Same trouble saving movie--WinXPSP3 WMM 2.1

[Joe McGuire]

I had posted this question originally 12/17 and after trying a few of the
suggestions gave up in disgust with the software (Or was it my computer the
real culprit? who knows?) Anyway, being a glutton for punishment I decided
to revisit the matter and try to take all clear recommendations as much as I
could understand them. I even uninstalled and reinstalled Win XP's SP3 (and
its included Movie Maker) on the theory that somehow some files went
missing. That took the better part of a day to get everything working
again. I was able to same 1 movie of about 60 seconds (an industrial
activity). But when I put a longer one together (about 5 minutes long and
saved it as a project) I got the usual "cannot save to this location"--about
an hour later! It's bad enough taking the time to assemble the clips and
put them together. But to have to kill another hour or two wondering if the
durned software is going to do the job makes me wonder why I don't have a
Mac. I am going to try making this as a series of 1 minute clips and using
other software to actually make the movie. Meanwhile, what's the problem?

My source files are on my external hard drive and I am using an external
CD/DVD drive. WinXp SP3, WMM 2.1

Is it memory? If so, how much is needed and where can I find that? I have
2GB. From Papaa John's site I see people are getting reuslts with a lot
less. If that's not enough I obviously have been wasting a huge amount of
time pursuing the impossible.
Is it that some one of the clips is flawed? How do I tell? Each plays OK
in WMP. Is there some especially unique way that a clip can be bad for WMM
purposes but perfectly OK for everything else?
Is my movie too long? I read that there is some huge limit, but 5-6
minutes?
Too complex? I combined a bunch of clips so that the movie consists of 4
clips, each with a title, a fade out at the end of each clip, a title page
and a concluding title.

I looked at the Commit part of the Win Task Manager:
Total 652292
Limit 5525904
Peak 839972

Any suggeestions?

 

[PapaJohn]

Maybe you're being too logical. The error messages that Movie Maker provides
are not always appropriate. The limits are not neatly tracked by little
empty/full meters. The clues are often too subtle to take any specific
actions. Players like WMP use different codecs than Movie Maker.... etc.

You don't talk about your source files.... what types and where from. You
probably covered it in earlier posts.

 

[Joe McGuire]

Thanks! "Too subtle to take any specific action" seems a bit Kafka-esque
although it is probably true.

The source files are a story. 2 DVD-Rs were sent to me my opposing counsel
in a legal matter. Each contained an array of files ostensibly showing a
simulation of a workplace activity pertinent to this litigation, e.g.,
sanding a material with sandpaper, to show that the work creates dust in the
air. Of course everybody with half a brain knows that, but we are talking
lawyers here. The array of files included some *.vob files which were
pretty sizable plus several other tiny files. I was unable to learn much
about these files, where they come from, etc., although FWIW I read
somewhere that they might be from a Sony video camera. I have no idea if
the original work was videotaped and then converted to DVD or recorded
straight to DVD. Naturally, our opposing counsel is not eager to do
anything to clarify the situation. They have been ordered to do so but I am
too experienced with this stuff to hold my breath--or count on a judge.
After all, God helps those who help themselves! Anyway after a lot of
experimenting and searching I found that the *.vob files could open with
WMP, but colleagues working on this project found that WMP would not open
the files for them. I found some conversion software and converted the
*.vob files to wmv/wma files. The videos of each of the 4 simulated
activities are up to 40 minutes long. I want to take 1-2 minute excerpts
from each of 4 videos to make a short sampler. A minute or two of each is
all one really needs to get the picture. I want to give my clients a decent
"executive sampler" that doesn't make me look like an electronic
incompetent.

 

[PapaJohn]

Conversion software can make wwm files that don't work welll in Movie
Maker.... it depends on what codecs they use. If one doesn't work try
another converter.

My website's Import Movie Source Files > Video > Discs page might help.

 

[PapaJohn]

Hi Joe,

I should have mentioned that it seems like a very modest easy project.

 

[Joe McGuire]

Well, it's 3:30 a.m. and I am no closer to getting my project done than I
was on Friday morning. And my idea of making 4 short clips in WMM did not
work, either. Perhaps I could find another converter. It took forever to
find the one I actually used. Most will not deal with the *.vob files.
Highly discouraging. Most other video editing software I have tried is
pretty incomprehensible but presumably works. One I tried, Adobe Premiere
Elements 8 will not actually run on my computer--it requires a faster
computer. WMM is easily the simplest to use (for simple needs) but since I
can't actually save much it is pointless.

 

[PapaJohn]

vob files on DVDs are the same as MPEG2 files on computers.... copy the vob
to your computer, rename the file extension to .mpg and your conversion
tools will try harder.