Windows DVD Maker results in no audio and incorrect menu

To All Who Read This, Thanks for you Help!

I am trying to burn 13 different AVI clips from my hard drive to a DVD using
Windows DVD Maker within Vista Home Premium. - I've tried burning the same
set of items 3 or 4 times now, with each time a different result. One big
problem is that the DVD title menu does not show all 13 files that I had
included and therefore I cannot play them all - either using my computer or
my home DVD player (yet upon looking at the disc as an open folder in
Windows, it shows all the files present on the disc...). The other big
problem is that in some cases, there is no audio. A further issue is that
the clips won't show up in the same menu order that I had arranged them in
using Movie Maker.

I've tried this operation by importing all the files and organizing them in
Windows Movie Maker, then publishing it to disc with DVD Maker. I've also
tried simply creating the DVD directly from DVD Maker without the
pre-production. No luck in either case - I'm getting a disc that is usually
about 80% what I want.

Any suggestions?
Best regards.

On Mon, 1 Oct 2007 21:49:02 -0700, workinonit
<workinonit@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

>To All Who Read This, Thanks for you Help!
>
>I am trying to burn 13 different AVI clips from my hard drive to a DVD using
>Windows DVD Maker within Vista Home Premium. - I've tried burning the same
>set of items 3 or 4 times now, with each time a different result.


Movie Maker is basically a toy. That means if you try to get much
beyond a very short, very simple project all kinds of things may
happen. If you're serious about making videos, the biggest favor you
can do yourself is invest in a decent Video Editor. If you also wish
to make DVDs with chapters so you can have multiple videos each
starting up from their own thumbnail or link selecting from a menu you
also need DVD Authoring software. Depending on what you buy these
features may be merged into one package.

The first question is what is sum of the playing time of these 13
different clips and did you simply dump them all on the timeline one
after another in Movie Maker?

A know issue with Movie Maker is it often stumbles if the video gets
too long or when you try to add too may transitions or effects. Also
I'll assume you know there are limits as to how much to can get on a
single sided DVD which hold 4.7 GB. Generally it works out to about
80-90 minutes depending on what bitrate you compress at.

Another issues is DVD Maker if you have that takes the project file
from Movie Maker and then transcodes the files. You can't make a DVD
from a AVI directly. Such a file type needs to be converted.
Transcoding is just a fancy word that means the same thing.

Since you keep getting the same result, DVD Maker stopping before it
finishes, any number of things could be going wrong that could be
related to the source files themselves, it simply was too much to put
on a single DVD or there was a problem in one of the steps involved
which DVD maker does behind the scenes.

Thanks for the reply, AA. - The DVD I was trying to make ends up being about
30mins total (they are all short clips). Yes, i did dump them into Movie
Maker one after another. I didn't do anything with regard to specifying a
transition betweeen - just wanted thumbnails to play from in the scene
selections.

I tried making the desired video again from DVD Maker, and it worked
finally. But, yes, frustrating indeed that you have to waste 4 DVDs in the
process and hours of time.

I would invest in something like Adobe Premier or other video software (any
suggestions?), but these are simply home video clips of my kid that I want to
send to relatives (e.g. nothing professional). I would think Microsoft could
make their software solid enough to support this kind of need for home users.
- Thanks.

"Adam Albright" wrote:

> On Mon, 1 Oct 2007 21:49:02 -0700, workinonit
> <workinonit@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:
>
> >To All Who Read This, Thanks for you Help!
> >
> >I am trying to burn 13 different AVI clips from my hard drive to a DVD using
> >Windows DVD Maker within Vista Home Premium. - I've tried burning the same
> >set of items 3 or 4 times now, with each time a different result.
>
>
> Movie Maker is basically a toy. That means if you try to get much
> beyond a very short, very simple project all kinds of things may
> happen. If you're serious about making videos, the biggest favor you
> can do yourself is invest in a decent Video Editor. If you also wish
> to make DVDs with chapters so you can have multiple videos each
> starting up from their own thumbnail or link selecting from a menu you
> also need DVD Authoring software. Depending on what you buy these
> features may be merged into one package.
>
> The first question is what is sum of the playing time of these 13
> different clips and did you simply dump them all on the timeline one
> after another in Movie Maker?
>
> A know issue with Movie Maker is it often stumbles if the video gets
> too long or when you try to add too may transitions or effects. Also
> I'll assume you know there are limits as to how much to can get on a
> single sided DVD which hold 4.7 GB. Generally it works out to about
> 80-90 minutes depending on what bitrate you compress at.
>
> Another issues is DVD Maker if you have that takes the project file
> from Movie Maker and then transcodes the files. You can't make a DVD
> from a AVI directly. Such a file type needs to be converted.
> Transcoding is just a fancy word that means the same thing.
>
> Since you keep getting the same result, DVD Maker stopping before it
> finishes, any number of things could be going wrong that could be
> related to the source files themselves, it simply was too much to put
> on a single DVD or there was a problem in one of the steps involved
> which DVD maker does behind the scenes.
>
>

On Tue, 2 Oct 2007 15:21:00 -0700, workinonit
<workinonit@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

>Thanks for the reply, AA. - The DVD I was trying to make ends up being about
>30mins total (they are all short clips). Yes, i did dump them into Movie
>Maker one after another. I didn't do anything with regard to specifying a
>transition betweeen - just wanted thumbnails to play from in the scene
>selections.
>
>I tried making the desired video again from DVD Maker, and it worked
>finally. But, yes, frustrating indeed that you have to waste 4 DVDs in the
>process and hours of time.
>
>I would invest in something like Adobe Premier or other video software (any
>suggestions?), but these are simply home video clips of my kid that I want to
>send to relatives (e.g. nothing professional). I would think Microsoft could
>make their software solid enough to support this kind of need for home users.
> - Thanks.

Years ago Premier was good, in fact a standard on the Windows and Mac
platform. No longer that good. And pricey. I use Vegas from Sony (the
pro version) who bought the original company that created it, Sonic
Foundry a few years back. The good news is it comes in several
versions starting at about $79 street for the Studio version. Learn
more here and download a trial:

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/

Agreed that Microsoft should do a better job with Movie Maker. If you
can put up with constant frustration it isn't that bad for entry level
if you're looking for no frills. But it seems awfully unstable and
finicky.