VideoMach is using a superior installer that protects your system from possible damages. The message above appears in these cases:

1. Incomplete download. Compare downloaded file size with the file size displayed on the download page. If they are different then your download was incomplete and you must download it again.
2. Your system was infected by a virus some time ago. Anything new that you download to an infected computer becomes infected too. Clean up your computer using FreeAV or other antivirus. Then download VideoMach again.
3. VideoMach was downloaded from an unreliable source. Please download it from: Gromada.com.

For over 15 years all versions of Windows have a well-known limitation in the "Open File" dialog. It cannot return more than 64 kilobytes of text containing file names. In practice this means that 99% of Windows applications can't open more than 1000 or 2000 files using at once.

So we don't recommend using Ctrl+A, Shift-click or Ctrl-click feature of Windows Open File dialog. There are other ways:

• Automatic image sequence detection: If you are opening a sequence of numerated files ("pic0001.jpg", "pic0002.jpg", "pic0003.jpg", etc.) open just the first image. Don't use the multi-select Windows feature, which causes problems. Instead, open just the first image. VideoMach will most likely automatically recognize the entire sequence. This is the fastest way to open a large sequence of images. It works only if images are sequentially numerated. If any number is skipped, image sequence will be open up to that position.
• Drag'n'drop: Start Windows Explorer and select the files you wish to open. Click the first selected file and drag it to VideoMach. It is important that you drag the selection by dragging the FIRST file. Otherwise the files won't be sorted in the order you see them in Explorer. That's how Windows Explorer works.

Sometimes it may happen that VideoMach opens just a part of an image sequence. In that case please verify that your images comply to the "Image Sequence Rules". This is described in VideoMach help.

In short, there should be no missing numbers. If you have a sequence named like this: pic001.jpg, pic002.jpg, pic007.jpg, VideoMach will only open images 001 and 002, but not 007 because numbers 3, 4, 5 and 6 are missing.

There can be several reasons for that, including K-Lite Codec Pack issues (see below). But the most common reason is that audio and video of each file have slight differences in duration. This difference can be only 50 milliseconds per file, but after joining 10 files together it adds up to 0.5 seconds which is noticeable.

To see whether a single file has video and audio of equal duration, click on the file and press F5. VideoMach will display file info where you can see lines "Video duration" and "Audio duration". They should be approximately equal, or at least not more than 5 milliseconds (0.005 seconds) different. If that's not the case, click on File > File > In/Out Points > Sync Audio and Video. You can even select multiple files and click this option. It will change duration of the longer track (whether audio or video) to match the shorter track. This works only for A/V tracks that are linked together.

Windows XP: Install Windows Media Runtime 11. It can be downloaded from here:

http://www.mediamonkey.com/sw/WMFDist11-WindowsXP-X86-ENU.exe

Windows Server 2003: Install special Microsoft codec pack from this location:

http://gromada.com/dl/extra/wvc1dmo.exe

Windows 98 / 98SE / ME: Install Windows Media Runtime 9 from this location:

http://nic.dnsalias.com/wmfdist.exe

Windows 7 / Vista: It already has Windows Media Runtime included. If codec doesn't work start Windows Update and download a newer version of the Windows Media Runtime.

Even though K-Lite is one of the best codec packs, certain problems may appear after installation.

AVI: Files with 48000 Hz audio are reported to have 8000 Hz sample rate. After conversion the audio may be missing altogether.
Solution:

1. Uninstall other codec packs you previously installed.
2. Download the latest version of K-Lite and start its setup.
3. During installation, when asked to Select Components scroll down the big list until you see DirectShow audio decoding filters and uncheck the MP3 item.
4. Continue installation as usual.
5. Convert your files again.

MPEG-2: After converting from MPEG-2 to another format the picture is frozen.
Solution:

1. Assuming that K-Lite is already installed. Click Start > Programs > K-Lite Codec Pack > Configuration > Codec Tweak Tool.
2. Click on Manage the installed DirectShow filters, then click Next.
3. Scroll down the list until you find title DirectShow filters that belong to Windows.
4. Below that find the subtitle Disable the following active filters.
5. Under that find a sub-item named Microsoft MPEG Splitter and put a check mark next to it. Click Next, then Finish.
6. Convert your files again.

You can increase capabilities of VideoMach by installing external codecs. Not all formats are fully supported, but a fair percentage is. Download K-Lite Codec Pack from this site and install it to add extra codecs to Windows:

www.CodecGuide.com

After the output file is created VideoMach can:

1. Play the newly created file.
2. Display the "Produced Files Information" dialog (default).
3. Do nothing.

Go to Tools > Options > Output and choose the default action.

Codecs are not part of VideoMach. They are made by independent software developers. You can download each of them from their manufacturer's web site, or install a single codec pack, like K-Lite Codec Pack to get all relevant codecs. Please note there are some issues with K-Lite explained in earlier in this document.

Some codecs report that they can handle any picture size, while in fact they work only on sizes divisible by 4, 8 or 16. If the output resolution is, say, 357x240 pixels the codec may fail because 357 isn't divisible by 4. VideoMach has an option to make the picture resolution divisible by any number you wish. In the Resize filter enter the desired number in the "Make resolution divisible by" edit box.

