Windows Movie Maker 2.1 incompatibilty issue with ATI Radeon cards

[Guest]

Hello,

Since I installed Windows XP Service Pack 2 and thus also Windows Movie
Maker v2.1, I don't seem to be able to use some of the transitions included
by default as well as some of the titling/crediting animations.

In case of the transitions, when I select the transition and use the preview
function, it just skips the animation and directly jumps to the end result
image. Applying the transitions and generating the movie shows the same
thing, so it's not just restricted to the preview function.

In case of the titling animations, some just don't show anything in the
preview pane. Others result in extremely long animations that don't quite do
their trick. Adding a title or credit and generating the movie results in
the same.

I thought reinstalling Windows XP from scratch, then immediately installing
service pack 2 would solve the problem. It didn't. So it can't be a
misconfigration thing. I even used the included graphics card drivers
provided and digitally signed by Microsoft. No 3rd party software or drivers
had been installed. Just Windows XP Professional plain vanilla and Service
Pack 2.

To document things a bit further, I'll add the names of the transitions and
titling mechanisms that don't work:

Transitions:
- Shatter, In
- Shatter, Up Left

Titles and Credits:
(one line)
- Typewriter (30s for the word "test")
- Ticker Tape
- News Banner
- Scroll Perspective (nothing and it's 3'15" for the word "test")
- Zoom, Out (Show something, but doesn't get to the complete word in the
end)
- Spin, Out (Same as above)
- News Video, Inset (show animation, but no text at all)
- Fade, Slow Zoom (show an exaggerated portion of the letter 'e')
- Zoom, Up and In
- Stretch (only gets to 'es' of the word "test")
- Subtitle
- Video, In Text
- Wow ! (Show animation, no text)
- Mirror
- Scroll, Banner
- Scroll, Inverted (goes from blue to white, but no text)
- Paint Drip
(two lines)
- Fade, In and Out
- Fly In, Fades
- Fly Out
- Fly In, Fly Out
- Exploding Outline
- Fly In, Left and Right
- Sports Scoreboard (goes blue to red, then red to blue, no text)
- Newspaper (seems to love black all around)
(credits)
- Scroll, Up Stacked (1'56"20 length indicated, all black, skips
immediately to the end, no text)
- Zoom, In (shows a part of "e" and "s")
- Scroll, Up Side-by-Side (same as the previous 'scroll' animation)
- Mirror (same as the 'scroll', but the indicated length is 25'26"25)
- Exploding (shows text, but length is too long 1'37"75)
- Fly In, Left and Right (same as the 'scroll" animation)
- Video Left (same as the 'scroll" animation)
- Video Top (same as the 'scroll" animation)

On a slighter note: the Automovie feature only seems to generate transitions
'here and there' and messes up the sequence of the slides (pictures) at the
end: some of the pictures are listed twice in the sequence there.

I have tried this stuff on 3 different graphics cards: a Hercules 3D Prophet
9600 Pro 128Mb AGP card and a PowerColor Radeon 7000 64Mb PCI card. Same
result. Insert a GeForce card: voilà, no problem at all...

So, as to get back to my question: Has anyone of you experienced the same or
apparently related difficulties ? And more importantly: Does anyone have the
slightest clue in to resolving this issue ? (without me having to buy a
different graphics card of course

Some more HW details:

MB: Asus P4P800 (Bios v1.16)
Mem: 2x512 Mb DDR400
CPU: Intel PIV 3,0 Ghz
GPU: ATI Radeon 9600 Pro 128Mb (tried different sorts of drivers btw, incl
the Omega's)
Soundcard: Creative Audigy Player (latest drivers)


Thanks in advance !

Yours truly,

Leroy Melvin

 

[Rehan]

This is fairly detailed and well written report. However it is very puzzling
as well... As far as I know, Movie Maker does not use the hardware
capabilities of the graphics card to generate its effects/transitions/titles
etc. it uses a software emulation of the directx so i am very surpised that
graphics card or drivers could causing such anamolies.

You have not mentioned installing DirectX. The follwoing two packages update
a few modules used by Movie Maker:

DirectX
Windows Media Encoder

So may be you can try (re)installing those.

Another thing to try is to reduce hardware acceleration from Control
Panel -> Display -> Settings -> Troubleshoot tab.

 

[Jason]

Leroy,

I have the exact same problem as well and I have an nvidia geforce 2
mx400 card. I have tried microsoft drivers, 3rd party drivers,
uninstallation of winxp sp2 and reinstallation of sp2 and nothing has
helped. I have looked everywhere and have found no help. If someone
knows a resolution could you please email me back at
(e-mail address removed) Thanks

 

[John Kelly]

Hello,
Why don't you install the NVidia graphics driver available from NVidia...or
better still why don't you install the drivers (latest) as supplied by the
manufacturer of the card....NEVER install graphics drivers from
Microsoft...they are generic and not capable of dealing with any minor change
to the NVidia spec as may have been employed by the manufacturer of your card..

 

[Rehan]

First try to establish if this is actually caused by graphics card drviers
and/or directx:

1. Reduce the video acceleration by going to Control Panel -> Display ->
Settings -> Advanced -> Troubleshoot panel

If the issue goes away you do need to obtain better graphics card drivers.
Otherwise move on to investigate other potential reasons.

have you tried these?

* Reinstall DirectX runtime
* Install Windows Media Encoder

 

[Guest]

I have just the same problem. I have Asus P4P 800 (v. 1019 bios), 1024Mb
Hynix memory dual chanell, Asus V. 9520 video suite (Asus Nvidia Forcevare
66.72 driver), Samsung Sync Master 757 dfx monitor (samsung monitor drv. DX
9.c.).
It seems to me that the problem could be in divx codec or some divx player
instalations, but I cannot be positive. I tryed to reinstall DX9c, to reduce
hardvare acceleration, and used enchanced nvidia display driver, but NO
RESULT.
After I reinstall Windows XP, carefully, beginning with XP, XPsp1, XPsp1a,
XPsp2, and than install all of other software, MM2.1 works fine. Butt after
time, the shatter transition problemm apears again, so I must say, there is
no problem with ATI, it is somethine else, I do not what.