How To | Hi5 Software

How to Split AVI Files in VLC?

Often, you have lengthy videos captured by your webcam, smartphone which you don’t really need. You might probably need only a portion of the video. You would want to upload the video to your blog, on YouTube, or on the social network. However, because the AVI video file is lengthy, you refrain from uploading. But hey, why don’t you just split the video? How can this be done? – You ask. With VLC media player. This free and open source media player comes with basic editing tools which can split video file.

Follow these steps to split AVI video file with VLC media player –

Step 1: Open the AVI video file which you have to split in VLC media player

Step 2: Now forward the video to the starting point from where you want to split it. Pause the video at this point.

Step 3: Go to View menu, select Advanced Controls option. You can find the new set of controls appearing near the Play button.

Step 4: Next, go to Tools – Preferences – Input / Codecs

Step 5: Here, look for Record directory or filename. See to it that a directory name is present in the box. You can choose any directory. This is where the split video will be stored.

Step 6: Play the video and click on the Record button. Let it play till the end portion which you want to extract. Click Record button again when you want to stop recording till the extracted part.

Step 7: Go to File Explorer, then to the directory where your recorded video was set to be stored. Here you can find the extracted part of the AVI video saved as a separate file.

That’s it! You have split AVI video file easily with VLC media player. You just have to upload it where you wished to. Isn’t is simple? You just need to repeat this process for every clip that you want to split from the original video.

You might edit AVI videos for various reasons. However, sometimes, if you don’t use the right tools, then there are chances of the AVI file getting corrupted. Under such a situation, you need to use AVI Repair tool to fix the corruption. When AVI file fails to play sound, the audio video is not in sync, AVI file refuses to play, and so on, you can fix the file with the help of AVI Repair software.

How to Play AVI File in PowerPoint?

Embedded AVI file doesn’t play in PowerPoint file due to many reasons. Most of the time, you fail to play AVI file inserted in PowerPoint file due to-

Compatibility Issue
Absence of codecs
AVI video corruption

Hence, here I have listed out some possible methods to solve PowerPoint doesn’t play AVI file issue. Before, trying these methods, just check whether you have specified correct source path of AVI file. Sometimes, source path will get modify if you move your AVI file from one location to another. Hence, it is better to keep both video and PowerPoint presentation in the same folder. If the path is correct, then try the methods mentioned below-

Method #1: Solving AVI File Compatibility Issue

If you get Optimize Media Compatibility message on the screen upon opening AVI info, then it indicates that your AVI file has the compatibility issue. To resolve compatibility issue, do as follows-

Confirm the action by clicking on Optimize Media Compatibility button
When it displays playback issues, click on View Links
Then pick Break Links for each link to embed AVI files in your PowerPoint

Method #2: Installation of Required Codecs on your Windows

If your Windows doesn’t have required codec to play AVI file, then you will get into the situation where your AVI file fails to play. Hence, download all the required codecs on your system.

Method #3: Fixing Corrupted AVI File

AVI file doesn’t play in PowerPoint if you have inserted corrupted AVI file. To make it playable again, you need to fix damaged AVI file using AVI Video Repair software. I will recommend you to use Hi5 Software AVI File Repair Software as it doesn’t modify your source AVI file while repairing it.

If you have failed to play AVI file, even after following the above techniques, then change the extension from AVI to MPG or try to reduce the hardware acceleration of the video file.

How to Make Booting Faster in Windows 10?

Why Does Windows 10 Take So Long to Boot – How to Make It Boot Faster?

Windows systems take more time to boot eventually due to the installation of more desktop programs, which may add themselves to the startup. And, those programs automatically start each time during system boot up.

But, Windows 10 has an OS integrated Startup Manager and is simple to understand. It even shows programs that are responsible for the slowed down startup. This Startup Manager helps in resolving Windows 10 fast startup problems.

How to Access Windows 10 Startup Manager?

Windows 10 Startup Manager is located in Task Manager. To access it,

Right-click on the taskbar and open Task Manager
Or Press Ctrl + Shift + Escape buttons to reach Task Manager
Or Press Ctrl + Alt + Delete and select Task Manager
In Task Manager you will see a list of open programs, so click on More details to access full interface
Switch to Startup tab

Disable Startup Programs on Windows 10:

In Startup Manager the name of programs along with its icon will be listed at the left side and the application’s publisher name to the right side.

