Playing music videos on Extended Desktop screen

[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.

[scottccook]

I just hosted my daughters sweet 16 party this last weekend and ran into the same problem. The video showed up in the bottom left corner of my monitor but not on the audience monitors. I could not drag it, just expand it. Luckily nobody wanted to do Karaoke, so I just used Microsoft Media Player. I do not know what a codec is. But, I noticed that someone said they just changed the .AVI to .WMP. Is that all there is to it? Or is there a certain proceedure I need to follow?

[rickyrey]

Probably, the last time that you used Hoster you were using it with the secondary display inactive. When you do that Hoster save the last setting that you used so when you opened it again, it opened with that last setting, then you played the video...my experience is that there is no way to resize the Hoster's secondary display window when you are playing videos, you have to reposition and resize it with a .kma playing. After you do so you can play videos and they will be display with your last setting.

[PaulK]

Sounds like a top tip, I'll give it a try
Paul

[mindonstrike]

Originally Posted by scottccook

I just hosted my daughters sweet 16 party this last weekend and ran into the same problem. The video showed up in the bottom left corner of my monitor but not on the audience monitors. I could not drag it, just expand it. Luckily nobody wanted to do Karaoke, so I just used Microsoft Media Player. I do not know what a codec is. But, I noticed that someone said they just changed the .AVI to .WMP. Is that all there is to it? Or is there a certain proceedure I need to follow?

This isn't a codec problem, it a setting up of video problem, direction are in the manual as well as a number of threads including this one


Sam

[scottccook]

OK, I tried all of that, and it did not work. Had the singers display on all the other monitors, tried playing a music video, all other monitors went black and video was diplayed full screen on my computer monitor. Wierd! Played a karaoke song and it showed up on all the other monitors. By the way, the videos are not .avi, I'm trying to remember, I think they were .MPEG. or something like that. Anyway, thanks for trying, but that wasn't it.