Movie Maker 2 - 16:9 Capture

[Big Al]

I've got a Sony Digital 8 PAL camcorder which I've used to
record both in 4:3 and 16:9. MM2 captures the 4:3 footage
just fine, but if I change the aspect ratio to 16:9 in the
advanced options and try to capture video, the first frame
of the video freezes in the preview window and nothing is
recorded. However, both the tape counter below the
preview window and the tape transport on the camcorder are
moving and the playback in the camcorder's viewfinder is
fine.

Any ideas anyone?

 

[John Kelly]

Hi there,

That's a new one on me, but it does sound like a codec issue. Take a look
at acceleration and codecs in the problem solving section of
www.papajohn.org

 

[PapaJohn \(MVP\)]

I did a bit of widescreen work over the weekend and didn't experience the
issue. But I captured with something else (my TV tuner), and imported the
files into MM2, so maybe I wasn't set up the same way.


PapaJohn

 

[Gareth Howell [MSFT]]

It might be that your first few frames are 4:3, and then that switches to
16:9. Does it still freeze if you capture to DV-AVI?

-Gareth

 

[Guest]

It doesn't matter whether I'm capturing from the start of
a tape or part way through. The file format (wmv, dv-avi
etc) makes no difference either. The first frame freezes
in the preview window, the tape position counter moves,
the capture length on the left of the capture window stays
on 00:00:00 and the file size sticks on 3KB.

 

[John Kelly]

Hi there,

Did you do as I suggested and look at the Acceleration and Codecs page
under Problem Solving at www.papajohn.org?

 

[Gil Shoemaker]

I am experienceing the exact same problems, except I am
using an NTSC Sony Camcorder. If you change MovieMaker to
4:3 capture, it works beautifully, switch it back to 16:9
and it freezes the preview pane during capture and
captures 0:00:00. I am guessing too much data to absorb
at once. The very first time I tried to capture video
with MovieMaker it worked great, from the second time on,
it acted up. I called Toshiba tech support (I have a
Satellite P15 laptop with XP MCE) and they were stumped.
I will post an error report to Microsoft as well.
Thanks. - Gil

 

[Big Al]

I've read through the page but haven't had the opportunity
to try anything yet - thanks for the info.

 

[Gil Shoemaker]

I also have MovieXone which captures in 16:9. MovieXone,
captures to an AVI file just fine. I captured a very
large 1 hour file and then imported the AVI to MM2 - it
looks and works just fine, so the problem has to be
something with the MM2 16:9 capture mode. - Gil

 

[Filthy Rich]

I have exactly the same problem too. I've only just stumbled across
this newsgroup and thread so forgive me if you guys have already
worked this out yourselves.

Although MM2 freezes if capturing in 16:9, I capture in 4:3 instead
but then change the setting via the options and advanced tabs to 16:9
before saving the movie to computer (step 3 of Tasks). The resulting
movie is saved in 16:9 successfully. Any titling looks correct too.

I have also imported .WMV movies previously captured and saved in 4:3
format and then saved them in 16:9 size. These look fine although any
titles originally added look a little squashed.

I'd still like to know if there is a fix to the original problem.

I use Sony Hi8 Digital camera and PAL.

I am experienceing the exact same problems, except I am
using an NTSC Sony Camcorder. If you change MovieMaker to
4:3 capture, it works beautifully, switch it back to 16:9
and it freezes the preview pane during capture and
captures 0:00:00. I am guessing too much data to absorb
at once. The very first time I tried to capture video
with MovieMaker it worked great, from the second time on,
it acted up. I called Toshiba tech support (I have a
Satellite P15 laptop with XP MCE) and they were stumped.
I will post an error report to Microsoft as well.
Thanks. - Gil

Filthy Rich
Music House

 

[PapaJohn \(MVP\)]

I think that, if you look at the pixel dimensions of a 4:3 or a 16:9 video,
they would be the same--- 720x480 (for NTSC anyway)

Rendering a movie as 4:3 would squeeze them down a bit, and rendering to
16:9 would expand them a bit.... but the quality that is related to the
number of pixels is the same.

So capturing in either 4:3 or 16:9 would get you the same info in terms of
pixel dimensions - 720x480


PapaJohn