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When I try to transfer my pictures from my camera to the computer, it turns my computer off. Can anyone help me?

Camera Software vs. Windows Explorer

Are you using the software that came with your camera to transfer the images from your camera to your computer? If so, I’m wondering if the problem might be related to incompatibility with the software or perhaps memory issues. Let’s start with the software and see if you can transfer the photos directly.

First, while your camera may have come with software for your computer, it’s not necessary to use the included software. You might try using an alternate program or Windows Explorer. For example, connect your camera or insert the memory card into a compatible memory card reader (if you have one) and the right click the Start button and click on Explore. This opens Windows Explorer. From there, look for your camera or memory card in the list. It will most likely show up as a drive letter such as E or F. Click the drive letter and you should see a series of folders.

Depending on your camera, you may need to navigate through several different subfolders before you find the actual photos. Once you find the folder containing the images, click Control + A to select them all and then drag and drop to your Pictures folder on your computer. This will copy all of the images from your camera to your Pictures folder.

If you want to try different software, such as Windows Photo Gallery, look for an “import from camera” feature. In Windows Live Photo Gallery, simply go to File > Import from Camera.

Memory Issues

Photo editing is a memory intensive process. I also wonder if memory issues might be crashing your computer when you launch the digital camera’s software and attempt to transfer the photos. Try closing all running programs beforehand and see if the process can proceed now that more memory is available. If so, consider adding additional memory and limiting the number of programs running at once when you need to work with your images.

Camera Connection Type

Another thought is how the camera connects to your computer in the first place. Most come with USB connections. Have you tried using an alternate USB slot? Does your camera have a removable memory card? Depending on how the camera is connected, your computer may have to load device drivers for it, which could also be interfering with operations and crashing your computer. Updated device drivers from your camera manufacturer may solve this problem, so it’s worth checking with the manufacturer’s Web site for both software and device driver updates.

I need a Web player to play the tutorial materials from school.

What a great question - this was a fun one to answer. These days, you need at least one media player in order to access graphics and audio on most websites. The particular player you need for accessing school materials will depend on how the materials were built online - usually the website will tell you what player you need in order to make the site work properly. Often, if you try to play a video or run graphics on a website, you will see a pop-up telling you to get Quicktime or RealPlayer in order to view the content. Occasionally, you will download the player that it says you need, but it still won’t work. I actually went through this with my mother recently. We had to download several media players before we hit on the one that worked and allowed her to view some Flip videos that I had sent her. It’s perfectly fine to have more than one player on your system, so don’t hesitate to add to your viewing arsenal.

Media Players

In no particular order, here are the top five most popular media players along with a link to their download sites:

• Apple Quicktime - Many instructors make slideshows and 3-D panoramas using Apple’s Quicktime Pro, so this is a good one to have if you are doing a lot of schoolwork online. This program works for both Mac and PC users and is used in a variety of digital devices - useful if you download web items to your handheld or cell phone.

• RealPlayer - This media player is also popular with instructors as well as networked radio stations for news, sports and entertainment. RealPlayer focuses on entertainment and has many offerings for music, video and television and games.

• Adobe Shockwave and Adobe FlashPlayer - I’ve lumped these together as they are both Adobe products. You need these applications to enjoy state of the art technology that is used in current web development. They allow you to interact with audio and graphics in web pages and multimedia presentations, particularly in online education.

• Microsoft Powerpoint Viewer -You can download this viewer if your instructor uses PowerPoint presentations on the website he is using and you don’t already have PowerPoint loaded on your computer.

• Windows Media Player - This popular player may already be loaded onto your machine without you knowing it - it comes automatically with the Internet Explorer 5.5 update. It is available for most versions of the Windows operating system and can even be downloaded in a Mac version.

I hope this general overview answered your question and allows you to download the player that you need in order to view your instructor’s information. Just don’t spend too much time watching movies or playing games once you have the ability installed on your computer.

I have an MP3 player: LSC_91N191V_A3. I have my music on there, but when I play the songs, they play for a minute and skip to the next song. It does this all through the playlist.

