Media Converter Serial #?

[Digital Assassin]

I just assumed the copy of Media Converter 2 that came with my Insignia was an OEM version. I'm interested in upgrading from 2 to 2.5 but it looks like you have to create an account on the Arcsoft website to do that. You have to provide a serial # when creating the account but I can't seem to find a serial #. I tried the obvious (About) but can't seem to find a serial #.

Anyone had any lucking upgrade from AMC 2 to AMC 2.5?

[CrowdAds]

[digitalq]

Things may have changed, but I found that the upgrade to Media Converter was a paid upgrade. (maybe there was a discount for buying the player?) For what it's worth, the Pilot's serial number is on a silver sticker on the back of the player, right next to the center headphone jack. I tried out 2.5 and found it to be buggy. I thought the VOB conversion would be nice, but I seem to recall it producing video that was half green tinted across the top.

I've found iRiverter serves all my needs for free conversion to consistent quality video.

[dhartsoc]

I am wondering just how robust ArcSoft Media Converter for Insignia is. Three times now it has failed me in converting a WMV (no drm) to run on the Pilot. Once it just quit after a length of time, and the other times there was a failure to write the file to disk after conversion.

I have lots of room on the drive, 512Mb memory, running XP Home SP2. These were 150-175Mb files.

[vferrari]

Originally Posted by Digital Assassin

I just assumed the copy of Media Converter 2 that came with my Insignia was an OEM version. I'm interested in upgrading from 2 to 2.5 but it looks like you have to create an account on the Arcsoft website to do that. You have to provide a serial # when creating the account but I can't seem to find a serial #. I tried the obvious (About) but can't seem to find a serial #.

Anyone had any lucking upgrade from AMC 2 to AMC 2.5?

I use Super [FREE] and haven't tried AMC yet, but some of the 2.5 features appear attractive. Found the following browsing around the account creation pages on their website:



Clicking on the "How to locate ArcSoft serial number" instructions link on the ArcSoft account registration page you get the following popup:


MediaConverter 2, 2.5
1. Launch MediaConverter.
2. Under the Register menu, select Register Product.
3. Your web browser will launch and display a registration form (you will need to be connected to the Internet). You can find your serial number in the Serial Number field of the registration form. Or you can fill out the registration form and submit it.



HTH.

[Digital Assassin]

Originally Posted by vferrari

Clicking on the "How to locate ArcSoft serial number" instructions link on the ArcSoft account registration page you get the following popup:


MediaConverter 2, 2.5
1. Launch MediaConverter.
2. Under the Register menu, select Register Product.
3. Your web browser will launch and display a registration form (you will need to be connected to the Internet). You can find your serial number in the Serial Number field of the registration form. Or you can fill out the registration form and submit it.

HTH.

Yeah, tried that right away when I was first researching this. Unfortunately, no serial # is ever auto-populated and doing Help | About doesn't show a serial # either. Hence where I'm at now.

[Digital Assassin]

Some follow-up for everyone. The AMC 2 that comes with the Pilot CAN be upgraded to AMC 2.5 for the $14.99 upgrade price. To upgrade you have to go into one of the .SET files in the installation folder of AMC 2 and copy the serial # so you can create an account at Arcsoft.com and register your OEM version of AMC 2. At that point you can choose to upgrade and get AMC 2.5. I'm at work so I don't have the name of the file with the serial # in front of me but if you want specifics just PM me.

Before upgrading to AMC 2.5 I downloaded the trial and used it to rip, convert and transfer several DVDs to my Pilot. No A/V synch problems with any of them and it worked very quickly. It's a nice one stop solution.

[dhartsoc]

Hmmm... I found MediaConverter.SET which had two serial numbers in it. Tried both without success. Changed all dashes to underscores since I kept getting a warning only alphabets, underscores, and numbers accepted. Stumped.

Dana

[dhartsoc]

Check that... the error box I kept getting was for the password I entered!

The second serial number listed in MediaConverter.SET enabled me to register the software.

Originally Posted by dhartsoc

Hmmm... I found MediaConverter.SET which had two serial numbers in it. Tried both without success. Changed all dashes to underscores since I kept getting a warning only alphabets, underscores, and numbers accepted. Stumped.

Dana

[Digital Assassin]

Yep. MediaConverter.SET. You want the Serial_Number value, not #Serial_Number.

[dhartsoc]

MediaConverter2.5 (v. 2.5.0.90) is not working for me. Tried it with Windows 2000 and XP Home.

I works on a file for about 5 seconds and then stops, reporting failure to write file to folder. Of course in five seconds it has just started the conversion. I'll send a note to support and see what comes back at me.

Windows XP Home, SP2, 512Mb memory, 100Gb free drive space. Quicktime 7.3, WMP11.

Dana

[vferrari]

Have you tried feeding it anything other than those wmv source files you mentioned previously (e.g., a DVD or divx file)? How did you create the source files in the first place? If you used WMP 11, are you sure WMP 11 didn't add DRM (thought that was WMP 11's default setting). Sorry for asking what may appear to be obvious - but sometimes that's where the problem lies.

[dhartsoc]

I am just converting video podcasts, no DRM. and the bundled version that comes with the Pilot handles the files with no problems. Tried WMV, MP3, Mov. All three of the files that failed with version 2.5, converted with no problems with version 2.

[Digital Assassin]

Weird. I haven't used 2.5 for much more then ripping, converting and transferring DVDs so far.

[dhartsoc]

Not a peep from ArcSoft support. Today I unistalled MediaConverter2 and 2.5, reinstalled 2.5. Still aborts conversion after 3 to 7 seconds. No idea where to go from here unless I hear something from ArcSoft.

[digitalq]

It obviously has multiple failure modes. Did you pay for the upgrade like me? I just chalked it up to experience and went on to use the various free solutions which are ironically more stable and effective than the commercial software. Hope that doesn't sound too bitter or defeatist.

[dhartsoc]

I did hear from ArcSoft support today. To whit...

"We will be releasing a new introductory version in a month or so, which will fix this issue."

So I'm looking again for a one stop solution. I am not concerned with putting DVDs on my Pilot. I want to be able to convert WMV, MP4, M4V, MOV, FLASH VIDEO, and I want to avoid the problem I am having with Any Video Converter in that it does all the conversions I need but the video loses synchronization when using Fast Forward or Reverse.

[vferrari]

Originally Posted by digitalq

It obviously has multiple failure modes. Did you pay for the upgrade like me? I just chalked it up to experience and went on to use the various free solutions which are ironically more stable and effective than the commercial software. Hope that doesn't sound too bitter or defeatist.

Can you post some examples of free software you are having success with? I personally use Super but am interested in other potentials solutions that people are having success using. Thx.