.

Upon reading your responses, I realize that I mis-spoke in my first message. Yes, I had used VMM to edit/render some early clips, but I should have said I was using the Windows Media Player to replay all of the clips I created, either from VMM or PE4 (rendered as both a .mpg or .avi file).

So to restate correctly, the .mpg file I rendered via PE4 will not play correctly in WMP.

I do not know if this corrected info would make much of a difference, and perhaps you both sort of knew I was using WMP to play the rendered clips.

I will try to play this .mpg file with other software to see if it something to do with WMP just not having a codec for this type of file. Are there any free, stable DVD/mpeg players in web-land that you would recommend?

Again...thanks for the responses...sorry for the confusion! I am learning every hour about my new hobby!

Dan

You can use Windows Media Player 10 and above to listen to CDs and play DVDs on your computer.

To play DVDs using the Player, you must have a DVD-ROM drive and a software or hardware DVD decoder installed on your computer. By default, Windows does not include a DVD decoder.

My last two systems had trial DVD playing software which allowed Windows Media Player to play MPEG-2 (DVD's use MPEG-2 encoding)

Several people in the past have recommended Stinky's MPEG-2 Codec: http://www.free-codecs.com/download...PEG_2_Codec.htm

VLC media player http://www.videolan.org and Media Player Classic http://sourceforge.net/project/show...ackage_id=84358 are other media players which are free and trouble free. I use them both.


Rich

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FireWire Survey

Thanks for the info on the codec needed when using WMP and mpeg files. This site's info-sharing is invaluable for a new user!!!

I downloaded a file from that free-codec site mentioned above and I am one happy camper...err...camcorder-er! The PE4-generated mpeg files now play with full video and audio.

Now I just need to develop a steadier hand when recording without a tripod, and figure out how to use PE4 more efficiently.


Happy Holidays to all,
Dan aka Mr. Shaky