AVI or WMV

[Guest]

I am creating a 20 minute movie (picture slide show JPGs) with 5 music (wma) files. I read on this board that the AVI format delivers the best quality for burning it on a DVD. However when I preview the avi in Sonic or in RealPlayer, the music at more than one occassion has a slight hickup . When I create a WMV file the audio is smooth but I am afraid that the quality is compromised. Is this a processor issue, or in other words when I create the AVI file do I want to shut down all other applications etc or is there something else I can do.

Thanks.

 

[PapaJohn \(MVP\)]

If the hiccups are in the playback and not in the files themselves, all will
be fine on the DVD.

If the hiccups are in the file (play it a few times and see if it's in the
same spot each time), you can save the music/audio to a WMA file.... and the
video to a DV-AVI file.... then bring the two clips into another project and
save it again as a DV-AVI file..... it wouldn't have the clip transitions
where the hiccups occur.
--
PapaJohn

Movie Maker 2 - www.papajohn.org
Photo Story 2 - www.photostory.papajohn.org

..

I am creating a 20 minute movie (picture slide show JPGs) with 5 music

(wma) files. I read on this board that the AVI format delivers the best
quality for burning it on a DVD. However when I preview the avi in Sonic or
in RealPlayer, the music at more than one occassion has a slight hickup .
When I create a WMV file the audio is smooth but I am afraid that the
quality is compromised. Is this a processor issue, or in other words when I
create the AVI file do I want to shut down all other applications etc or is
there something else I can do.

 

[steve]

Shouldn't the pics be in bmp format? I thought I've read
time and time that MM2 doesn't work well with jpgs. I have
not tried it myself yet.

Steve

 

[PapaJohn]

There are some lately who say that, but I haven't had issues with JPG
files.... so I'm not doing it myself.

It's interesting to me that, when you use MM2 to take snapshots from your
video files to use as still picture clips in a movie, the saved snapshot
files are JPG.... so, I'd say that, by design, MM2 should handle jpg files
equally well.

The sample still images used by MM2 to preview transitions and effects are
also JPG files.
--
PapaJohn
Movie Maker 2: www.papajohn.org
PhotoStory 2: www.photostory.papajohn.org
..
..

 

[John Kelly]

Hi there,

Yes you are right. Time and time again users who had jpeg's in their
project have had trouble. The full problem is that the user can create a
wide range of image types that are JPeg, Movie maker can only cope with
basic jpegs...I guess its because Microsoft do not have control of the Joint
Photographic committee or whatever they are called.

Movie Maker is also supposed to be capable of using MP3 files, they like
JPeg images are specifically included in the open file dialog. We all know
how well Movie Maker copes with MP3's as well.

Basically MP3 and JPeg are compressed formats...if you have the ability
to use BMP and WAV's thats the way to go and guarantee that the problems are
NOT going to bother you.

Best Wishes.....John Kelly
www.the-kellys.org
www.the-kellys.co.uk

 

[Rehan]

If you are using pans and zooms over your still images in your slideshow
then in my opinion DV AVI is NOT the most suitable format for making such
slideshow of still pictures. You can get better results in higher resolution
WMV output made using custom profiles such as provided on PapaJohn's
website.
http://www.eicsoftware.com/PapaJohn/MM2/MM2-SavingMovies-CustomProfiles.html

Having MM save the slideshow in high resolution WMV format and then using a
high quality mpeg2 encoder such as TmpGenc to resize to final non square
pixel format have given me better results than using DV AVI. However the
difference in quality is subtle and only detectable near sharp edges or with
pans and zooms.