Importing .jpg files

[Guest]

I am creating a movie structured similarly to a PowerPoint presentation. I have created a series of title slides, each with transitions from one to the next.

I would like the writing on the title slides to have a background of various .jpg files I have saved on my computer.

When I import the .jpg, it appears in the collection window and the preview window. I cannot slide the .jpg over an existing title slide, I can only create a new slide on the storyboard. Once the slide is on the storyboard, when I play it it appears only as black, the actual image won't show in the movie.

Any suggestions as to why the imported files don't show in the movie, and can I use a .jpg photo with titles over it in a series of "slides" to make up my movie?

 

[Bob [MVP]]

First drag an image to the timeline. Then add a title
to that image (selected clip in timeline).

If you're having problems specifically with JPG images,
try converting them to BMP first.

--
-Bob
____________________________
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP Media Center Edition
www.microsoft.com/ehome

I am creating a movie structured similarly to a PowerPoint presentation. I have created a series of title slides, each with

transitions from one to the next.

I would like the writing on the title slides to have a background of various .jpg files I have saved on my computer.

When I import the .jpg, it appears in the collection window and the preview window. I cannot slide the .jpg over an existing title

slide, I can only create a new slide on the storyboard. Once the slide is on the storyboard, when I play it it appears only as
black, the actual image won't show in the movie.

Any suggestions as to why the imported files don't show in the movie, and can I use a .jpg photo with titles over it in a series

of "slides" to make up my movie?

 

[Guest]

Thanks for replying Bob.

Changing the files to .bmp doesn't change anything. The pictures, although viewable on the storyboard and the preview pane, will not display as anything but black when playing the movie. I read somewhere that reducing the file size can help and I have tried this, also with no luck.

I also tried adding the title to the image I dropped on the timeline. The title showed up on the all black background, but the image wasn't there. I have tried this in both .jpg and .bmp formats with the same results.

 

[Rehan]

Do a Reinstall of the following and try again:

Latest version of:
* DirectX
* Your graphics card driver
* Media Player
* Media Encoder
* Movie maker.

With restarts when prompted.

 

[mikkl]

Any suggestions as to why the imported files don't show in the movie,
and can I use a .jpg photo with titles over it in a series of "slides"
to make up my movie?

I just made a similar sort of movie using PhotoStory to input the photos
and assign the time delay. After saving the file in 1024X768 format, I
imported the resulting movie into MM2 to continue editing and to add
background sounds.

mikkl

 

[Rehan]

Once you have resolved the jpeg problem, for the slides overlay, you need to
make the top slides with one particular color value (say black) as its
background so that you can specify that color is to be made transparent.

Now install the custom transition below:


<TransitionsAndEffects Version="1.0">
<Transitions>
<TransitionDLL guid="{C5B19592-145E-11D3-9F04-006008039E37}" >
<Transition name="Overlay Black" iconid="11">
<Param name="KeyType" value="0" />
<Param name="RGB" value="0" />
</Transition>
</Transitions>
</TransitionsAndEffects>

Instructions: Copy paste into notepad and save as overlay.xml into
"C:\Program Files\Movie Maker\Shared\AddOnTFX\", creating the folder if not
present already. Restart Movie Maker.

Apply this transition in the middle of your background image and the text
slide, the black color in the slide will be masked off to show the color
image from the picture below.

 

[Guest]

It sounds like PhotoStory might be a better program for my needs. Can you narrate a PhotoStory "movie?"

 

[John Kelly]

Hello there,

There are two possibilities. First JPeg's are a known problem with Movie Maker.
You should change them to straight bitmaps using 24bit colour depth. the second
possibility is something called a codec and here is my stock message when I
think that it may be a codec problem...

-----
You sound as though you are suffering from a codec problem. There are two root
causes and below you will find the solution for each together with some notes
on other issues.

1)

The one stop solution for that is a program called Rename Codecs and it is
available from my web site (Free). Make sure you check out the FAQ, on the
site, on what it does and how to run it (That will take about one minute of
your time!!) All the info you need is on the web site.

This reassuringly safe to use program requires no knowledge on your part about
what it is doing or how it is doing it or what it is doing it too!!! neither do
you need to know where any of these files are or whether it is safe to rename
them or not.....and best of all, ITS FREE !!!

