What is causing my videos to be choppy and flicker?

Anonymous
2013-08-01T22:34:21+00:00

I have created numerous movie maker projects without any issue in the past.  Yesterday I created a project which includes both photos and video clips.  Everything played fine.  I saved the project in order that I could burn it to CD.  But once saved, the videos included in the project are choppy and flicker.  Did I miss some kind of change?  Can anyone help?

Windows for home | Other | Music, photos, and video

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Anonymous
2014-10-17T03:57:28+00:00

Thank you for the information above but I don't understand any of it.  I was running Movie Maker 2011 when my issue started.  One of your techs suggested I upgrade to Movie Maker 2012 and that only made things worse by causing all my previous projects that included videos to flicker as well.  I have no idea how to uninstall and reinstall anything and have no intention on trying unless I have very good step by step instructions.  And no one has ever given me any help in that way.  I am the only user on my laptop so don't understand why I would set up a 'new user account'.  I did check my resolution and it is set to 1366 X 768.

My question prior to your last response was to the user who said she was able to do an update that fixed her problem.  I just wanted to know the steps she took to fix her problem.

Lynnette Hay

Hi Lynnette,

Sorry to hear you are still having the video problems.

Just wanted to let you know my video issues seem to be fixed with Windows Movie Maker.

I recently made a new project and short video.

When I opened Movie Maker, Windows Live 2012 automatically downloaded an update.

I let it run, and Movie Maker restarted when the update finished.

When I finished my movie project and saved it as a WMA video file it was totally fine.

No flickering or colour distortion like before.

This may not help you as my computer uses a Nvidia graphics card, and yours is Intel based.

I know its frustrating and you have probably heard this many times.

But have you run your Windows, and Intel updates recently?

To manually find and run Windows Update on your computer

Control Panel\System and Security\Windows Update

Also try opening Movie Maker and see if it automatically runs the update like it did for me.

The Intel website will automatically detect what you need

http://www.intel.com/p/en\_US/support/detect

Kind regards

Brendan

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  1. Anonymous
    2013-08-05T18:21:37+00:00

    Hello,

    OK - I have selected the link above but when I entered my model number and/or serial number, the message says there are no updates available.  So if I don't add the model or serial number, there is a list of things to pick and I have no idea what to select.  Can you provide some step by step help?  Am I downloading Toshiba video driver or Microsoft video driver? 

    With regard to your other questions:

    1.  No the movies do no play properly on media player.  The only time they play properly is in Windows Live Movie Maker, i.e. where I create the project.

    2.  I am confused by this question because that was one small clip compared to many others I have made in the past and never had any choppy results.  But to answer the question, yes I have tried smaller and I have tried bigger and they all play choppy and flicker.

    3.  I experimented yesterday by burning the Windows Live Movie Maker project directly to CD.  And it was still choppy.

    I really need some better instructions on updating my video driver. 

    Thank you again.

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  2. Anonymous
    2013-08-05T21:05:59+00:00

    Hi LynnetteHay,

    Thanks for posting back. I forwarded the information you provided to our support specialist for further advise and investigation. We'll update this thread as soon as possible.

    Regards,

    Richard

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  3. Anonymous
    2013-08-06T05:00:39+00:00

    Thank you Richard.  I just wanted to highlight the following:

    1.  My videos are not choppy or do not flicker in my Windows Live Movie Maker project.  It is only when I save the project using any of the available 'save' options that the videos within my movie maker project are choppy (pictures within my movie maker project are never choppy).

    2.  I have followed this process to burn my movie maker projects to CDs for a couple years and the issue has only just started.  So unless there was a very recent update to the video driver, I do not see why that would be the issue.

    3.  And if the video drive is the issue, (and forgive my ignorance) I need to know if there are more than one video driver that needs to be updated, i.e. Toshiba, Microsoft, Windows 7, or are they all the same under these circumstances?

    4.  I am set up for automatic updates so I don't understand why I wouldn't have received all updates.

    Looking forward to a resolution.  My computer jargon is not so good so please keep the instructions in my 'language' and step by step is helpful.

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  4. Anonymous
    2013-08-08T06:53:41+00:00

    Hello Lynnette,

    After our support specialist reviewed the information that you've provided, the original video files does not play smoothly on Windows Media Player, it is possible that there is a problem with the specific video files that is causing the choppy appearance and flickering. The files might be shorter than the previous files that she used but, it is also possible that the file size of these videos are large and might cause it to not play properly on your computer. To verify this, right-click the original video files and click Properties. It should show the file size of the videos. Movie Maker also has the feature to prepare files before editing. To see this, open the program and click Alt+F then I on your keyboard then click Advanced. Check the Prepare files sfor faster editing. By checking this option, it will optimize the video file during editing so it will be edited and be previewed smoothly. Since the original files won't play smoothly, please reduce the quality first of the video by adding it to Movie Maker one at a time then, save it using the For Computer settings. If the video now plays smoothly, then use that file to create the final project.

    We'll await for your response.

    Thank you.

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