Moving Backgrounds

[mayva]

I have some moving backgrounds that use to work in PSG. But now they no longer do. They don't' even show up in my file menu in PSG.
They are however, in MY FILE FOLDERS under Proshow Gold (does that make sense?)
Anybody know how I can get these to work again?

Oh boy I hope this is making sense. I don't know the techie name for things so please bear with me in my humble explanation.

[gpsmikey Profile Private message]

Well, apparently, it doesn't ring any bells for anybody else either.
Are these backgrounds you installed from somewhere or just what
are they (and what format)?? I don't remember any "moving backgrounds"
that were part of Gold (or Producer for that matter). If they were
something you got from somewhere else, perhaps, it involved some
codec that has managed to get un-installed ? What has changed since
you were able to use them ???

mikey

[mayva]

Mikey Thanks for responding,

Yes, these are backgrounds I got somewhere else. I think the format is .avi and .mov (is that right?) these backgrounds were made especially for PSG and they did work at one time. How do I find out exactly what file format they are in and if they are wrong how do I change them?

What has changed? Sheez I have no idea I am downloading and uninstalling all the time. Maybe perhaps that is what happen.

[gpsmikey Profile Private message]

Well, the "avi" format is not actually a format but a "wrapper" (visualize
a bag or container) that can actually hold several different formats
(there are utilities like the free "gspot" to tell you which codec was
used to encode the files). If they are .mov, then you need to have
quicktime from apple installed I believe to handle them - I don't
think PSG handles .mov direct although I may be wrong. I do
have quicktime for other reasons on my machine, so it is (as the
saying goes ... "transparent to the user" -- which usually means
you can't see just what is going on ). You will need to figure
out just what they are before you can use them. Quicktime is
available both in the free player version as well as Quicktime Pro
that is about $30 if I remember correctly. The free player should
work if that is the issue. Check your files and verify just what they
really are and you can work from there.

mikey

[mayva]

Mikey

Thanks for your help.

I do have Quick Time on my computer. If I recall they originally were in Quick Time format. They seem to be coming in as Nero and I don't know how to change that. Oh well, I will keep playing and see what I can come up with as to what is wrong.

[gpsmikey Profile Private message]

Nero ???? What are the file names (an example) including the
extension ?? filename.mov ?? If so, somehow Nero has become
associated with the .mov type - if they aren't, then we need to
know just exactly what the file type is on those files (the 3 characters
following the "." (dot) in the file name. If you can't see the file type,
you need to go to an explorer window (where you are looking at
your directory, select Tools -> folder options -> view and make sure
that "hide extensions for known file types" is UNCHECKED and it is
also handy to check the "show hidden files and folders" (I hate
hidden things !! ). Let us know what you discover.

mikey

[mayva]

Ok, after looking in my files I noticed that the .mov are in Quick Time. However all the .avi (for these particular files) are Nero Media Files and it is these files that don't work PSG.....is that what you needed to know?

Remember, I don't really know what I am doing with this sort of stuff but is there a way to change these files back to Quick Time???

[gpsmikey Profile Private message]

OK, the avi files can be anything in reality -- remember that the
.avi type is just a wrapper for the file. Without using something
like gspot or knowing just what they were created with, I don't
know which codec was used to compress the files originally.
There are many utilities that can convert between types, however
if either (or both) ends of the conversion involves compression,
you end up losing some image quality. The best thing to do
would be to find out which codec was used to create those files
and get that one installed back on your system so Proshow can
read the file. Do a search on the forum here for codecs and you
will find a number of threads about which to use and how to
install them. So far, I have managed to mostly skip that problem
by staying with normal file formats. The name K-Lite comes to
mind, but I have not used it (there are some free codecs).

mikey

[mayva]

Thanks Mikey

I do appreciate your help. I will look and see what I can find. Thanks for the info.