Walker News

Windows Movie Maker: Fix The Half Green Bar Problem In The Movie Made

Copyright © Walker 20 Jul 2008 16:01
Windows Movie Maker (WMM) is one of the value added software bundled with premium editions of Windows Vista, that allows users to edit and publish movie into supported video formats.
Although WMM is not competitive as compare to professional, commercial video editing software, it’s good enough for general purpose of most users.

You could mix all supported video, music and picture files to create your own movie with creative combination of transitions, effects, titles and credits.

WMM allows users to split video or to extract audio track from video clip too.

However, there is a potential problem that could make the published movies look really suck!

It happen to me this morning and I’m really upset and frustrated as this Windows Movie Maker published the video with half green stripe problem in Windows Vista.

As shown in this screenshot, that annoying Windows Movie Maker-made “half green bar” split the video full screen resolution into a half horizontally:

Windows Movie Maker published half green bar movie problem.
Windows Movie Maker published half green bar movie problem.

How to fix the Windows Movie Maker half green bar problem?

I believe that’s caused by some video decoders/encoders (a.k.a. video filters). But, I’ve no idea which specific filters are exactly causing the green stripe problem.

Luckily, Bernie knows the solution! Now, the Windows Movie Maker green stripe problem has gone (I believe):

Windows Movie Maker published Star War movie footage with a perfect screen resolution, without the annoying half green stripe problem.
Windows Movie Maker published Star War movie footage with a perfect screen resolution, without the annoying half green stripe problem.

All you’ve to do is disable the Xvid MPEG-4 Video Decoder before clicking the Publish Movie button.

Disable the Xvid MPEG-4 Video Decoder to fix the Windows Movie Maker half green bar problem.
Disable the Xvid MPEG-4 Video Decoder to fix the Windows Movie Maker half green bar problem.

Click the Tools menu, and then Options…, go to Compatibility tab of the Option dialog box, locate the “Xvid MPEG-4 Video Decoder” filter and un-tick the check-box to disable it.

UPDATE: As suggested by Dan, Lassie, and Kristian (in comments section), the DivX Video Decoder could be a potential culprit of this ugly green stripe as well. Thanks everyone for sharing with me!


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  1. milk July 23rd, 2008 9:19 PM

    JUST got this problem today.
    lucky I discovered your solution on google
    I’m tons relieved. thanks man!

  2. Lebon14 August 11th, 2008 5:48 AM

    Oh my god! Thanks a bunch dude!!

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  4. Brooke September 3rd, 2008 10:46 AM

    Oh…my….gosh. Thank you soooo much!! I’m so glad I found your easy step-by-step solve on this!! Yeah, I’m guessing that my encoder problem was the Any Video Converter thing…..XD Once again…thank you soooooo much!!

  5. Walker September 3rd, 2008 11:08 AM

    Thank you Bernie (mentioned in the post) for sharing his useful trick :-)

  6. james falliordor October 27th, 2008 4:16 AM

    YOUR THE BEST MAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THANKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  7. Zhaydyd November 9th, 2008 2:23 AM

    I tried to do that but i cant find the Xvid MPEG-4 Video Decoder on mine. Please help :(

  8. Daniel November 11th, 2008 3:08 PM

    Awesome! Glad I found this guide. I was getting upset over the green bar and thought I was gonna have to remake my entire video.

  9. Tim November 15th, 2008 4:11 AM

    Thanks, Bernie. Now I’ve got to figure out YouTube, which better be more user friendly than the Movie Maker or I’m in for it….

  10. Carl November 27th, 2008 3:12 AM

    I mad the change but when i hit publish the time just keeps increasing to >260 min. Is that normal?

  11. Joe December 1st, 2008 1:18 PM

    Oh my god, I can’t thank you enough for this, I spent a few hours making subtitles for a movie , then when I published I got the half green screen and couldn’t Fix it, It made me go a tad crazy. And then I found this after lots of searching, It worked perfectly! Many Many thanks!

  12. Jon Z December 20th, 2008 10:40 AM

    Thank you sooooo much!!!!!

    I am so happy! we thought our hours of work were ruined!! Thank so much!

  13. dani poa December 28th, 2008 2:26 PM

    thank you!

    I was looking for the solution for hours!!!!

  14. Chicka December 29th, 2008 7:39 AM

    Gah, this has been such an annoyance to me, I published two 10 minute clips before noticing the green screen situation, very annoying. Thank you for the hint, I’m currently publishing my vids again, hopefully it’ll work this time!

