PCA Forums

I use windows media center to record programs, such as Ohio State football games, but i need to edit some of the crap out, so that they will actually fit on one dvd. i attempted to use windows movie maker, but it said that it wasnt the correct file format. so does anyone know of a good free program to use to edit vidoes, or a program where i can change the file format.

as always, any help is greatly appreciated...

what file format are the recorded videos? you are gonna need something to convert the files to mpeg-2 (dvd) format and depending on what they are, you would need to use different programs to convert.

Virtualdub works with anything if you have the proper codec.

i downloade Virtualdub, and i get an error saying that it could not open the file because it was an ASF file, which is copyrighted by microsoft, and will not let third parties access it....

Media Center uses a proprietary codec. It's based on the WMV codec, but it's not the same.

You have to convert it to something else to be able to edit it. Only app that I've found that works is DeskShare's Digital Media Converter: http://www.deskshare.com/dmc.aspx

I've converted MCE recordings to WMV and to Divx. You can convert it to WMV and then use movie maker. Or you can convert it to an MPEG2 and use any of the numerous MPEG2 editors available.

I use the following settings for WMV:
Select "WMV For Desktop Viewing", "DVD quality video (1Mbps CBR)", "CD quality audio (CBR)"
This results in 30 Min = 200Mb

For Divx I use:
"AVI", "DivX 6.0 Codec" (you have to install the Pro Codec - I use the one installed by the Divx Create Bundle when it was being offered for free last month), "IMA ADPCM audio codec"
This results in 30min = 300Mb

To keep from having audio sync problems I don't use MP3 as the audio codec for Divx. Using MP3 would make the video file smaller, but I gave up on it. Every other video would have sync issues and it's just not worth the aggravation. Using the settings above you'll never have sync problems.

You may not need to edit it at all - just converting it to WMV will substantially reduce the file size. At best quality a half hour MCE file is 1.2Gb. Converting it to WMV will shrink it to 1/6th the size.

Be aware that it takes (depending on your processor) at least 1-1/2 times the run time of the video to convert it so I do my conversions over night. The nice thing is that Digital Media Converter does batch conversions so you can specify multiple files to convert and then let it run all night.

So if your using a hauppaugge pvr-150 or whatever card in Media Center it transcodes it or encryptes it in some fashion? The hauppaugge pvr cards all have hardware mpeg-2 encoding and thats all you can get out of them. You can't get an ASF file out of it.

you can also use virtualdub for capture, you could capture directly to avi. you keep a small filesize for watching on the pc, or if you want to put on a dvd, then avi's are much easier to convert than asf.

or, if you have the hardware, codecs and drive space, you could capture directly to mpeg-2. from there, all you have left to do is author it and burn.

did you pay for the subscription of this, or did you just use the evaluation copy??

rndmtask: Media Center uses a proprietary codec. Yes it captures in MPEG2 from the capture card and then transcodes real-time to the .dvr-ms format.

beef: I bought the program.

after six hours it was only half way through phase 1, and i had to cancel it, because i had to shut down my computer, due to a scheduled power outage..

Yes, it takes a LONG time to convert MCE files. Takes much longer than converting anything else. I do it on a dedicated system overnight.