Also, the Startup impact of each program will be shown, whether its low, medium, or high. If it is Not measured means, Windows not yet had a chance to notice the program’s behavior as it is recently added. If so, then reboot the computer to get the program’s impact.

Find out the program which plays the main role in slowing down system boot up (obviously its impact will be HIGH) and disable it. To disable any program, right click on it and select Disable option.

Note: Open file location shows exact .exe file of the program on your computer, which is booting at startup.

The real task here is to decide what to disable. Since some programs normally start when computer boots; so that they can sync data. If you disable them, they cannot sync data and it affects their working mechanism. And, other programs will be less obvious, particularly like system utilities and driver-related programs. And you can disable them.

So, do a quick-study, understand what you are disabling and then proceed. You can do this by right-clicking a program and opt Search online. Then, Windows shows a web page with the name of the program, its .exe file, info regarding what exactly the program is and what it is doing.

Other Ways to Make Windows 10 Boot Faster:

There are several additional ways to make Windows 10 computer boot faster. Like,

Upgrading from mechanical hard drives to Solid State Drives (SSD) dramatically improves the boot speed along with data accessing speed.
Using UEFI firmware, tweaking a few BIOS settings like changing the boot order (for instance if BIOS checks computer’s DVD drive or network locations first instead of hard drive each time it boots then change its boot order so that it boots from hard drive first)
Disabling system services if there are heavy services from installed third-party applications.

If your Windows 10 computer is undesirably slow (if it is taking really more time to boot) even after removing unnecessary startup programs and troubleshooting, then do a Factory Reset. But, don’t forget to backup entire data before factory resetting your system. Else you have to make use of a reliable recovery tool to get back personal files after Factory Reset. If Factory Reset doesn’t help, try reinstalling Windows 10 again from the scratch.

iTunes Cannot Read the Contents of the iPhone – How to Fix It?

Sometimes your iTunes shows an error message “iTunes cannot read the contents of the iPhone. Go to Summary tab in iPhone preferences and click on Restore to restore this iPhone to factory settings” with an only option OK.

If you click “OK” without reading the error carefully then you will later regret the mistake you did; since entire data from your iPhone will vanish and the device will revert back to factory settings.

Then, how to handle this issue now?! Well, here is the guide that explains basic grounds of iTunes cannot read the contents of the iPhone error along with the suitable troubleshooting methods to fix the problem.

Why iTunes Cannot Read the Contents of The iPhone?

Even though, Apple doesn’t have any exact reason for the appearance of this error, some of the possible causes (based on experts’ suggestion) responsible for iTunes cannot read the contents of the iPhone error are listed here.

Incorrectly written data by third-party applications
Corrupted files on the iPhone
Improperly installed or updated iTunes app
Jailbroken iPhone
Modification of iPhone files by CYDIA and related applications
Broken iTunes CDB and DB data

How to Fix iTunes Cannot Read the Contents of the iPhone Error?

Delete Corrupted Files

You can fix this issue by deleting corrupted files manually.

Use WinSCP(on Windows) or Cyberduck (on Mac)
Access your iPhone files
Go to /private/var/mobile/Media/iTunes_Control/iTunes/folder and delete iTunesDB file
Via WinSCP or Cyberduck, navigate to /private/var/mobile/Media/iTunes_Control/Music
Delete all folders from Music directory
Navigate to /private/var/mobile/Media
Reach Ringtones directory and delete all files
Close iTunes and launch it again
Again sync your iPhone with iTunes

Now, all your music, podcasts, and videos should be transferred back to your phone.

Reinstall iTunes

Close iTunes app and disconnect the iPhone (Don’t click on OK)
Update your iTunes to latest version
But if, you have the latest one, then uninstall it
Re-install iTunes
Reboot your system and connect your iPhone
Ensure that the USB cable is correctly fitted

Restore iPhone to Factory Settings

If none of the above methods solve the error “iTunes cannot read the contents of the iPhone” then the final option would be to reset your iPhone to Factory Settings. But, before resetting your iPhone to factory version, backup its entire content, then proceed.

And, to factory reset the iPhone, connect it to iTunes and the error “iTunes cannot read the content of the iPad or iPhone” pops-up. Hit the “OK” button and wait for the completion of the process.

