Why does Movie Maker for Windows stop recording movies from my Sony Handycam after 90 seconds?

Question by GeelPete: Why does Movie Maker for Windows stop recording movies from my Sony Handycam after 90 seconds?
I just purchased a quad-core PC with 4GB memory, 1TB hard drive space, and, sadly, Vista. I have 5 hours worth of video to import from my honeymoon from a SONY handycam HDR-HC7. The firewire connection seems fine–I can watch the whole video on my computer through Windows Movie Maker, I can control the camera through the computer, and I can click “record” to make it start recording. However, even if I let the *WHOLE* one-hour tape run, when I watch the resulting video later, it’s only one minute, thirty seconds long (or so).

The software that came with the camera only seems to want to record it in High Definition, which I don’t want right now to conserve disc space. I have the camera plugged into a wall power outlet, and am using a 4-pin to 6-pin firewire cord. I wasn’t running any anti-virus software while doing the video transfer. I wasn’t running any other software while importing. The camera didn’t give any error message, nor did Movie Maker. Import looked successful. ?

Best answer:

Answer by Dana LN
I think that your Sony Handycam captures video in mpeg 2 format. This format is not acceptable by WMM for importing. WMM accepts the following video files : .asf, .avi, .dvr-ms, .m1v, .mp2, .mp2v, .mpe, .mpeg, .mpg, .mp2v, .wm, and .wmv. If it is so, then you have to convert your video format using media converter. Can try this link :
http://freeware.filehungry.com/english/product/windows_software/multimedia_&_graphics/video_players/video_converter

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