Managed that although I wasn't expecting one image and a 77MB mp3 file saved as an mp4 to come out at 4.62GB and take four hours to do. I was thinking of sending MAGIX the electric bill. 

Just to get the jargon right, when you save in Magix, you are saving to a proprietary editing format with the extension .MVP. It will be quite small. To get an MP4, you have to Export; same with a WMV, etc. For a DVD or BD, you are also exporting but the term used is Burn, and if you encode prior to burning, meaning that you are making eveything in order to burn, that is known as Encoding.

A single image on one track with an mp3 audio file on a second track should not create a 4.62GB file. What were the export settings? Take a couple of screen shots and post them.

If you don't know how to upload images and video clips to this forum, see this tutorial.

export movie

save video as mp4

that's what I did.

Don't know about mvp extensions, my clips are saved as m2ts.

I'm doing the same thing at the moment, saving an 11-minute clip from a movie as an mp4 video which looks like it will take a few hours judging by the progress.

There you go, remaing time, 1 hour 57 minutes, can't be right can it.

Hi

. . . . remaing time, 1 hour 57 minutes . . . .

That is only an estimate from the program - what was the actual time taken to export as mp4 and the final file size?

What settings did you use for the export?

John EB

I already said that.

Export movie, save video as mp4 (m2ts as it comes out as anyway), then it starts, est time 5 hours or whatever and it takes 5 hours as well, that last thing came out as over 4GB and I only had 1 image and 1 audio file.

I can't work out either how to do it all at once so if I want to make one complete video I have to do each clip at a time, then when I have got them all drag and drop them into a new project again, bit time consuming but at least I can use the program.

Hi

We need more information:-

1. Your computer specification.
    
2. Which version of Movie maker are you using?
    
3. Which codec is being used for importing / exporting? To find this, with Movie Edit Pro open, press the Y key and select the Import/Export tab - it will say either Default or Main Concept in the box shown in the image below circled in red.
    
4. Do you have the options shown circled in blue set as shown in the image below?
   
   
   
    
5. The option you are selecting in the Export, Video as mp4 window - ie which of the presets are you selecting?
   
   The options will be different depending on your answer to 3 above but they will be something like one of these 2 images
       Ignore the top two options not enclosed in the red square - you will not have these - they are custom ones I have made.
   
   OR
   
   

Cheers

John EB

Further to what John EB indicated, what is the length of your video? Look just above the timeline and it is indicated in white, or go to the end with the End key and note the length in hh:mm:ss:frames.

I don't understand why you say "I can't work out either how to do it all at once so if I want to make one complete video I have to do each clip at a time." Why can't you do more than one clip at a time? What exactly are you doing? Post some screen shots.

Here is a quick and dirty video on how to import multiple clips, export to different formats. An mvp file is the extension of the project name. When you "Save" the project, it gets the name that you give it plus the extension .mvp. As I said, please use the jargon - save means the project, export means exporting to a final video or audio format, like mp4. This makes it easier to for us to understand.

This video was recorded in 1920x1080 but exported as 1280x720 to a wmv format. Length of video is 4minutes 35 seconds and the file size is 24.5 MB. This is DVD quality.

Did you try exporting to this format to see the difference?

Thanks guys.

I'll read through this later and follow the advice.

What I meant by saying I don't know how to do it all in one go is whenI use one movie and want to produce clips from it, I can do one in timeline but if I drag the movie into the timeline again to edit the length of what I want, making a second clip, it does not seem to allow me to do that.

Okay this is what I do.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/Pz1SEcs.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i.imgur.com/qYS265O.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i.imgur.com/qXu6NeY.jpg[/img]

In the second screenshot I don't select anything because I have exported it and selected mp4 so I don't know that I must do anything else. In the third screenshot it shows the video being made.

Ohter information needed - I missed that post, sorry or I would have answered before.

Your computer specification.

WHAT IS THIS?

Which version of Movie maker are you using?

MOVIE EDIT PRO

Which codec is being used for importing / exporting? To find this, with Movie Edit Pro open, press the Y key and select the Import/Export tab - it will say either Default or Main Concept in the box shown in the image below circled in red.

Do you have the options shown circled in blue set as shown in the image below?

[img]http://i.imgur.com/mTOm2hJ.jpg[/img]

WELL AS YOU SEE FROM THE SCREENSHOT WHEN I SELECTED IMPORT/EXPORT I DO NOT HAVE ANY BOXES TO THE RIGHT.

And why do my image links not show here? Also I must copy and paste them into a box which is like using Windows Paint - this is unusual, a linked image should just show up.