Topic: Inability to Burn a WMV file (Read 3185 times)

Houckster · « **on:** March 11, 2012, 05:46:03 am »

I have a film I want to write to a DVD-R. It's in the .WMV format. I clicked on "Burn Disc" after dragging the file into the box. Then MC started but then it seems to be doing nothing. Burn Progress indicates "authoring" but there doesn't seem to be any activity, no burn progress no error message. Nothing! I am assuming that it can convert a .WMV file to a format suitable for a DVD movie but after 15 minutes, there still seems to be no progress.

Also, when I try to play the movie, I get the sound but not the video.

Can anyone help?

Houckster · « **Reply #1 on:** March 12, 2012, 04:49:47 am »

There's an answer to this. I know it! Bump!

Houckster · « **Reply #2 on:** March 13, 2012, 05:11:46 am »

Bump!

JohnT · « **Reply #3 on:** March 13, 2012, 01:31:09 pm »

Let's try to get it playing first, it's probably the same problem as for video burning. Can you send a log file after attempting to play this file? Send it to johnt at jriver dot com. Thanks.

Houckster · « **Reply #4 on:** March 13, 2012, 01:58:16 pm »

Somehow, the file plays now. Maybe it's just my inexperience with this aspect of the program. I am now trying to burn a disc. As before it is stating that it is authoring but there does not appear to be anything going on. There's no error message, the drive light if off and there's no indication of progress in the "BURN PROGRESS" window. I don't know if it means anything but the active tab at the top reads "Blank CD" but the disc loaded is definitely a DVD-R.

JohnT · « **Reply #5 on:** March 13, 2012, 03:26:46 pm »

I was able to burn some WMV videos to DVD here. I added some debugging statements in the authoring section of the program, which will be in the next build of Media Center. Email me if you would like to try a test build right away.

Houckster · « **Reply #6 on:** March 13, 2012, 03:45:48 pm »

Thanks for the help. There's no real rush. From past experience, I guess we'll see the next update within a week and that's good enough for me. I'll keep an eye out and test the new version. I'll let you know. Thanks for your help.

JohnT · « **Reply #7 on:** March 13, 2012, 04:09:29 pm »

I was able to reproduce the problem with further testing, so the next build should have a fix. Let us know your results when you try it. Thanks.

Houckster · « **Reply #8 on:** March 14, 2012, 04:05:13 pm »

There doesn't seem to be any change from the previous version. I load the disc, click "BURN" and it freezes at the authoring step. No error messages, no disc activity, no indication of progress.

Houckster · « **Reply #9 on:** March 15, 2012, 07:53:41 am »

Tried again this morning. No luck, maybe there's a setting that's the problem. I've checked all the DVD settings and they seem OK.

JohnT · « **Reply #10 on:** March 15, 2012, 09:50:31 am »

Sorry, you have build 106 and build 107 has the added logging and error handling added.

Please try converting your wmv video to mpeg-2 because I think that's where the problem lies. Just right-click on the video in Media Center and select Library Tools -> Convert Format. Now select "MPEG-2 NTSC 480P" in the "Convert to:" box. Now click the convert button and see if the conversion finishes Ok or if it fails.

Houckster · « **Reply #11 on:** March 15, 2012, 12:39:23 pm »

When will build 107 be available. The latest I see is 106.

JimH · « **Reply #12 on:** March 15, 2012, 12:52:23 pm »

Next week.

JohnT · « **Reply #13 on:** March 15, 2012, 01:18:39 pm »

You can try the video conversion now though, to see if that is the problem.

Houckster · « **Reply #14 on:** March 15, 2012, 02:05:27 pm »

I did try and what I got was a sidecar file: Fraulein_mpg_JRSidecar. Is that what was supposed to happen?

JohnT · « **Reply #15 on:** March 15, 2012, 03:02:52 pm »

No, the sidecar file is always created whenever a video file is imported into your library. It's purpose is for storing meta-data associated with the video. Following conversion, you should see a file with the same name as your original video file but with an "mpg" extension rather than a "wmv" extension. When doing the conversion, you can click the "Details" link which will show you the status of the conversion in the left-hand column, and shows the filename of the converted file in the far right-hand column.

Houckster · « **Reply #16 on:** March 15, 2012, 04:15:37 pm »

Well it seems this is where the problem is. No MPEG file is created. All I have is the original WMV file and the sidecar.

JohnT · « **Reply #17 on:** March 16, 2012, 12:23:31 pm »

Do you know if this file is protected by DRM (Digital Rights Management)? That might be the case if you purchased this video from somewhere. Media Center won't be able to convert DRM files.

If that's not the problem, there must be something else about this particular WMV format that's causing problems. I did a test burn of about 15 different WMV files that I have on my system and they converted ok. Do you have a small WMV file that exhibits the problem that you could send to me?

Houckster · « **Reply #18 on:** March 16, 2012, 01:38:57 pm »

The file was purchased from Amazon. If the file is DRM-protected, then MC should be able to tell me this. This would prevent a lot of confusion.

JohnT · « **Reply #19 on:** March 16, 2012, 02:28:34 pm »

Doing a little Googling on Amazon WMV files tells me that they are likely DRM protected. I agree that there should be a clear error message about the DRM protection. We'll fix that. Sorry about the hassle, files with DRM can be a real pain!

Houckster · « **Reply #20 on:** March 16, 2012, 03:31:10 pm »

[Off limit post removed by JimH -- removal of DRM]

Houckster · « **Reply #21 on:** March 16, 2012, 06:01:51 pm »

I don't understand! ?

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