O.T MovieMaker2 and Burning VCDs

[NormanB]

Hi - this is well off topic but I know there are the finest collection of IT experts here!

I am having major problems with Windows MovieMaker 2.0 and specifically burning output to CDR. I am a newbie to video editing and matters digital, so it is entirely possible I am fouling things up and asking the software to do things that were not intended. My aim is to produce a vcd home movie that can be viewed on a standalone DVD player.

The CD Drive is a Liteon 52246S and I have upgraded it to the latest firmware. Device Manager reports it as functioning correctly and it uses a generic windows driver. I have checked the Liteon site there are no driver updates available. I have uninstalled/reinstalled to eliminate driver corruption. The CDROM will successfully copy music CDs. I use quality (TDK) media and have set the max write speed to X16 to match the media in use.

In WMM I can transfer digital video from my Sony PC100E via firewire without problem and indeed can send it back to a fresh tape. However on each occassion of attempting to 'burn' to CDR (using the 'send to CD function in WMM), I end up producing a coaster. This will occur on all file sizes as I have experimented with a one minute clip. I do not get any error messages at all and initially all looks well and things progress until it reaches 58% (and I thought the meaning of the universes was 42!!) and then it just sits there and does b***** all and will sit there for hours.

The PC is a P4/2.6, 512MB RAM, 80GB HDD using the XP Pro OS.

Grateful for any help or advice.

NormanB

 

[Sp!ke]

If your just getting into movie editing, forget Windows Movie Maker and pick yourself up a copy of Pinacle Studio DV. Not big money, simple and effective to use and includes all the wizards you like to burn whatever you want - It even let me accidentally succesfully burn a DVD onto a CDR which played just fine on my standalone DVD player. (Since learnt that this is normal and called a mini-DVD)

For now though, why not output the VCD files to your HD first and then burn them after same as any other file. Theres nothing special about VCD's, there just normal Mpegs.

 

[hash]

also i dont belive movie maker burns to a vcd format, so send it to the hard disk then burn using nero or a cd burner that burns to vcd format.

i will only play in a standalone dvd player it it will support CDR, a suprising amount dont

cheers

kenny

 

[NormanB]

Thanks Spike and Hash

I thought I was probably assuming far too much!

Like they say 'you dont get 'owt for nowt' and this cetainly seems to be the case with MM2. Which is a shame really because it appeared to my untrained eye to be a nice little package!

I will follow your advice. Thank you.

Respect!