When using Roxio Creator Premier 2010 to encode a video to DVD format and burn to disc I received an error. I have been burning AVI, MPEG, MP4, Quicktime, and other video formats using this version of Roxio Creator 2010 for some time so I was surprised to receive an error. Initially I thought that the error was caused by file permissions on the file because a friend had provided it to burn and this was the only initial difference that I could find with the video versus other videos that I had burned. Below I describe how to troubleshoot this error and what I eventually did to resolve and move past this error. In the end I was able to burn this video using Roxio Creator 2010.

Read the rest of this entry »

Someone at work asked me today if I could download a Youtube video for them so they could burn it to DVD for some project. I remembered being able to do this with a Firefox plugin but had forgotten which plugin I previously used. After a quick search I came up with the 1-Click Youtube Video Download Firefox plugin which made the task really easy. Follow the directions below to download Youtube videos.

Read the rest of this entry »

I was looking to convert some AVI videos I had created recently to DVD so my neighbor could watch the videos using their DVD player but I hadn’t done this in quite awhile so I began the search for some good open source software. After awhile I realized I had purchased a desktop recently and I figured it may have software installed by default that would convert and burn these files for me. Sure enough Roxio Pro was installed and it has a tool called MyDVD that will not only convert from many media files to DVD but it will also burn during that conversion. Below I describe how to create DVD’s from any type of media file using Roxio myDVD.

Read the rest of this entry »

I downloaded a video file the other day that had a .MKV file ending and was having a lot of trouble playing this file in the typical video players I had installed. Typically when all else fails I can use DivX Player and install an additional audio or video codec to play pretty much any video file with sound. This file was causing me a little bit more of a problem so I had to do some reading so below I explain some information I found, some things I tried, and the overall final step I took to play this .mkv video file.

Read the rest of this entry »

I had some of the Microsoft Vista Dream Scenes that I wanted to convert to screen savers but I couldn’t figure out a good way to do this in Windows Vista without installing a third party application. I went through a lot of shareware applications that were trying to suck me in to spend money and finally found Video2ScreenSaver which was completely free and works perfect. Below I describe where to download Video2ScreenSaver and how to use it.

First off I was able to get videos working in Windows Vista Ultimate by creating a folder, adding the video I wanted to show as a screen saver, and then pointing the Photos screen saver to that folder. If you decide to do this then make sure to select “Pan and Zoom” under “Use this Theme”. The issue with doing this though is the transition to restart the movie. It fades out for a second and then back to the start of the movie. I wanted a way for the video to loop without knowing it was repeating and that is what I accomplished using the method below.

Read the rest of this entry »