Visit this web site for more details:

http://www.karljones.com/halflife/movies2.asp

Manufacturers of some set-top boxes named their video format "HAV", same as our HAV format. These proprietary formats have nothing in common with Gromada High-quality Audio Video format. Gromada HAV is an open multimedia format with published specifications and open source support library. Other HAV formats are closed, without published specifications, making it impossible to be supported by our software. As soon as they publish the specs we'll be happy to add support other HAV formats.

This happens when you're saving to MPEG and the frame rate isn't officially supported by the format. By design MPEG supports only a few predefined frame rates. These are: 23.98, 24.00, 25.00, 29.97, 30.00, 50.00, 59.94 and 60.00 fps. Other values (such as 15 fps) aren't accepted.

But you can slow down or speed up your video in a different way. Select the file(s) you wish to slow down and click File > Input Settings. In the Input Frame Rate field enter a lower frame rate (say 15 fps) to slow it down. Even though the output frame rate can be 25 or 30 fps, the change in the input frame rate will cause videos to appear slower (or faster).

The size of output file depends on the video codec, data rate, key frames and other factors. If you're saving to AVI click File > Save As > Video > Codec Settings and choose one of MPEG-4 codecs like XviD, DivX or similar. To additionally shrink the file decrease bit rate by clicking the Configure button. Low bit rates produce smaller, lower-quality files. Don't forget to compress the audio as well. Switch to the Audio tab and click Codec Settings button to choose the appropriate codec (MP2, MP3, WMA, etc).

If you're saving to MPEG click File > Save As > Video > Codec Settings and lower the Average Data Rate and Maximum Data Rate values.

MPEG-2 is a heavily patented format. Many companies have unresolved patent rights on parts of MPEG-2, so even after paying royalties to MPEG licensing organization it doesn't guarantee one won't be sued for patent violations. Even Microsoft had legal problems with MPEG-2 format. For that reason the built-in MPEG-2 decoder in VideoMach is disabled, but it's possible to decode MPEG-2 using independently installed DirectShow codecs.

Visit the web site of the hardware manufacturer and see if they have a software version of the codec. If that's not the case try searching at the following web sites:

MJPEG codec:
Pegasus Imaging - http://www.pegasusimaging.com

DV codec:
MainConcept - http://www.mainconcept.com

More information about video codecs:
FOURCC.org - http://www.fourcc.org

VideoMach isn't a native Linux application but in most cases it can be run under WINE. Go to www.winehq.org, download WINE for your Linux distribution and install it. Start WINE and install VideoMach. Even after a successful installation VideoMach may not visible in the Start menu, so you may need to run it manually from its installation folder.

We can't guarantee that all VideoMach features work under WINE, although user experiences were positive so far.

To handle files properly VideoMach must get detailed info about each input file. Unfortunately, MPEG files usually have inaccurate header values. The only way to retrieve precise information is to parse the whole file. CD/DVD/Blu-Ray drives typically have disasterous random seek times, which results in slow seeking for the blocks of data. When the same file is copied to a hard disk, parsing is usually about 10 times faster.

Some media players open video files much faster. They deliberately skip collecting the detailed info, which sometimes results in displaying invalid video clip duration.

You're probably using the DivX codec. When queried, some versions of DivX report that they can handle large images (say, 4000 x 4000 pixels). But when a large image is actually passed to DivX, it crashes. Best workaround is to avoid encoding videos larger than 1920 x 1080 pixels using DivX codec. Or you can switch to XviD.

You're probably using the DivX codec. The "Save As" dialog scans for all installed codecs, to present them to you. While other codecs return their names almost instantly, some versions of DivX take lots of time for that simple operation. During that time the "Save As" dialog is frozen. To avoid this problem you can disable DivX and switch to XviD.

Try increasing the data rate. Click File > Save As > Video > Codec Settings and change the data rate.

When saving to MPEG, VideoMach may truncate the length of the video or audio to make their lengths equal. Otherwise some popular media players won't play such MPEGs.

This is a bug in the media player you use (or an active DirectShow filter on your system). Several media components and players resize MPEG videos to 720x480 or 720x576, ignoring the original size. You can use VLC Media Player to check the real size of the clip.

VideoMach has a set of special resize modes for proportional resizing, but since it is a video application, all the output images will have equal width, height and format. Original proportions can be kept by adding borders, clipping or centering. For more details see Advanced Resize Options in the help file.

If you cannot paste something from the clipboard because the Edit > Paste command is disabled, make sure you have activated the right video/audio/filters list. For instance, if you want to paste audio, click on the audio list to activate it, then click Paste.

For patent reasons VideoMach cannot directly create MP3 files, although it can use MP3 codecs to compress audio in AVI files.

The word "Mach" confuses many people, so they pronounce it "Match", "March", "Much", "Machine", etc. Mach is a measurement unit representing the speed of sound in the air, named after the Austrian physicist Ernst Mach.