Windows Movie Maker and a DVD camera

[Danti]

A friend of mine gave me some DVDs from a video camera and told me to convert the video on them so that he can feed them to Windows Movie Maker (the one that's included in Windows XP).
Which program do you suggest me to do that? And which video format should i choose to lose as little quality as possible (since he have to encode the video another time)?

[Ghitulescu]

Look what google told me in 5 seconds

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/moviemaker/default.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/moviemaker/getstarted/default.mspx

[mike20021969]

Look what google told me in 5 seconds
Very good!
At least his friend will now know how to use Windows Movie Maker (assuming he didn't already).

Unfortunately, that doesn't answer his question regarding program and video format for his DVD conversion.
A friend of mine gave me some DVDs from a video camera and told me to convert the video on them...Which program do you suggest me to do that? And which video format should i choose...

[Ghitulescu]

Each DVD-camcorder has its own "particularities", to say it nicely.

[kurkosdr]

@Danti

We need more information to help you, such as the format the camera uses. Go inside the DVD your friend have you and tell us what type of files you see. Common types include:

.VOB files: These are run of the mill DVD-Video files. Movie maker can handle these, i think. In case it can't, just rename .VOB to .mpg and it will for sure.

.m2ts or .mts files: There are AVCHD files. They contain Mpeg 4 avc video (most likely in HD) aka the same type of video Bluray, mkv and mp4 uses. You will have to covert such files to mp4 if you want to import them to movie maker. You can do this without quality loss with avidemux. Insert your clips to avidemux, put "video" to the "copy" setting, "audio" to the "copy" setting, and "container" to "mp4". Then click on the save project icon. Then import the resulting mp4 to movie maker.

.vro files: A weird format (DVD VR) sometimes used by cameras, it's a variant of DVD Video. I don't know how to import these to movie maker, maybe some other member does.

These are the most common. Don't forget to reply telling us what type of files you saw inside the DVD.

[Danti]

It's a Sony mini DVD camera, the file format can be either DVD VR or VOB, but the DVDs he gave me are in vob format.

[kurkosdr]

It's a Sony mini DVD camera, the file format can be either DVD VR or VOB, but the DVDs he gave me are in vob format.
Cool, this means the camera records using the DVD-Video format, and not the weird DVD VR format.

Just rename from .VOB to .mpg and you are ready to import to movie maker

[Danti]

So you say movie maker can read mpeg2? I thought it couldn't...

Thanks anyway amigo, i'll tell him to try this renaming trick

[mike20021969]

So you say movie maker can read mpeg2? I thought it couldn't...

Even small MPEG2 files can cause WMM to crash - I cannot even import an MPEG2 file which is <5MB in size.
(I'm running XP Home Edition, Service Pack 3).

It seems to be a common problem - Google-ing will show this.

WMV files import flawlessly though.

[kurkosdr]

Even small MPEG2 files can cause WMM to crash - I cannot even import an MPEG2 file which is <5MB in size.
(I'm running XP Home Edition, Service Pack 3).

It seems to be a common problem - Google-ing will show this.

WMV files import flawlessly though.

Windows XP's Movie Maker is half-assed to the point of desperation, even in the latest versions.
So if you are still using Windows XP, then you might consider a better program, like PowerDirector or Pinaccle VideoStudio. It's worth every penny of it.

Movie Maker for Vista or 7 (http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2009/02/11/windows-movie-maker-2-6-available-for-vista-windows-7/) and Live Movie Maker (http://explore.live.com/windows-live-movie-maker)(for Vista or 7) are much better, and can flawlessly open mpg and mp4 files, as well as divx avi files. The tips I mention above are for these two. So if you got Vista or 7, just go and download one of these.

Cheers.

[Danti]

I ended up converting them to WMV 2000kbps with TMPGenc... Thanks anyway i'll tell him to try these PowerDirector or VideoStudio... about them... i suppose they are commercial programs, are there good free video editing programs out there or the commercial ones are the better?

[mike20021969]

if you are still using Windows XP, then you might consider a better program
I don't use WMM at all - I tried it once about 6 years ago.

Personally, I use Corel Video Studio 12 as it's a doddle to master.

Occasionally, I use Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 9. Very rarely, I use Cyberlink PowerDirector 8.