Hello, helpful people! ^^ Today I tried to add my own video to the sims tv channels. I followed a guide, and created my avi file, 3 minutes length, 128x96 pixels, data rate: 200 kbps, total bitrate 392 kbps, framerate: 15 frames/second. audio bitrate 192kbps, stereo. File has a 5.26 MB size.
My problem is the video still causes my game to crash when it shows up on the sims tv, even if I did everything to make it as small as possible. What else could I do to make it work?
I'm using windows 7.

Thanks for any help!!

Anyone???

I'm thinking it's possibly your frame size. There are a bunch of tutorials about this on the web , but unfortunately I don't think any of them are very complete with regards to specs. All of these http://modthesims.info/showthread.p...5#startcomments and http://www.ehow.com/how_8637239_cre...ion-sims-2.html and http://www.blackpearlsims.com/showt...my-own-Any-help state that the frame size needs to be 128X128. I know this not to be true ( at least for me) , because I have over 130 custom made avi's in my Movies folder that play without problems , almost none of which is 128X128. The vast majority are 320 Frame width by 240 Frame height. I see from your post that you are working with a 128x 96 setup for the avi that is crashing your game.

I remember trying to help someone with this at Insim years ago , here is the link http://www.insimenator.org/index.ph...html#msg1612300 to that. I had just been messing with them for a year or so when I responded to that post. I remember that certain frame sizes caused the problem I describe in that thread of the picture only occupying about 70% of the screen. I later either deleted those avi's or converted them to the 320x240 that I've had good luck with. Unfortunately , I can't recall the specs of those that caused the problems , but none caused crashing or anything remotely like it , just an image that occupied about 70% of the screen , but was identical (in other aspects) to the video it was initially made from.

I'm way too lazy to look at the specs for all (or even many) of my working avi's but the ones I clicked are also 25frames/second rather than the 15 which seems to be universally suggested./recommended and the Data rate and Total bitrate seem much larger than those you posted as well. Here are sample specs from one Avi that plays fine
Length 5:05 ( I was wrong in that post at Insim on this , I don't know if there is a max length , but this plays in its entirety), Frame width 320 , Frame height 240, Data rate 417kbps , Total bitrate 515 kbps , Frame rate 25 frames/second , Audio Bit rate 97kbps , stereo. File is 18.7 megs in size.

I'm also playing on windows 7 , but everything I mentioned also applied to Vista when I used to play on that OS. I'd try the 128x128 size or the 320x240 size by converting your vid to one of those and see if that stops the crashing ( and displays/plays properly) if it doesn't work , please post again and if I can think of anything else I'll try to help. Good luck!

Hello, and thank you for answering! ^^
I have tried using 128x128 size, along with the other settings I mentioned in the first post, but it still made the game crash. I will try a video with the exact specs you mentioned.
Also, could it, by any chance, matter what program I use to convert my video from mp4 to avi? (Windows movie maker won't save as avi). I currently use an online converter.

I had a problem one time with playing videos in my Sims 2 game also. It was cause by me adjusting video codecs from my system. I'm guessing that I mistakenly did something in another program that made the game (and certain other programs) not recognize the videos. So...I re-installed Windows after backing up. Bad news, took lots of time to re-install everything. The good news is I made a checklist and DVD of programs to use in reinstalling for the future!

Okay, now hopefully that's not the case. For my game, it seems like it takes videos in 1:1 aspect ratios. And specific resolutions like 128x128, 256x256, 512x512, 1024x1024 (e.g. not 200x200 because it will leave black areas on the right side of the videos).

If you do want to convert videos offline on your own computer, you can try this free program: Super(R) (http://www.erightsoft.com/Superdc.html) Video Converter/Encoder/Recorder. It converts to several formats and is free.