The Fat Green Bar

Have you ever recoded or made a DVD on Windows Vista using the bundled applications (Windows Movie Maker and Windows DVD Maker)? Did the final result include a fat green bar covering the bottom half of the video? Were you using Xvid Videos?

Say hello to one big problem with Windows Vista's bundled software! A green bar coveres the bottom half of the screen and squeezes the poor video in to the top half. You get a beautiful squashed video.

This often happens to those who download Xvid encoded videos from the internet and try to burn them to a DVD or just recode them to WMV (Windows Media Video format). I, myself, sacrificed an expensive Dual Layer DVD to Windows DVD Maker when trying to burn a cool film on to DVD. The result was horrible and I beleive no movie ever deserves such treatment (OK, maybe I am wrong).

**Note that Nero 8 Ultra Edition never worked with DivX or Xvid files for me. Anyone with a solution is more than welcome to comment here and educate me. Thanks.

Solution

Download and install the Xvid Codec (Click Here). Then go to All Programs > Xvid > Configure Decoder. In the "Output" section, enable "Compatibility Renderer".

Voila! Your videos will finally get the proper treatment. No more Fat Green Bar. But still I hope Microsoft does something about this.