  15. Eran December 31st, 2008 6:52 AM

    Thank you, Thank you, Thank you.
    I spent an hour on the green split screen problem, and got quite worried.

  16. Dylan January 2nd, 2009 9:18 AM

    When i did it none of the video showed up…

  17. Tatiana January 9th, 2009 12:50 PM

    Thanks a lot!!! It’s been killing me. Fortunately, Google led me to your blog :)

  18. Walker January 9th, 2009 4:40 PM

    Credit goes to Bernie, who shed me the light on this problem I’d encountered.
    After solving the problem, I decided to write this post and share with you all :-)

  19. MoBama January 25th, 2009 8:41 AM

    Thanks SOOOO MUCH!!! Glad google pointed me here, I was going CRAZY!

  20. joe January 30th, 2009 10:08 AM

    Yeah, i got the same problem as Dylan i turn off the xvid decoder then press ok, publish it finishes i open the movie and its all just a black screen, it plays the audio but i cant see anything. i would seriouselly appreciate some help. thanks

  21. Kim January 31st, 2009 1:50 PM

    thank you sooooooo much that was bugging me for ever because i though i could make movies on windows movie maker because it did that and i am sooooo excited lol thank you thank you thank you

  22. steven Healy February 4th, 2009 6:24 AM

    Brilliant isn’t it typical of microsoft to allow such a thing to happen. Thanks for the advice. You’re a star.

  23. Sophia February 8th, 2009 1:59 AM

    HI there!

    Thank you so much for your solution! I am soooooooooooooooooo chuffed I can finally start using my new camera !
    Lotza luv xxx

  24. courtney February 9th, 2009 10:50 AM

    OMG thank you so much!!! ive been getting so frustrated with that! ihad to o a movie for my sociology class and that stupid bar was there ><!!

    so YAY! *e-hugs!*

  25. nowaylkol March 11th, 2009 5:11 PM

    I love you!!!!! omg thanks soooooooooooooo much!

  26. Shaun March 11th, 2009 7:29 PM

    dude thanks i was making a love movie for my gf and this happened ty buddy.

  27. Kelsey S. March 16th, 2009 2:20 PM

    Thank You So Much!!!!! I had to make a movie presentation that is going to be shown to my class and when i published the movie the GREEN BOX appeared and i almost freaked out. I thought my movie was ruined. but thanks to your advise the green box is gone and my project is saved. Thank You!THANK YOU!Thank You! THANK YOU!

  28. Adam March 18th, 2009 2:05 AM

    Thanks! This really helped!

  29. zreaper1 April 21st, 2009 7:00 AM

    I’ve tried for two months to figure that out. Thank you SO much. You are Awesome!!!!!!!

  30. dylan May 5th, 2009 11:47 AM

    omg thx so much almost had to convert and redo my entire project with 40 dif videos that needed to be cut

  31. Katy May 21st, 2009 11:24 AM

    when i folllowed this guide, my video clips vanished.

  32. Melody May 21st, 2009 10:15 PM

    You and Bernie are awesome, thanks a bunch! :)

  33. Jimbob June 12th, 2009 4:16 PM

    Thanks for the help man!

  34. MercurySteam July 11th, 2009 10:39 PM

    Edited by Walker:
    Thank you for the update :-)

    Here is an alternate solution:

    Go to Start Menu – All Programs – XVid – Configure Decoder. In the Output options, choose Compatibility Renderer and click OK.

  35. P0PC0RNgirl July 13th, 2009 5:15 AM

    THANK YOU =)

  36. alpha July 18th, 2009 2:14 AM

    i tried un ticking the Xvid Mpeg4 video decorder but the green bar still remains while im editing the videos.

    when played in side viewr they are fine, but when i transfer in storyboard for edit green bar starts to appear already..

    Im buffeled though because some videos (im combining several clips from various videoes) have no green bar and some have green bar below

    i wasnt there before yesterday, the last thing i remembered was dowloading a flv. file and then converting it to avi. then after that other files converted to avi had that green bar

    can anyone help. please…

    my OS is XP

  37. alpha July 18th, 2009 2:30 AM

    in some instances the lower portion of the video would be repreated by the green bar below

  38. crushingcranialcontents July 27th, 2009 2:53 AM

    Thanks for the solution though it didn’t exactly solve my problem, it did 90% of my work for me.
    The video I was editing was coded with the H.264 codec so unticking this as above solved my problem.

  39. Charlotte July 29th, 2009 12:28 AM

    Thank god for this, I was going mad when I couldn’t fix that stupid green bar! You’re a life-saver man, thanks so much for your easy solution (:

    Lets hope it works eh?

