Playing music videos on Extended Desktop screen

[ddouglass]

Originally Posted by bobcox

I believe he was talking about not being able to get video on desktop and tv at the same time.
two displays at same time, like when playing a kma file.

Just for AVIs. The rest are working.

[bryant]

Originally Posted by ddouglass

Just for AVIs. The rest are working.

Yup, avi.'s are definitely weird. My DJ program has troubke with some and different for each computer.
Sometimes it's even a conflict of two codecs as well, i.e., it can somehow grab the wrong one the first time.

Not sure how to uninstall a codec pack, but usually, the second pack tries to detect codecs for the first one, if any already installed, and tell you to delete that specific codec. But, then agan, I'm not sure if all packs work this way or easily detect other conflicting codecs.

I think what I did once was unistall every pack that I had and start from scratch on one particular pack.

[bernie]

Thanks, guys. I feel vindicated knowing it's the avi format that's problematic and not something obvious I've overlooked.

As a further test, I converted the avi's to wmv and sure enough, Hoster plays the converted files just fine. I might play around some more with the codecs, but in the interim, no avi's in the playlist during a show.

[PaulK]

Does anyone have a suggestion for a (free) way to convert avi's to wmv ?
Thanks

Paul K

[bryant]

Originally Posted by PaulK

Does anyone have a suggestion for a (free) way to convert avi's to wmv ?
Thanks

Paul K

They have some freeware out there (just search on video converters), although most, if not all, will be limited by minutes converted or contain a nag screen in the final product. I purchased one a while back for 39 bucks, I think.

[bernie]

If you've got XP with at least SP1 (preferably SP2) you've got Windows Movie Maker. Just click on "Import Video", select your avi file. When it loads, drag it to the timeline. Don't be surprised if it breaks the avi into several segments, just add them to the timeline in sequence.

If you don't want to do any editing, just click on "Save to my computer". You will then be given lots of options for the saved format including several choices for the quality of wmv (video size, bit rate, etc.)

It's free, you've probably already got it, and the ability to edit and/or add title screens is a bonus. I use it all the time.

[mindonstrike]

Movie maker works well, although not practical if you have a bazillion of them to do. SP1 version crashed often for me. SP2 seemed to fix most of it.

Most of the video forums I've visited recomend NOT using the codec packs because they can interfere with each other. Unfortunately codecs seem to work differently on different computers so it's tough to recomend specific ones.