Whatever might be the forms of issues you may face with iTunes or iPhone, only creating a backup of your device will certainly help you and is indeed important. So that, the next time when you encounter any issue on your iTunes/iPhone, you can easily fix them without losing any important file stored on your device.

Note: In case if you have forgotten to back up your iTunes songs before restoring factory settings, and lost all the songs, then need not worry, as you can easily recover deleted songs from iTunes with the assistance of Hi5 Software. Not only after factory settings, but also this software can restore iTunes songs after accidental deletion, lost songs due to various reasons in just three easy steps.

How to Fix a Broken USB Memory Stick?

When it comes to storing files and sharing data among different computers, USB memory sticks are said to be one of the handy devices. These devices are much more reasonable than floppy disks and yes the storage capacity will be great. If roughly we calculate, we can say that 11,000 floppy disks are equal to just 16Gb stick.

However, like all other storage devices, there is a risk of losing data that has been stored on the USB stick due to its failure. So, it is advisable to take backups every now and then on more than one device.

If you have very important deleted files to recover from memory stick, you should try with Hi5 Recovery Software.

But what if your computer stops recognizing a USB memory stick? You can’t ditch that broken USB memory stick! You can try with these tested tips and tricks in order to fix the issue easily.

Note: Here, we have used Windows 7 here but the steps are relatively the similar for Windows 10 as well.

#1 Use a different USB port

As the USB ports may get dirty as the time passes, there might be chances that the problem is with the port itself where you want to insert the stick.

So the very first thing to do as soon as you find that the memory stick is not recognizable is to try inserting the device into another USB port on your PC. Common, it is just common sense!

#2 Update the driver

Chances are there that the problem may actually be with your PC, not the USB device itself. Check whether an another computer is recognizing the USB stick. If the answer is yes, it indicates that your system is required to install a new and updated driver.

To check for a new driver,

Go to Computer, right click on your USB’s icon and click on Properties
Go to the Hardwaretab and find General USB Flash Disk USB Device. Select it and click the Properties button below
In the next pop-up, click the Change settingsbutton
Another pop-up will appear, go to the Drivertab and click the Update Driver… button
Next, select the first option Search automatically for updated driver software and follow the instructions.

#3 Checking for the errors

Windows may be able to detect the error with your USB drive. You can perform this by these steps:

Right-click on the USB icon in Computerand click on Properties
Go to the Toolstab and under error-checking click Check now…
A pop-up box will appear. Ensure both boxes are ticked and click the Startbutton

#4 Formatting USB stick

The next solution you can try is formatting the USB stick, but this will delete everything. So, be prepare with the backup and then proceed!

To format,

Go to Computer, right click on the USB stick icon and click on Format
In the pop-up box, click the Startbutton, followed by OK

If the formatting went ahead successfully, a new pop-up message will appear saying – ‘Format Complete’. You can click the OK button and see whether the USB stick works again.

#5 Creating a new simple volume

Another way you could restart your USB stick is by using Windows Disk Management, which again wipes the content. Taking backup is a wise idea again!

To do this,

Search ‘Disk management’ in the Start Menu and click on Create and format hard disk partitions
Here, you should see your USB under Disk 1. Right click and go to Propertiesto check that you have selected the correct drive. The pop-up box should say ‘General USB Flash Disk USB Device’ if you have the correct driver selected
If it does, exit this window and right click on the diagonally-striped box which should say ‘Unallocated’ in the center. Click New Simple Volume…
In the pop-up box, click the Nextbutton
On the subsequent screen, ensure that the simple volume size in MB matches the maximum disk space in MB, and click the Nextbutton
Click Nextagain twice, followed by Finish

If this works out, your USB stick should be accessible!

How to use ‘Energy Saver Preference’ in OS X?

Using-energy-saver-preferences-mac

Mac Energy Saver Preferences pane helps to control how Mac responds to inactivity. The Energy Saver preferences will allow putting your Mac to sleep, spin down the hard drive, turn off the display, in order to save energy. You can even manage UPS with the Energy Saver preferences. In a portable Mac, Energy Saver preferences will also extend the battery’s life. So let’s learn about the energy saving features that your Mac OS X can use…

Adjusting settings in the Energy Saver Preferences pane:

You can adjust Mac OS to automatically turn off features which you are not using when you don’t use Mac for some time. Adjusting energy related settings can be done in the Energy Saver pane of System Preferences.

