I have a stock video in .mov format. I need it in .avi so I can import it to Windows Movie Maker. I'm using VLC to do the converting.

I can convert using VLC no problem, but every time I try to import the new .avi into WMM, I get a "The selected file is not valid or is corrupted." error. The video is not corrupted (as it plays just fine in VLC).

This is really annoying, as I just did the same thing with another .AVI (that I exported from Flash) and it worked just fine.

So my question:

When converting the .mov to .avi, which codec should I use to make it readable in WMM?

I usually use an online converter for that. If it's a large file, it may take a while though.

Can you convert it to WMV instead? That would probably be most compatible.

You could try using FFMPEG, or if nothing else works, try playing it in VLC and hitting the record button. It will spit something out into the My Videos folder when you press stop, I think it is avi format for the Windows version. I just tested in and it is MP4 on Ubuntu, so I might be wrong.

I can, but it still tells me that the file is not valid or is corrupted.

I tried that as well. It output an .avi, but it gave me the same error when importing into WMM.

Also, the video I'm using is a 1-second looping video, so I can't lose any of it or it won't loop correctly.

If all else fails you can use FRAPS to record it while it plays in VLC and use that.

Running in to a new problem...

Is there a way to play the video in the background and have graphics over the top of the video? Or is that beyond the capabilities of WMM?