No sound from .avi files in Movie Maker.

[gingernut]

Hello learned friends,

kids have just bought me a video camera which records in .avi files. Seems to work ok, but no sound when importing clips into windows movie maker.

Tried downloading a converter (AVS), which seemed to work in the trial version. Any simpler (and cheaper ) way, cheers, Ginge

[Spurlash2]

Try THIS (http://www.vlcmediaplayer.org/download.html). VLC Media Player, a free to download, open-source multi-platform media player, framework and server, featuring a vast array of free special features.

[spannersatcx]

what about the software provided with the camera?

[gingernut]

thanks for the replies, tried to download VLC, but my virus software got a bit nervous. The software with the camera downloads the .avi file, and plays ok, but when I try and use it with it's own "movie maker" and windows movie maker, no sound.

Had a look on google, keeps mentioning something about a CODEC

[The Flying Pram]

".AVI" is just a container - the actual video and audio files within can be of a variety of formats. Undoubtedly your audio file is encoded with a codec that WMM can't handle. "Codec" is short for Code - Decode, or the actual mathematical algorithm which is used to compress the analogue signal into digital form, and then convert it back to analogue later.

VLC will play almost any combination, and can be used to transcode to different formats, but I've always found it to be rather hit and miss for that purpose. I use a free video converter called "Any Video Converter". I've just converted a short .avi clip to WMV using it, and that imports into Windows Movie Maker and plays OK.

If you want to get VLC make sure you obtain it from a genuine source. The Videolan website redirects to here: Download VLC media player from SourceForge.net (http://sourceforge.net/projects/vlc/files/1.1.10/win32/vlc-1.1.10-win32.exe/download)

I've just downloaded it and neither Avast! or Malwarebytes find anything wrong .

Any Video Converter is here: Free Video Converter - Any Video Converter Freeware - convert video free to AVI, MP4, WMV, MKV, MPEG, FLV, SWF, 3GP, DVD, MP3, WebM, iPad, Android, PSP, Tablet PC (http://www.any-video-converter.com/products/for_video_free/)

[Mike-Bracknell]

CODEC = COder/DECoder = something which encodes/decodes specific media streams.

Basically, it seems (from first viewing) that your camera writes AVIs in a slightly different format than Movie Maker expects. Hence either loading a CODEC which will convert your camera's audio stream OR converting your AVIs to a different format which will work with Movie Maker (and other Windows apps).

[Spurlash2]

Gingernut,

I can confirm that AVC is good programme (great for iplayer!), as I have just used it to change a .VBO to .avi to .wmv. It now plays nicely in Movie Maker! You probably won't need VLC at all.

[gingernut]

Thanks folks, AVC works a treat:ok:

Can't wait to bore you allwith my home made movies :)

[The Flying Pram]

Don't forget to experiment with the video bitrate. This will have a considerable bearing on the output file size, and also the picture quality.

[gingernut]

cheers :-)