Can I import MPEG-4 files into Windows Movie Maker in Windows Vista?

Windows Media Player 11 recognizes and plays MPEG-4 just fine but WMM doesn't recognize them.  I would like to import some MPEG-4 files into Movie Maker and work with them - is there a codecs or something that allows this? 

I'm sure I can find a program to convert MP4 into a format MM will recognize but if possible I'd like to just skip the conversion step and work with MP4 directly in MM.

Thanks!

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Movie Maker is not compatible with MP4 files...

best bet would be to convert them to .wmv.

The following freebie might be worth a try:

Format Factory

http://www.pcfreetime.com/

All to MP4 / 3GP / MPG / AVI / WMV / FLV / SWF.

All to MP3 / WMA / AMR / OGG / AAC / WAV.

All to JPG / BMP / PNG / TIF / ICO / GIF / TGA.

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John Inzer - MS-MVP - Digital Media Experience

I tried this and it worked great.. thanks so much for the info!

>snip<

I tried this and it worked great.. thanks so much for the info!

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You're welcome and thanks for the update,

Volunteer J - MS-MVP - Digital Media Experience - Notice_This is not tech support_I am a volunteer - Solutions that work for me may not work for you - ***Proceed at your own risk***

According to http://help.live.com/help.aspx?project=wl_movie_makerv1&querytype=keyword&query=elif_xif&market=en-US Windows Live Movie Makerdoes now support MP4 files, but it will not play mine and I am struggling to find the right codecs...

Update as of 19 Feb 2011:  I also found the recommendation about the 'K-Lite Codec Pack' but like the other contributor on this page, I was too scared to try it for fear of screwing more things up...

I've recently done a clean install of Win7 on my laptop (I was using Vista before) and can report that the current version of WLMM DOES open and play correctly (video AND audio) the .mp4 files that I was struggling with before.  It also rotates the video succesfully (from landscape to portrait format). 

Unfortunately, now, movies transferred from another camera's native .mov format won't play properly in WLMM or WMP - they are so jumpy and wildly-pixelating as to be unwatchable, where they were ok with the previous Vista/WMM installation.  Ho hum...  I will post a new thread for help on that.

According to http://help.live.com/help.aspx?project=wl_movie_makerv1&querytype=keyword&query=elif_xif&market=en-US Windows Live Movie Makerdoes now support MP4 files, but it will not play mine and I am struggling to find the right codecs...

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Please update this thread when you find a solution that works.

Volunteer J - MS-MVP - Digital Media Experience - Notice_This is not tech support_I am a volunteer - Solutions that work for me may not work for you - ***Proceed at your own risk***