As a user of Camtasia video editing software, many times I have come across a problem that cost me a long time. I guess if I had taken the time to visit TechSmith’s knowledge base or perhaps looked for a solution online, I might have found an answer to my problem right away. In fact, I didn’t take any of those options. We will simply attribute it to the masculine which is similar to not stopping and asking for directions. I made the motto of an alternative method to overcome the problem, but that method is far from ideal.
I don’t know how many people edit WMV files with Camtasia; Sometimes I am called to do so. Most of the time I deal with the Camtasia file known as .camrec or AVI files as the input source for a video project. These two types of input files work very well in Camtasia and never cause problems. It is the WMV file type that has an incompatibility problem with Camtasia Studio.
The problem I am referring to occurs when importing a WMV file which causes the following warning message:
C: /bla/bla/blablabla/xx-xx-xxxx-xx.wvm has a abnormal script sequence which can cause production problems.
For me there is no “can” about it, there is a production problem and sometimes even an editing problem. What I used to do to solve this problem was to use Camtasia screen recorder to re-record the WMV video in .camrec format. As you can imagine, this took a long time and was a huge waste of time. You see there is another statement in the error message that would have saved me a lot of time if only I had acted on it. It sounds quite complicated, so I opted to look for another solution: my mistake.
“For best results, you can use the Windows Media File Editor to move the script stream for this video clip to its header before importing it into Camtasia Studio.”
After searching a bit recently, I found the Windows Media file editor on my PC. With a little more poking around in the WMFE, I was able to find a one-click command that solved the problem. Under the File tab on the top toolbar there is an option to “Move scripts to header …”. Needless to say, I am punishing myself for not taking the time to take the action that the warning message provides. Hopefully this hasn’t happened to you.
Here are the steps to solve this problem in less than a minute.
- Open Windows Media File Editor. In Windows 7 and Vista I found it in Start – All Programs – Windows Media / Utilities / Windows Media File Editor.
- On the File tab, click Open to upload your WMV file.
- Once the file is open, go back to the File tab. Click the Move scripts to header … option.
- Again, on the Files tab, click the Save and Index … option.
Now all that is left to do is import the WMV into Camtasia to complete your project.