2)

If this does not solve your problem then try the following out...it has proved
to be a successful procedure for a variety of problems.

1) Download the full version of DirectX Ver 9.0b, Media Player 9 and Movie
Maker 2.

2) Reboot you computer and Install DirectX

3) Reboot again and install Windows Media Player 9

4) Reboot yet again and install Movie Maker 2

5) Reboot one more time

Yes it sounds very tedious, but if you want to be certain all file locks are
removed so that the correct files can be installed this is the way you have to
go.

It is very important that you only download the full versions of these programs
and that you DO NOT attempt an install over the internet.

Other Notes
===========
Graphics Acceleration
---------------------

There is advice floating around that you should disable the graphics
acceleration abilities of your graphics card if Movie Maker locks up or crashes
out. Doing this is roughly equivalent to taking out your current graphics card
and replacing it with one that is several years old....this is not the way
forward!

The Graphics card on the machine I edit on is a cut above the average, it has
DV In & Out as well as Video In & Out. It does all sorts of clever things and
it is extremely fast. Then the day came when I tried Movie Maker 2 for the
first time. It was a disaster. Knowing what the problem was I immediately
logged on to Microsoft and got the latest driver. There was no change with the
performance of the Graphics card with respect to Movie Maker. After a lot of
messing about I went to the cards manufacturer and downloaded there most recent
driver. I was convinced that the one from Microsoft was in some way defective.
It turned out that I was right but for the wrong reason.

The version of the driver from Microsoft was more recent than the one on my
system AND more recent than the one from the OEM.BUT, the OEM had made minor
changes to how the card worked and these were not taken into consideration by
the Microsoft update!!!

So, do not get the generic update from Microsoft until you have tried the
latest driver from the manufacturer of your card.

Registration
------------

There is in my view some very bad advice floating around that tells you to
unregister the offending codec. If you take this advise be warned that
unregistering any file and doing it wrong will more than likely stop the
program that file belongs to from working all together and may in an extreme
situation cause your entire XP system to fail. This is true whether you make a
mistake using the Registry editor or the registration program itself, one
mistake and you are potentially in deep trouble. Whatever you unregister in
this manner has to be restored and you should take note that the registration
of a codec can often involve more than one registry entry. If you are expert in
these matters you will have no problem.

I have also found that MP3, Mpeg and Jpeg files can cause problems, So...

Convert all MP3 to WAV

Convert all MPeg to AVI

Convert all Jpeg to BMP

Video Conversion
----------------

For Video Conversion you should also check out the Knowledge Base Section of my
"Great Links" One of the website's in there "Video Help" has the best
collection of useful information I have yet come across on converting between
the various formats together with links to the software needed.

 

[mikkl]

It sounds like PhotoStory might be a better program for my needs. Can
you narrate a PhotoStory "movie?"

Yes, you can. In fact, PhotoStory is set up to narrate each photo
individually. You can also control it so that the "camera" follows your
mouse along each picture.

mikkl

 

[mikkl]

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

John,

I want to extend my compliments on your website and the offered tools.
Quite handy. One nit, though. In order to use your navigation, ActiveX is
required. With the recent virus activity, the *only* safe way to use IE is
with all scripting disabled--or use another browser. In my case, I used
Firefox.

Anyway, I did browse your site with IE just to see the content. Too bad I
can't get to it with anything other than IE.

Thanks again,

mikkl

 

[John Kelly]

Hello therre,

Thank you for your comments. The site is a lot less complicated today than it
was a few short weeks ago

To view all of my site you need to have Java Scripting enabled, if you want to
view any of the video you need a Media player 9 or other compatible player. To
view a demo of one video calling the next you need the Flash Player from
Macromedia installed, but that demo is being taken off some time soon. The
Media Player and Flash player are the only ActiveX components on the site

Its a long time since I last saw a web site with NO scripting of any sort

 

[mikkl]

Its a long time since I last saw a web site with NO scripting of any sort

Agreed. Most of my own pages use Java scripting. ActiveX is IE unique.
It really is too bad that IE has gotten so unsafe that scripting has to be
disabled in order to browse with it safely.

My problem is that when I viewed your site in Firefox (with scripting
enabled) the navigation tree did not work. Thought you would want to know.

mikkl