[Mike Green]

Funny that you mentioned Nero, John; just the other day I was set to give an intriguing-sounding product of theirs a try, “Nero Multimedia Suite.” Yet during the installation it required three very strange components to go along for the ride, and that’s when I backed off. (Yes, I was skeered.)

Thank you, gentlemen, for your marvelous insight.

Rob, I am not that familiar with Architect, so I simply let the program take care of its job under whatever default settings it happened to have. After you asked whether the program was set for AC-3, I bumbled within to check. There was nothing audio-related under “Options > Preferences,” as far as I could see, but under “File > Properties” for a nonexistent project, the program was default-set at AV-3 Stereo. It only had two other options, “PCM Stereo,” and the Surround version of AC-3.

And John, I second Tom Keane’s enthusiasm for your having pointed out the promising codec program. (How thoughtful of you to have inserted the graphic, too.) I’m not at the whiz-kid stage to really know what to do with such a thing, alas; I can check the video file’s codec, but then what — would I be able to understand that Architect says “Buzz off” the the codec? (Perhaps I shouldn’t sell this GSpot short; it may turn out to be pretty nicely explanatory. Shame on me, as a man, for selling any GSpot short.)

Since you mentioned “MiniDV cameras should be using PCM audio,” that gave me an idea for a little experiment. I changed the audio property on the new DVD Architect project to “PCM Stereo,” and then inserted the gigantic .AVI file, the raw footage that was transferred from my camera. I clicked on preview, but no, darn it, the audio still was dead.

I posted this question elsewhere (greedy brain-picking zombie that I am), and got the clue that perhaps the way I captured the footage was the issue. And yes, it was the first time that I simply plugged the camera into the computer, and allowed whatever Microsoft program that popped up to do the job. (Rather than going through a third party program or contraption, as I have done in the past.) If this rests at the root of the issue, then I am alarmed that the program designers have refrained from making their products as user-friendly as possible. (It was just a basic video capture, after all. The “oh shucks” untinkered end result should have been invited to any club within the computer.)

[Mike Green]

Thank you, John, I appreciated your taking the time to respond. I wish I were as much of a video wizard as many here undoubtedly are, but codec detection is a very weak suit on my end. Right-clicking on the giant .AVI file predictably provided no answer, and the next best thing I had in my computer is a CODEC Detective program called “Sherlock” – but that only informs about which codecs are installed on the computer, far as I can figure.

If your lead lies at the crux of the problem, isn’t it strange that the video produced by a SONY Mini-DV Handycam would present difficult terrain for a program like Architect?