Just go the Apple menu – System Preferences – click Energy Saver

Put Mac OS X to Sleep:

When you are not using Mac, you can put it to sleep to save energy. Your Mac OS X is on when putting to sleep, but it consumes less power. Moreover, you can quickly wake your Mac from sleep when compared to the time to start it when it’s been shut down.

Putting Display to Sleep –

Turning off your display is helpful when your Mac is performing tasks like playing music, as you don’t need to see anything on your computer during that time. You can adjust how long your Mac OS X needs to wait before putting the display to sleep. When the display is put to sleep, the screen goes dark, turns off, but apps still run in the background. If there is an indicator, then it will change to show that display is on low power mode.

Putting Hard Drive to Sleep –

You can put your hard disk to sleep whenever it is inactive. The hard disk motor will be powered down when you are not reading or writing files, by this setting.

Psst: Talking about the hard drive, when you have accidentally formatted Mac hard drive partition, or partition gets deleted or lost, make use of this Mac Partition Recovery software to restore partition data in a safe and quick manner.

Enabling Power Nap –

Power Nap wakes up Mac OS X occasionally from sleep to carry out tasks like software updates and for checking new emails. When Power Nap is enabled, the display and other hardware which is not required will be powered down in order to save energy.

Waking for Network Access –

If you want your Mac system to automatically wake up when someone has to access its shared resources when the computer is in sleep mode, then you can select this option. The setting is applicable to wired connections from other systems. It is even applicable to the Wi-Fi connection.

Automatic Graphics Switching –

You can set Mac to automatically switch between graphics modes in order to extend the battery’s life.

Schedule –

This option allows setting a daily schedule to put your Mac to sleep or to turn it on or off.

Dim Display while on Battery Power –

You can reduce the brightness of the display when on battery power.

Solve Crash and Display Issues after macOS Sierra Upgrade

Use Energy Saver Settings in Mac OS X

After upgrading to macOS Sierra, many people have come across issues. Some of the issues are related to application crash whereas others related to display issue. Here I have given some possible solution to macOS Sierra crash and display issue. Check it out.

Issue 1: Apps on Mac crashed and displays “Damaged and Can’t Be Opened” error message

Some of the applications don’t open and show “Damaged and Can’t Be Opened” error message, after macOS Sierra upgradations. If you are facing a similar situation, then here are the troubleshooting techniques.

Solutions-

Update your applications

Press Command and Option keys at a time during application launch. Then, go to developer website and check for updates. If there are any, update it.

Remove Cache

If you are facing similar issue even after application updates, then go to Finder window and select Go to Folder under Go menu. And, enter ~/Library/Caches and click on Enter button. Select and empty the folder.

Allow launching the application downloaded from anywhere

Navigate to Security-> Privacy system preferences-> settings and select Allow applications downloaded from the Anywhere option.

Issue 2: Display Crash and shows dull gray screen

After macOS Sierra upgrade, display keeps crashing with only a dull gray screen. If you are finding a solution for this problem, then try following fixes:

Reset NVRAM

Reboot your Mac
While restarting, press Command, Option, P and R keys

Reset SMC

Detach printers, devices from Mac computer and turn it off by holding down power button for 10 seconds. Remove power cord and wait 15 seconds. Put back all the power cord and turn on your computer.

Issue 3: Sleep/wake issue and display corruption

Display won’t wake up after going to sleep. Sometimes, it takes time or didn’t wake up at all.

1: Check Screen Brightness and Powers

Ensure that Mac and external display is powered on and also check whether Mac is connected to power source or not.

2: Reset SMC and NVRAM

To reset SMC and NVRAM, follow the steps mentioned for Issue 2.

3: Reinstall you OS

In case the problem still persists, reinstall your macOS Sierra instead of upgradations.

Not just this, there are lots of other problems which you may encounter after upgrading to macOS Sierra. Sometimes, these issues lead to data loss from your macOS Sierra hard drive. Therefore, here is the solution to overcome data loss crisis, i.e. Hi5 Partition Recovery Application for Mac. It helps to restore data from macOS Sierra hard drive after any data loss mishaps. So, no need to worry about data loss. Just upgrade and enjoy benefits of macOS Sierra.

