Converting Video

Hey everyone.

I hope this is the right place to ask this.

Wonder if anyone could help out..
I am having the worlds largest pain in the posterior trying to convert movies for viewing on my wm5 device.

Firstly Windows Media Player 11 will not convert a thing on my main desktop PC.. the Encoder Helper crashes everytime.
So I have installed wmp11 on my laptop and that seems to be working.

So i tried to convert a .avi movie. All seemed to go well but when i tried watching it on my device i got sound but a blank screen. Silly me, i forgot to test the movie on the laptop and it was blank there too. So i downloaded the Xvid codecs and installed them.
Now i can watch the movie on the laptop. But wmp11 will not convert it anymore. In it's infinte wisdom wmp11 only tells me "error" and nothing more. Grrrr.

I've tried several other files aswell and they all seem to report error.. Will wmp11 not convert anything but movies encoded with Microsofts own codecs or something?

Ive tried several other encoding tools. But have not managed to get the audio to sync correctly with any of them.

Can anyone shed any kind of light on this subject.. The windows website is awful and i cant find any better places to ask this question.

Note: Im syncing the files to a storage card.. Not that it should make a difference.

You need Windows Movie Maker which for some unknown reason MS decided to hide from view, look in Start - All Programs - Accessories.

You can save for viewing on TV, Computer, Hand held or for e-mailing. It doesn't take long to find your way around it.

First of all i would not bother with windows media at all on the wm5 device, download tcpmp, its free and that will play anything you throw at it. i just download a movie, in say avi put on my sd card and watch it with tcpmp player , no probs at all. also dont forget to install the plugins, if you need the mp4 codec PM me and i will send it you, they dont add this one anymore as default.

For converting dvd's to avi etc the best and quickest program i have found is clonedvd mobile.

Or the imtoo programs and i usually convert to mp4's
Another good dvd converter i have been told is WinAVIVideoConverter but i have not yet had chance to use it.

Always if posible copy the files to the storage card with a card reader, i think doing it through active sync would take ages and might be the out of sync issue your having, dont know though as i always use a card reader.

Thanks for the replies guys,

Firstly I've tried using Windows Movie maker to convert AVis to WMVs.. and while it's ok for short videos the longer ones end up out of sync with the audio. Quite noticibly especially as alot of my videos are music related.

Also I've used TCPMP and it's a good program. However, If i just copy my avi's to my storage card I can only fit 2 on there. WInAvi video converter is good for converting from Mpeg to Avi but Conversion to WMV or to MPEG is down right awful.

Since posting the original message i've tried several things.. Ive converted some AVIs to MPEG and tried to convert those in wmp11 with the same result.. Just plain errors. Like i'm missing codecs..

I'm thinking now that the best thing to do is just to resize my AVIs to 320x240 and play them in TCPMP.. Anyone know a good program to do this?

Thanks for the help. I'd still be greatful for any more insights.

Oh and btw, While copying straight to a card reader seems a tiny bit faster it really isn't much more noticable than copying it to the card through activesync.

Update:
I just tried adding an episode of Futurama to my SD and TCPMP wont even play that.. Says the AC-3 audio codec is not supported.
This is turning into a real pain :P

I know theres a method for gettin all files to the device even if i need to convert them all twice.. I guess it's just a matter of finding it.

Bit of an update..
I tried again with WinAvi. Converting to wmv.
With the settings
Encoder - Broadband (PAL, 384Kbps)
File Size - 320x240
Quality - 100
I get a well synced video that will play in Pocket Media Player.

However, its a long movie and comes out at 200meg. Sometimes the video will pause and then catch back up the audio a second or two later.. A little stuttering now and then.
I think that this is more to do with my v1605 or the SD card rather than the file or the player though.