New version with MPEG-2 support anytime soon???

[Guest]

Does anyone know if/when Microsoft will update Movie Maker to support the
MPEG-2 format that most dvd camcorders are using these days???
For us who have these cams, Movie Maker is useless

It's a pain, cant edit video, as MM only recognizes it as an audio file. I
do have the correct codecs installed, Media Player plays the video files just
fine.

I use a Sony DVD cam, and Pixela ImageMixer to import onto computer, but
from there, I cant do any editing. (ImageMixer's editing and export sucks,
huge loss of quality)

Microsoft, or someone please HELP!

 

[PapaJohn \(MVP\)]

Until something changes, see the Importing Source Files > Video > discs page
of my website...

--
PapaJohn

Movie Maker 2 and Photo Story 3 - www.papajohn.org
Photo Story 2 - www.photostory.papajohn.org
..

 

[Rehan]

MPEG2 is not the right format for editing anyway. It is highly compressed
and optimized for "viewing" which means by discarding all extra infomration
that human eye cannot see. If you are serious about editing and have to edit
a lot then get a good DV camcorder.

DVD cams are generally for folks who want to view their shoot directly in a
dvd player/etc. Or get a editor that supports MPEG2 natively and can edit
things without re-encoding such as VideoReDo / Cuttermaran / ChopperXP/ etc

 

[Noelle]

Hope this may be of help to you. I had the same problems as you at first,
using my Sony DVD 201E which uses
a DVD mini disk.
camera.

I finally succeeded in my endeavour to burn DVD's CD's and SVCD's, from
the
footage shot with the Sony DCR-DVD. And am extremely happy with the
results.

The results compared more than favourably with the DVDs from my
last camera a Sony TRV740E Hi8.

Pixela Imagemaker itself which comes bundled with the camera, offers only
basic editing, and I needed to import the files into WMM2 to edit them, and
here I ran into problems.

Tried several methods ie saving the mpg files to DVD-AVI in Imagemaker
itself , but eventually decided the resulting files in some cases where
panning occurred, were not up to the quality I was expecting. I had videod
a Fashion Show.

Finally, in WMM2 I went to Tools/Options/Compatability and through a process
of elimination, I disabled the filters, eventually leaving only the XL
Decompress, AVI_PASS, only two of the Neros: Nero DVD Decoder and Nero Video
Encoder but disabled the Nero Digital Audio Encoder (as this appeared to
mute the sound), and left in the Pixela AC-3 Encoder and Pixela MPEG2 Video
Decoder.

Bingo, success at last!

Using Imagemaker, I import the footage from the
Sony into the Imagemaker Capture folder, and then import these scenes into
WMM2, edit them,
added transitions etc., and save them to my Hard Drive as DVD-AVI files.
Using Nero Express S2 burn them to DVD, CD or SVCD.

To make sure things go smoothly prior to a session with WMM2 I always check
whether I need to defrag the Hard Drive beforehand.

Oh, and another thing worth mentioning, the Take Picture from Preview
option in WMM2 Tools and import into Collections. This works like a charm.
If you select the best shots they come out crisp and clear. Used some to
overlay titles on within the movie.

I have now successfully made a number of movies, and just recently at an
event
where the photographer failed to turn up due to circumstances beyond his
control
I was roped in at the last moment simply because I had my cameras with me,
to attempt a movie of the event and also take photographs. It was such a
success
that I have been asked to do a similar event in July. Must admit at the
time though
that I did have my doubts as to how it would turn out, but thank goodness
the
above method worked fine.

Hope this helps. Lets know how you get on.

Noelle