I can’t tell from the numbers you gave me what the manufacturer for this particular MP3 player is, but it sounds like your player is set to “intro” in the repeat mode. Most models have this feature, and solving the problem depends on your particular player instructions. You may see the word “Pre” for Preview on your screen while it is in Intro mode.

Example Fix

Since I don’t know the kind of MP3 player we’re dealing with, I’m going to give you directions for an Element MP3 player just as an example. If you have a similar setup you can try to follow along with these steps:

1. Start playing a song on the player and press M or Mode button (depending on the model number).
2. Highlight Repeat and press M or Mode again to enter the Repeat options.
3. Choose Intro and then select Normal by highlighting it and pressing M or Mode again.
4. This should get your MP3 player back to playing the entire song rather than the first few seconds and skipping to the next.

Online Manuals

If you have the manual for the MP3 player, you can probably look up “intro” in the book and find out how to get your particular model out of this mode. If you don’t have the manual, go to the manufacturer’s website and see if they have a manual available for download. Most websites have manuals of even older products available for you to use.

The only other issue would be song compatibility with the downloaded songs. Make sure when you are downloading songs that they are in a format that your particular model will accept. While this is a possible cause for your problem, my money is on the fact that it is in intro mode - fiddle with the player, get it back to Normal mode and I’ll bet your problems will be solved.

I have a Vista machine at home and I took clips from a digital camera named aiptek/dv 4500 w/mpeg-4;4mega; mp3; usb2.0 8.55 mm/f3.5 and I can’t seem to get the clips to play through WMPlayer. It keeps asking for codec 11 intel ima adpcm, I can’t find this missing codec, and it’s making me batty.

Windows Media Player Missing Codecs

OK - you are definitely not alone when it comes to this problem. Apparently there is an incompatibility between Windows Vista and Windows Media Player causing this error message. As unbelievable as it seems, Microsoft appears to have overlooked making sure that their latest operating system is compatible with their popular media player. Codecs are small software programs that contain the instructions to open and use different file types, among other things, and Microsoft hasn’t made this one available.

Getting Around the Missing Codec

There are, thankfully, some fixes. You can try one or more of these to get to play your videos, depending on how important using Windows Media Player is to you. The first suggestions bypass WMP altogether, but I think are your safest and best bet. Many users report success viewing their video clips using Windows Photo Gallery, a program included in Windows Vista. It is possible that Microsoft intends users to use this program instead of WMP. You might also have the codec error if you are trying to open .asf files because Windows Media Player reportedly doesn’t support this file type. If this is the case, the instructions below should circumvent the problem.

Play your Video Files with Windows Photo Gallery

1. Right click on the video clip that you want to play
2. Choose Properties
3. Choose Open With
4. Click the Change option on the right side
5. Choose Windows Photo Gallery - if this option isn’t shown, choose Other Programs, then Windows Photo Gallery
6. The video file should open and play in this program, which is reportedly faster than WMP
7. This adjustment should automatically change the ‘open with’ settings for all other similar file types or repeat the steps for each file

Download and Open Files with VLC

Another option is to download another media player that supports the files types you are trying to play. VLC is a very popular player that plays most files. Click the link to download the player, then when you want to play videos right click them and choose to open with VLC.

Try Activating the Windows Media Player Codec

For now, you might have to accept that WMP can’t play your video files. However, here is one option that tries to empower Windows Media Player to open the files. I haven’t tested this theory myself, so I can’t guarantee its success, but there isn’t much harm in trying. If it works, then you might be able to play your videos in WMP after all.

1. Click Start, then Control Panel
2. Choose Sounds and Audio Devices
3. Choose the Hardware tab
4. Click twice on Audio Codecs
5. Right click imaadp32.acm and choose Properties
6. Check that Use This Audio Codec is selected
7. Close and try opening the video file again

My advice is to use Windows Photo Gallery or VLC. Try these options and let us know how it goes and what ends up working for you. If you need any more assistance, let us know. Good luck!