  40. Huntuki August 27th, 2009 9:09 PM

    wow, i relly thank your help, had that problem yesterday

  41. jaz September 6th, 2009 7:32 PM

    I do not have xvid but I still have a green bar. Do you know why this is? please help me if you can!!! xx

  42. Darryl September 23rd, 2009 12:22 AM

    I have disabled xvid. I also cannot find any program called xvid to use the alternative solution “compatibility renderer”. I downloaded ffdshow. Heck I’ve disabled all the codecs and restored everything to default. Nothing works!

    It is my .avi files which are causing the problem and nearly ALL of my vid files are avi.

    Help! Any other solutions out there?

  43. Hamoshe October 11th, 2009 11:49 AM

    Thanks alot man! I was looking for the solution for minutes!!!! then found ur site :P

    Thanks alot!

  44. RaPpSOdIq October 22nd, 2009 1:29 AM

    Thanks alot man. You saved me from a disastre.

  45. JR November 4th, 2009 11:51 PM

    Thanks a lot!!! Fantastic sharing!!!!! God Bless you~!!!

  46. Sal November 9th, 2009 7:38 AM

    Thats was GREAT!! thanks for that!!!

  47. Allbran November 10th, 2009 3:07 AM

    Made no difference…

    Green Bar is still there!

  48. bolov December 1st, 2009 10:56 AM

    Thank you so much. Bernie and you saved my work. It worked perfectly.

  49. Peter December 15th, 2009 2:07 PM

    FOR THOSE WHO HAVE FAILED IN ALL INSTRUCTIONS
    (you cant change the compatibility in WMM and you cant change the configure decoder in Xvid)
    I found something interesting that may help, though you will need to download a converter from mp4 to avi.
    My discoery was….I was able to publish a movie with an AVI file and not MP4
    Probably b/c quicktime = mac
    and WMM = Windows…
    AVIs come out with no green bar at the bottom.

  50. Jared January 6th, 2010 5:56 AM

    Wow, I can’t believe this is finally solved. This was a big problem for me! Thanks so much for the fix, it worked perfectly!!

  51. manda January 9th, 2010 12:16 PM

    thanks I tried and now cross my fingers,. Lol thanks.

  52. Rowrin January 10th, 2010 7:11 AM

    Thanks a bunch!!!

  53. Dave January 22nd, 2010 11:39 AM

    This codec does not appear on my compatiability thing.. and I STILL have this problem..

  54. Lala January 25th, 2010 1:33 AM

    thank you so much man!

  55. DVDfeverGames February 8th, 2010 7:34 AM

    Well, although I don’t have an XviD codec in the list, after turning off ones that were unrelated (so I got rid of them just in case) like Cyberlink and Ulead, and ensuring that both ffdshow codecs were ticked (not sure if it uses them, but a lot of things do), I unticked the DivX codec and that seems to have done the trick.

    Windows Media Maker started going blank on me for no apparent reason and then the green bar for the same lack of apparent reason, but thanks to Walker News and Peter, above, for this page and the solution (the latter in terms of telling me there’s a list of codecs I can deselect, and in the absence of any of my knowledge, I got there in the end!! :)

  56. abi March 3rd, 2010 4:38 AM

    OMG THANK YOU SO SO MUCH

    i do a webshow on youtube and it was annoying me so much lol

    cheak us out

    thechickennuggetTV

  57. martin March 11th, 2010 2:19 PM

    I dont have that XviD codec in my options….:( and that green screen still there…

  58. Scott March 25th, 2010 8:13 AM

    Same problem as Martin.. DivX yes, Xvid no.. AVG blocks Xvid website???.. WTF do i do now……

  59. Max March 29th, 2010 2:35 PM

    THANK YOU SO, SO MUCH. YOU ROCK HARD!

  60. Dan April 9th, 2010 7:39 AM

    Like a few other. I didn’t have the Xvid. (Then this thread has been here, going on 2 years.)

    For me it was the DivX Video Decoder 004.

    I suspect for many of us with this problem it’s one of the options in the compitibility list. We’ll just need to go through the list to find the problem. (Make a small video with just one short film to test.)

  61. Walker April 9th, 2010 11:30 AM

    I agree with Dan’s suggestion.
    And many thanks for sharing your finding with me and others over here.

    Appreciated to have more people to leave comment if you find yet another video codec that cause the ugly green stripe.

