Problem With .avi Files and Windows DVD Maker

[Schultzie]

I'm trying to burn a DVD using Windows DVD Maker, and have been having some problems with the menu and scene screens. It's kind of hard to explain, so I've added some pictures below each paragraph to help you get a better idea of what my problem is (they're contained in the links in case anyone is using 56k).

I want to burn a bunch of .avi files to a DVD. As you can see in the picture below, some show up as thumbnails of the actual videos, but most of them show up as just a plain icon (like the picture below).

http://img710.imageshack.us/img710/7177/18366303.jpg

When I load them into Windows DVD Maker, it shows me a thumbnail of all the videos, including the ones that just showed up as icons before.

http://img691.imageshack.us/img691/6649/66793756.jpg

Once I'm done that I click next and it takes me to the screen where I can edit the menu text, preview the video and all that jazz. The only problem is that the menu and scene selection squares are completely blank when I add the .avi files that showed up as plain icons before. Here's a couple pictures of the menu and scene selection screen so you can see what I mean:

Menu - http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/2918/93882930.jpg
Scene Screen - http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/3509/30802223.jpg

When you click play on the main menu, or click any of the blank scene selection squares, it will play the video files just fine, so I don't think it's a problem with the video files themselves. I even tried burning a DVD and it burns great, too. It just doesn't want to show anything on the menu or scene selection screen for whatever reason.

For comparison, this is what the menu and scene selection screens look like if I use one of the .avi files that originally showed up as thumbnails instead of the ones that showed up as icons (which is what they should look like):

Menu - http://img691.imageshack.us/img691/6460/31502138.jpg
Scene Screen - http://img709.imageshack.us/i/51696384.jpg/

I tried downloading the same clips onto my laptop instead of the desktop I'm using now, and they worked just fine (all showed up as thumbnails instead of icons, and all showed up as video on the menu and scene selection screen on Windows DVD Maker), so I suspect it's probably a problem with my computer and not the files.

Does anyone know why this might be happening, and what I could do to fix it?

Sorry if anyone is still confused about my dilemma. I'm not really the best when it comes to describing computer issues. Haha. If you need to know anything else to help, please feel free to let me know and I'll give you whatever information I can.

Thanks in advance for your help!

[Bob]

That sounds like a codec problem, or possibly because there is no registered thumbnail handler for those video files (which show up without a thumbnail). Are all the extensions .avi?

Depending on the codec used for the video files (I'm guessing Xvid), you should be able to register a thumbnail handler, because it looks like that's what DVD maker is using to get thumbnails, which is strange, because it can interpret the video just fine, so it could make one on it's own.

I'm not really sure if that's the problem, but there's more info on how to fix thumbnail issues here.