I just bought a Canon VIXIA HF 10 w/HDD. How do I download to my computer the videos I just shot? Normally, I just plug it in and the computer reads it then prompts me. It isn’t doing this with this camcorder.

Nice camera! The Canon uses flash memory to store the videos and photos and typically connects to the computer via a USB cable. There are a couple of different techniques for getting the video off of the camera including importing the video via a movie making software program, accessing the files directly using Windows Explorer, or inserting the flash card into a card reader and accessing the video files directly from the storage device (which is faster than relying on USB transfers).

Using Windows Explorer

If your computer doesn’t pop up a screen prompting you how to open the files it has detected, you can use Windows Explorer to manually navigate through the folders on your camera’s memory card. When you connect your camera or insert its memory card into a card reader, your computer will recognize the media as a drive letter such as F or G. Right-click the Start button and choose Explore. Find the camera or media card in the list and double-click it. You should see the following folders listed:

• AVCHD
• DCIM
• MISC

Your video files are in a subfolder of the AVCHD folder. Click on the BDMV folder and then the STREAM folder. The STREAM folder contains your video files. They will have the .MTS file extension. If your software or video editing program cannot play .MTS files, try renaming the file extension to .M2TS.

Importing Videos on a Macintosh

Some Macintosh users have found importing videos a bit confusing. If you have a Mac, you’ll need to make sure that the camera is in playback mode and fully powered before connecting it to the computer. Then, you open iMovie which will automatically detect the camera and launch the import window.

System Requirements

If you are using the included Pixela Imagemixer 3 SE software to view and edit your videos, your system must meet system requirements in order to playback or edit the videos on your computer. In particular, the processor speed and amount of RAM are critical. For example, if you want to view or edit the videos on your Windows Vista computer, it should have at least 2GB of RAM and either a Pentium D 3.0 GHz or Core2Duo 2.13 GHz (or above) processor as well as huge amounts of disk space available.

Playing MTS Files

The MTS file extension, a high definition MPEG Transport Stream video format, is relatively new. If you don’t want to use the software that came with the camera, other programs can play these files. Consider CyberLink PowerDVD, Sony Vegas Pro, ULead Video Studio, or Corel WinDVD 9 if you have Windows or Roxio Toast or Apple Final Cut Pro if you have a Macintosh.

I have downloaded files but I can’t play them, help?

Media Players

Most programs that are used to download media files also require another program to view or listen to them. For example, if you are downloading torrents with a program like Vuze, you will also need iTunes to play audio files or VLC to watch movies. It is a similar story with programs like Limewire, and you will need some kind of media player in order to use the files you download.

Windows Media Player

You don’t offer any information about the media player you are trying to use, assuming you have installed one. If you are using a Windows operating system, you are likely using Windows Media Player (WMP). If you haven’t yet installed a media player, here’s the link for the latest version of Windows Media Player. Simply click to launch the download then follow the instructions to install the player. There are other media players available, and many are available for free download. Feel free to do a little research and see if there is another player you would like to try.

WMPlugins

On the right side of the Windows Media Player link above there is a link to click for plugins. Plugins are small, additional programs that provide your player with different features. On this site you can get small bits of software that you computer will need for different operations. For example, media users are often told that they are missing codecs - small programs used for compressing and decompressing files and often needed to open downloaded files. You can find a huge number of plugins for Windows Media Player here. If you get errors trying to play certain file types, look on this site for codecs.

Test your Graphics Card and Update Drivers

Once you have your media player properly installed and the codecs you need to play your files you should be up and running. If you are still having problems, you might need to update the drivers for your video or graphics card. To test this theory, visit a video site like YouTube and try to play a clip. If it won’t play, then use Control Panel to check the brand of the video card, then go to the manufacturer’s website to download the latest drivers.

Try Again

I hope that this solves your problem. If not, please let us know the media player you are using, as well as the file extension type. Any additional information from an error message or about your computer’s behavior when it fails to play the file is also helpful. Good luck!