maclake said:
Thanks ... but could you expand a little more ...
You said :"My solution was to "Save to File" the avi
file in my desired format without the audio...then load
the new avi and put
the audio in...worked a treat.
My question is "save to file" please describe the exact
steps if you have time... Thanks!!
Hi there,
No problem.
I have done this back to front...please read the NOTES at the end of this
message before following the steps below.....Have fun
All the best........
1. Run Moviemaker
2. drag and drop the video file onto the video track.
3. Edit the video track and use whatever transitions/effects you want to
employ.
4. Do nothing at all with the audio track except, if you need to, right
click the audio track and select MUTE. Do nothing else to it at this stage.
5. Press Ctrl-P or click on File > Save Movie File
6. A dialogue box will appear with what should be "My Computer" as the
default. Making sure that "My Computer" is selected click on NEXT
7. Another Dialogue box appears. In the file name enter any name you like
"TempVideo" will do. There is a good reason for giving the file that
name...you will see why later. Then select a place to save the file
"TempVideo"...assuming that you have one hard drive, make the location
"C:\"...this so that you can find it easily later on. When you have sorted
it out click on NEXT
8. I don't know what quality of video you are after, so I will assume DVD
quality. So, in the new dialogue box, select the third radio button down
which has the text next to it "Other Settings". This will activate the drop
down list to the right of the radio button. Click on its down arrow and
select "DV-AVI (Pal or NTSC) I will come back to that in a minute. Click on
NEXT
9. The system may appear to hang for a moment or two after which the
dialogue box will display the message "Saving Movie" The dialogue box will
then show a progress bar and an estimate of how long there is to completion
of the task
10. When the file has been saved the dialogue box will tell you so and offer
you a check box, which I think is always checked, asking whether you want to
view the resulting movie when you click finish. Its always a good idea to
watch the results of your efforts so far...you may not like the result and
wish to re-edit.
11. Click on FILE > Save as and save the project (You might one to come back
and re-edit)
12. This is me being quirky, but...close down MM2 completely. This will free
up any memory space the program commandeered...and when you re-load the
program...you will have a clean slate to work with.
13. Run Moviemaker
14. Press CTRL I or Click on FILE > IMPORT INTO COLLECTIONS using the
dialogue box navigate to "C:\" and select the file "TempVideo" and then
click on IMPORT
15. Towards the very top of the program you will see a button called
COLLECTIONS. click it.
16. On the right hand side a list box will have opened, called "TempVideo"
and in the collection itself you will see the movie you have just created.
This movie may now have a different format to the one you started with. In
the example here it will be as close to DVD (either NTSC or PAL) that
Moviemaker can get it and it will have either 30 (NTSC) or 25 (PAL) frames
per second
17. Drag this movie onto the timeline. Now, because you almost certainly
told the program to play the video when finished (Item 10 above) you do not
have to do it now, but, being suspicious of all software, I would click on
any of the three play buttons on the screen. THREE ??? yep, three. Two of
them are small right pointing arrows typical of what you get on a VCR and
the third one is an arrow pointing up and to the right and can be found in
the bottom left of the preview window. Clicking this one will cause the
video to be played full screen (That's not always desirable because MM2 may
have to stretch the video and therefore the results are distorted......
18. Now, (I am assuming here that you have already imported the audio file
into MM2 if you have not, go to item 14 above and do so, selecting the audio
file as the one to import. When done, drag the audio file and drop it onto
the timeline (onto the AUDIO/MUSIC track). You may want to drag it left or
right so that the audio starts/finishes in the right place.
19. Click on any of the three mentioned play buttons to see how things look.
When satisfied go to step 5 above and follow those steps through in order to
save your new video/audio compilation (PLEASE REMEMBER select a different
file name to "TempVideo" when saving, otherwise you will end up in a right
old mess.)
NOTES
======
Before you do any of the above, in MM2 click on TOOLS > OPTIONS and in the
middle pane select whether you want NTSC or PAL and select whether you want
it 16:9 (WIDESCREEN) or 4:3 (NORMAL SCREEN)
NOTES 2
=======
Why did you have to do all of this?...It is very possible (If you were not
the author) to have an AVI file that does not necessarily conform to the
imposed standards for a TV screen (Basically its neither NTSC or PAL) and
because of that the number of frames per second can be any number you like,
within reason. MM2 is a free piece of software and its no surprise then that
it does not do everything its big brothers can do (This applies to Audio as
well)...Anyway, by following the steps above you will have first put the
video into the format that you want, and with the correct frames per second,
so that you can proceed to the second stage of adding audio.
NOTES 3
=======
Recently I had problems with the additional sound tracks as supplied by
SOUNDDOGS.COM. These are the people who gave us some of the extras that go
with MM2. I could import the audio with no problem at all, but as soon as I
added it to the time line, MM2 would crash. The solution is very similar to
the one for video. I loaded the audio into a Wave editor program (Creative)
and saved it to another file name...that's all I did..no editing of the
audio at all. Then I added the new file name (audio) to my project and as we
say over here "Bob's your Uncle" (I have no idea why we say that by the way)
