Help Needed in making a DVD of WDW

[squirrel]

I used my neighbour's laptop to put all my photos and movie clips into a file-my computer didn't have enough room. I then used her Windows Movie Maker program to make a video with the photos and movie clips. I have tried copying the Video onto a zip drive and then put it onto my computer but it won't open as it says that the Windows Movie Maker isn't compatable.

If I make a DVD (with the neighbours computer) it won't work on my computer either. Haven't actually tried this but as the two Movie Makers are different it shouldn't work.

Is there anything I can use? I don't want to spend a lot of money buying a program, I also would prefer not to redo all the work I did-the movie is over 2hrs long. I also don't want to upgrade my Window's Movie Maker as I have a Disneyland Video that I made that I used the current version on my computer. Would upgrading make the one I made in the older version not work?

I would really like to have a program that will let me use any DVD player to watch the finished movie on.

Any ideas?

TIA

 

[boBQuincy]

Afaik Windows Movie Maker can export a file in two formats, DV-AVI and WMV. DV-AVI creates very large files, it is not likely your 2 hour video is in this format. That brings us to WMV, which is very efficient with storage space but is also not compatible with any other format, including DVD. Windows Movie Maker should play a WMV as long as you download the latest CODECs.

For saving the file to a DVD you will probably need save the file as DV-AVI and use some DVD burning software, such as Nero or Roxio.

 

[EnnEss]

You could definately write it as a WMV to and work with it on your computer. Windows movie maker is backwards compatible by the way and forwards compatible actually in the video it creates, but not in the projects it creates. The projects are for the editing part, then you export to a chosen file format. I get the feeling you may never have "made" the video and are just dealing with the projects?

After reading your post again, you just want to watch those dvds? You can save in multiple formats, some dvd players support WMV, both xp and vista will support it. Most will support AVI, all computers will (within reason, a 1995 most likely wont).

Movie maker will export to
Supported formats for saving movies
•Windows Media video files: .wmv
•Windows Media audio files: .wma
•DV/AVI format for video: .avi

You have to see what your dvd player will support, your computer will support all 3. I really think you haven't exported the file yet, but I can't be sure. You can actually get even more types of exported files with movie maker by adding codecs, but its really not necessary for your needs.

 

[GrillMouster]

It's not clear from your post whether you exported/"published" your movie or you just saved it as a Movie Maker project. What's the file type?

If you just saved it as a movie maker project, the source material (original images and videos) weren't saved into the file. All that's saved in the Movie Maker project file are the intructions for the layout you created (where/when to insert special effects, transitions, where to split clips, etc). So, if you're trying to open the project file on a different computer and the source files aren't on the new computer and aren't stored in the same directory as they were on the computer where you created the project, it won't work.