  62. John May 1st, 2010 3:50 PM

    Great – THANKS

    on my pc it was called “DIVX H.264 Decoder” under the options as it’s part of the KLite Codec Pack.

    Thank you for putting the info on this web page!

  63. Grant Rupe May 5th, 2010 8:30 AM

    Dude, you saved my YouTube account! Your’e awesome!!!

  64. LadyGreenEyes May 12th, 2010 9:03 AM

    Question, what if the issue is a DivX codec, and disabling that for publishing also turns off all those clips? That’s my issue! Green bar, and the clips need that filter on to show up.

  65. thatpersonunderyourbed June 3rd, 2010 8:46 AM

    wow man thanks a lot went to other websites but none of them made sence to me but yours was fast and easy thanks now i can make my youtube videos agin

  66. mtsaska June 5th, 2010 12:03 PM

    Thank You, I had just made my first movie and was starting to get really pissed.

  67. LYeh June 9th, 2010 12:37 PM

    I’m not sure whether or not if it’s because my version of windows movie maker is outdated, but i do not have the xvid mpeg4 video decoder as a filter, so it’s not something i can just uncheck. do you have any other suggestions?

  68. Alexandra June 9th, 2010 3:31 PM

    I just wanted to add since you said you weren’t sure what caused it, I had this green bar appear today and it was right after I had compressed a clip using Vdub and for the first time had used the filter “reduce 2:1″ or something like that to make the file smaller. I’m guessing cutting the resolution in half while compressing it with the divx codec lead directly to the video showing up half size when published. I used your advice and unchecked the Xvid decoder and it fixed the problem! Thanks again :)

  69. riona June 17th, 2010 3:15 AM

    omg thankyou so much ♥

  70. Tara July 7th, 2010 12:20 PM

    OMG!! THANK YOU SOOOOOOOOO MUCH!!! You REALLY helped with my sister’s birthday present!! <3 <3

  71. Jeremy July 12th, 2010 7:14 AM

    WORKED FOR ME TOO!!! THANKS!!!!

  72. Thomas French July 13th, 2010 4:56 AM

    ENORMOUS THANK YOU.
    my finding is that whenever you have converted some files (say mp4 into avi, via some decoders), untick it in WMM, and you are GOOD!!!!!!!!
    thanks a lot!

  73. Lassie July 15th, 2010 5:08 AM

    I had downloaded DivX player when Moviemaker started misbehaving with the green stripe AND to add insult to injury a DivX logo on the bottom right hand side of my (by now half screen) video.

    After looking at your advice and some of the posts here I unticked ALL the Divx filters. Result? Good video.

    Now I need to change the default from Divx to Windows. I like Divx but don’t like it taking over by bl**dy system!

    Thankyou for your help!

  74. logan pavia July 17th, 2010 12:13 AM

    thankyou so much

    iv’e had that problem for a while and it really made me mad thanks again

  75. Kristian July 17th, 2010 7:47 AM

    To users who are not using Xvid, it may say DivX decoder or something. If it says decoder beside it un-check it. Can you add this to your post please?

  76. Walker July 17th, 2010 11:30 PM

    @Kristian and Lassie, thanks for your sharing with me and the rest of people here.

  77. Rendush July 25th, 2010 2:38 AM

    Oh my! Thanks so much, mate! I got this problem second time, and I couln’t remember how to fix it again… thanks again!

  78. bignathan2008 July 31st, 2010 5:03 AM

    THANKS! it worked with “DivX Video Decoder”. this helped me so much.

  79. kendra August 5th, 2010 7:14 AM

    THANK YOU so much for this! I spent hours on my video and when It got that green break I flipped the feck out. Anyways, for me I didn’t have a x-vid Mpeg-4 Video Decoder, but a Mpeg 4 Decoder filter for 3ivx and unchecking that filter makes the entire file not playable. So I had to guess and do trial and error (always ave your project before publishing so you can always go back, instead of having to start completely over). Anyways, unchecking the DivX Video Decoder and the DivX Video Decoder filter got rid of the green break for me.

    Regardless this was a fantastic source! And I bookmarked it for the future :D
    -kendra <3

  80. Karl August 15th, 2010 11:20 PM

    I never had the XVid decoder but turned off the Divx one and it worked, cheers!

  81. Danny August 18th, 2010 7:13 AM

    Thank you sooo muchhh!! :) It would’ve taken forever without your help…

  82. James August 26th, 2010 10:57 PM

    I have divx decoder filter and some avi thing, I unchecked divx and now – the green box is gone but the actual footage is also missing?

    Help please! :(