Having problems with converting video myself I can feel your pain. I'm not an expert but I successfully convert a couple of movies. I use nero recode 2 to convert the video to mp4 of size 288x160 and video bitrate under 300, it's in the advance setting of nero recode. Then I use media converter to convert it to avi. When you play the video it takes a while for it to start up and if it fails to start up, tray it again, it can take a few tries before it works. And if the audio is off sync, try pressing the back button to rewind it usually helps.