windows movie maker

[looobylooo]

Hi, can anyone help me here please..?

The other day I managed to reduce the file size of a 5 minute family home video (resolution 800x448) down from 41mb to 7mb, using Windows Movie Maker.
The quality of the video wasn't too bad attall.. good enough to email a pal anyway.

This is what I did:
I 'imported' the video, dragged it down onto the 'timeline' then clicked on 'publish movie', chose 'to this computer' and clicked on 'compress to' and chose 7mb file size.
The video only took a matter of a few minutes to complete, was saved to a folder and was ready to email.

Now, I try to do the same thing tonight, but i seem to be having problems..

Again it's a 5 minute video, same resolution etc.
(I don't know the file size size just now because I haven't been able to complete the task, but I guess it's similar to before)

I've gone to 'publish' the video and 'compress to', chose a small file size as before, BUT this time it's taking an absolute aaaage for the task bar to fill to 100% before it's saved to a folder.
It's taking that long, I have to exit before it's completed.

So does anyone know why I'm having problems tonight, please? Afterall i'm doing the same as I did the other night. It was very quick and easy then, unlike tonights attempt....!

I'd really appreciate ANY help or suggestions, please,
Thank you!! :o) xx

[looobylooo]

(Sorry, I've now found the size of this file I'm trying to reduce, it's 29mb)

[looobylooo]

(Whoops! Sorry, 29mb was the file size of a random 5 minute test video I tried out at a lower resolution 424x240, to see if it was any quicker, but nope, was going to takes ages to do, too)

PLEASE any help will be greatly received, thanks

[Mosaic]

Hi Looby - in my experience windows movie maker is good but very temperamental. I've seen the problem you describe happening when people are working with networked computers - so perhaps try checking the locations that the project is saved to, and that the final edited video will be saved to. Make sure both are actually being saved into the same place on your computer.
Also, try compressing it it less initially. Like I say, it's a moody program and can act a bit randomly at times.

[looobylooo]

Hi Mosaic,
Thanks for your helpful answer!

Ok, I've now got them saved into the same location/folder as per your instructions,
I then went through all the procedure again in Movie Maker, selected a lower file size and low and behold it started doing a speedy 'publish' !! yaaay!

So, thinking we'd cracked it, I quickly aborted the task before it completed (silly me!) because I just wanted to make a few quick edits before finalising it,

Unfortunately when I went back in to try and do it again, it started off as 105 seconds left (which is what it says when it's working ok) but, then suddenly it changed to minutes, which slowly increase to a fortnight! ... and then I have to exit..again! grrrrrrr!
tut... if only I'd let it finish...

So. do you think there could be a chance that it just might right itself then, if I go away and leave it for a while, beings you say it suffers from the odd mood swing?!

thanks :o)

[Mosaic]

Well - going off your previous experience, I'd say every possibility it will consider its sinfulness and behave better next time.....but hopefully you've also discovered it isn't the most flexible of programs and has a sulk if interrupted....in actual fact most video editing programs sulk like babies and eat up your processor speed. They seem to want you to have no other programs at all on your machine.

[looobylooo]

Nope! ... siiiigh ... STILL no good!

I've left it since this morning, till now, hoping it'd work after having a bit of a break, even went offline, so it was only Movie Maker on the go,
But, still no good.
It sticks at 2%, and the time left minutes just build up and build up..

:o(

[looobylooo]

Well, I'm still at it! lol .... I don't give up easily, do I?!

Ok, so what I've done now is -

Converted the file to a WMV, and it published ok when I went back into Movie Maker! ... Yaaaay!
But, oh there's always a but isn't there?! When I play the video back in Windows Media Player, the sound isn't in sync with the actual video!

Plus.. when I try to go back in to edit the video in MM, the picture freezes after 1 second, even though the time still continues to run, and I'm not able to edit the video..

Is there a way I can sort that out, please?

Thank you :o)

[Mosaic]

Sorry Loobs, not noticed this till today.....
To be honest, without knowing how powerful your processor is, how much free memory you've got etc etc it's hard to assess.
Best keep trying - good luck!

[looobylooo]

That's ok Mosaic, no problem ...

I've had to give up on it! ... lol ...

Thanks for trying to help me, I really appreciate you answering my post :o)