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"The .avi file has two audio tracks, Spanish and English. When I use a converter to get it ready for my iPod, it will use the Spanish track. How do I get a converter that I can chose which audio track to use?"

Since I don't know which converter you're currently using, I'll offer an easy solution that will get you the result you want without buying more software and an investment of about 5 minutes extra time. Before you covert the video file, open it in VirtualDubMod, modify the audio properties of the file, and save it without needing to recompress the audio. You can either save a copy with the Spanish track still there or overwrite the file and ditch the Spanish track altogether. Here's how it works:

I specifically like VirtualDubMod better for this because it does a better job of displaying audio tracks visually. VirtualDub will also work if you prefer, but the screenshots below are specific to VirtualDubMod.

First download a copy of VirtualDubMod and open your AVI file.

From the Streams menu choose Stream list, which opens a window like the one below. I don't currently have any AVI files with multiple audio streams, but yours should show several tracks here instead of the one in my screenshot.

I would do this in two steps to make sure you get the result you want. Disable the Spanish language track in your file by selecting it in the available streams list and clicking the disable button. Now select the second audio track in your list, which should be the English language track. Click Move up to make it the first track in your list. When this is done click OK.

From the File menu, choose Save As. Name your file and be sure to choose Direct Stream Copy in the Video Mode dropdown menu (this makes sure you aren't recompressing the video). Click the Save button when you've adjusted the settings.

Saving a two hour file this way takes less than 5 minutes, so the process should go fairly quickly. When finished, you should have a video file plays back the English language track by default. Convert this file in your video converter.

Tip: If you have a bunch of files to change audio tracks on, queue them up by checking the Don't run this job now box. You can then run them all by selecting File > Job Control from the menu.

"I recorded an old 8mm movie by projecting it against a white wall and then recording it with my MiniDV Camcorder. When I finished recording the 8mm movie with my camcorder, I played back the tape and still ended up with some flickering in the recorded video. Is there any way to remove the flicker from my video?"

Recording 8mm movies with a camcorder is still the cheapest way to preserve them, but it's not without a few hoops to jump through. If you have a n 8mm projecter with adjustable frame rate, you can generally get flickering down to zero by setting the projector's frame rate to 20 frames per second. Since your projector may not support adjustable frame rate you need to use software instead. The best solution I've found (even compared to some that cost hundreds of dollars) is the freeware Deflicker filter for VirtualDub created by Donald Graft. Here's how it works:

After you download VirtualDub and the Deflicker filter, you need to copy the Deflick.vdf file into the Plugins folder in the VirtualDub folders. This is important or you won't be able to use the filter.

With the Deflicker plugin in the VirtualDub plugins directory, open VirtualDub and open your recorded video file. From the VirtualDub menu, choose Video > Filters. Click the Add button and scroll until you locate the filter in the list.

Double click on the filter to bring up the configuration screen. Initially you need to pay attention to only a couple of these settings:

Windows Size is important. This determines how the software looks for flicker. Many 8mm movies are either 18 frames per second or 20 frames per second. MiniDV is 29.97 in the U.S. and other places that use NTSC and 25 in the rest of the world where PAL is popular. You may have to try different settings, but in most cases a setting of somewhere between 8-10 will eliminate almost all flickering.

If your video was recorded using an interlaced camera (as most MiniDV camcorders are), check the box next to Interlaced source. Leave other settings at default. Softening works similar to smoothing between frames to reduce motion blurring, but can lead to smudgy video if overused. The Scene change threshold is set to determine when scenes change in the video - unless you notice lost of picture due to not setting this, leave it at 256, which means it's disabled.

When you've tweaked the settings to your satisfaction, click OK until you get back to the main editing interface, then save your video.

"Is there any program that can import XviD video clips and combine them to make one video from several smaller videos without losing quality?"

Virtually any video editing application will let you combine several video clips into one larger video. The downside is they almost always recompress the video, which makes it look worse than the individual clips did before you started. One of my favorite tools for combining AVI video clips without any recompression is VirtualDubMod. The only trick to making sure you don't recompress the files is to make sure they are all encoded with the same settings to begin with.

To make this tutorial work, you need to download VirtualDubMod and unzip it.

Combining Files with VirtualDubMod

After opening VirtualDubMod, open the first clip of your series of video clips from File > Open video file or drag and drop the clip on the VirtualDubMod window. In some cases, VirtualDubMod will recognize consecutive clips and import them all, but this doesn't always work so you may need to do the next step and add the clips manually.

Next, choose File > Append Segment to add the next clip in the sequence to the end of the first clip. Repeat this step as many times as necessary to import all clips.

When you have all clips added to the VirtualDubMod timeline, go to the Video menu and choose Direct Stream Copy from the menu.

This is the setting that keeps VirtualDubMod from recompressing your video, which will help maintain the existing image quality of the video.

Finally, choose File > Save As, name the combined movie, and click Save. The whole process should be reasonably quick and the quality of the movie should look the same as the original.

Chris writes, "We have tried Sonic and Roxio to transfer our digital camera movies to DVD. The movies burn to DVD OK, but when we play in our DVD player on TV screens, the movies are pixilated and not clear... is there some way to correct this problem? If I am understanding the 160 box in the bottom of the camera's movie screen window, our recording pixels may be set at 160 x 120 (compact). Any hope for making to big screen? Or is there a way for the video to only play at 1/4 the size instead of full screen - thereby hopefully keeping integrity of video?

160x120 video is never going to look good on a television screen. The resolution is simply too low. What Sonic does when it authors a standard definition DVD is size the video to fit at a standard full screen NTSC television (or PAL television if you're authoring a PAL disk). That means your 160x120 video is getting stretched to approximately 4 times it's original size. You're on the right track with attempting to play the video at 1/4 the size of full screen, but you need some additional tools to make it work.

The solution to the problem is to add a black border around the video to pad it to an optimal size prior to authoring the DVD. To do this, you'll need two tools I frequently mention here: VirtualDubMod and AVISynth. We're going to use the tools to create black bars all the way around the video to center it on the screen and force the DVD authoring software to maintain the video at it's proper size.

Required Software:

VirtualDubMod
AVIsynth

After installing both applications, follow the directions below specific to your video file format.

Putting Borders Around an AVI

If your source file is an AVI, you can force a border within the VirtualDubMod application directly (or with VirtualDub). Open your AVI file in VirtualDubMod and choose Video > Filters from the menu. Click the Add button and choose the resize filter from the list.

On the filter configuration window, leave the original width and height unchanged. Check the box to Expand frame and letterbox image, setting the new Frame width to 640 and the new Frame height to 480. Click OK when you are finished.

Save the file by choosing File > Save As from the menu. When finished open your favorite DVD authoring app and import the AVI you just created with VirtualDubMod and make a DVD.

Putting Borders Around WMV, Real and other Formats

Other formats, like WMV, ASF, MP4 and Real require AVISynth to add a border around the video. This will help you import those files, add a border, and save an AVI you can use in your DVD authoring software.

Note: If you need to add a border around a MOV file, you need to convert the MOV to AVI before attempting to add a border.

Open notepad and type the following, replacing C:\yourfile.wmv with the path to your video:

For 160x120 video use:
AddBorders(DirectShowSource("C:\yourfile.wmv"), 240, 180, 240, 180)

For 320x240 video use:
AddBorders(DirectShowSource("C:\yourfile.wmv"), 160, 120, 160, 120)

Save your notepad file as yourfilename.avs (where yourfilename is whatever you call the file).

If you need to convert a bunch of files, I included AVISynth templates in the VirtualDubMod download.

Open the .avs file you just created in VirtualDubMod. After you add a border around your video with VirtualDubMod save the file as an AVI. Import the AVI you just created into your DVD authoring software and burn a DVD that respects the original resolution of your video.

Here's a before and after show of the video with border in VirtualDubMod.

For more on using VirtualDubMod and AVISynth with video projects see these other tutorials:

Reversing a video clip to play it backwards
Convert PAL to NTSC with VirtualDubMod
How to Convert RMVB with VirtualDubMod

Many of the popular consumer video editing apps lack an effect for playing video in reverse. Windows Movie Maker has no method for playing video backward on the timeline. The Videowave editor included with Roxio Easy Media Creator has no video reverse mode. Using AVISynth and VirtualDub you can play out almost any video file backward, saving an AVI to import into your favorite video editor.

The following method will work for almost any video that plays back in Windows Media Player, including WMV, MP4, and most AVI files. Your mileage may vary depending on which codecs are installed, but installing ffdshow certainly can't hurt.