Methods to Check Hard Drive for Failures

Your computer’s hard drive holds all the important data and losing it to a hard disk failure can be distressing. Hard disks; unfortunately, have a limited lifespan and it will get damaged or corrupted sooner or later. In this article, you’ll know some of the possible causes and different free tools to check your hard drive for failure or errors so that you can appropriate measures before it’s too late.

Problems You Might Encounter

Computer is extremely slow
Windows OS unable to boot
Computer reboot or some random errors
Errors while copying, reading, deleting, or moving data on the PC.

The Solutions

Below are the some of the tools that can be used to test your PC’s hard drive for failures and errors.

Scandisk

Scandisk is an inbuilt Windows tool that scans the drive for bad sectors or system errors and reports if there are any issues with your hard disk. It performs both scanning and fixing the issues, it can and also reports the bigger issues that it cannot repair. So, you can use this utility to check hard disk health and also fix bad sectors and other errors if any.

To run Scandisk, right click the drive which you want to check for errors, and choose “Properties” from the context menu. Next, click Tools tab and then click Check button.

A window will pop up with two options – to fix file system errors and scan for bad sectors. Choose either one or both the options if you want to repair the errors and bad sectors and click Start button.

This is a very basic tool which concentrates on finding bad sectors and system errors. It just lets you know if there are any major issues and nothing more. Thus, you can use this as a basic hard drive checking and repair utility.

CHKDSK

Another Windows inbuilt utility, Command Prompt Check Disk. To launch chkdsk on Windows 10, type cmd in the search box, and right click Command Prompt from the search results and select Run as administrator.

In the Command Prompt windows, type chkdsk X:/f and hit Enter. Replace X with the actual drive letter, which you want to check.

WMIC

This is another command line interface, which allows you to perform numerous administrative tasks which include checking hard drives for error. It uses S.M.A.R.T feature (Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology) of the hard disk to check the status and give a simple decision like Pred Fail or OK, etc.

To check the health of the hard disk in WMIC, go to Command Prompt by following above-mentioned steps and type wmic and press Enter.

Now, type disk drive get status and press Enter again. After some time, you’ll see the status of the hard disk.

Seagate SeaTools

This is a free and open source tool, used to check the hard drive for failures and errors.

Replacing The Hard Disk

If your hard disk is producing SMART errors or turning bad even after performing the above-mentioned health check-ups, it is better to replace the hard drive. If you are worried about the retrieving the lost data, use a Windows Hard Drive Recovery Tool which recovers data without formatting the drive and without altering the content. The tool even creates the disk image from which you can recover the data at a later time.

Top 7 tips to Use QuickTime Effectively

Even though QuickTime Player is designed to play video clips and audio files, it has several added sleeves. Thus, depending upon your requirement, you can adopt them to effectively make use of your QuickTime app. And here, you can find 7 highly useful features of QuickTime player, if you wish to go beyond the basics.

Use QuickTime controls

Even if it looks like only the video is visible (along with a typical traffic light control present at the top left of the screen) during a video playback.

You can move the cursor over the video to find few basic playback controls like increase or decrease the volume using the slider, resume and pause the video playback, reverse or fast forward via clicks etc.

Use Playhead controls

Underneath above list of control options, you can discover a diamond shaped gray button. And, it is the Playhead control key. It indicates the current playback position along the movie, video or audio.

You can jump to the desired location by rapidly moving the Playhead (either to left or right). And, you can know the elapsed as well left over time of the video via the values present on either side of the Playhead.

Use Show Clips

If you are searching a specific scene but you are unable to find it even via chapter markers, then Show Clips can be useful for you.

Just navigate to View menu and opt Show Clips option. This swaps the previously learned control overlaps with the simpler one. Also, it provides you a plenty of thumbnails alongside the bottom screen.

And, this control guide will not vanish even after the cursor rests or it moves off the video. Thus, it is the ever beneficial control monitor to find something instantly. Also, you can easily get rid of it just by hitting Done key.

Use subtitles

If your video file has a subtitle, then you can turn on Subtitles and select Subtitles or select the video’s Language via View tab. Once, subtitle s enabled, you will be able to see icons on the right side of the video playback controls.

You can also navigate via chapter markers via same method using keyboard shortcuts or icon located at the Playback Control.

Record videos QuickTime and iSight camera

QuickTime allows you to record video clips using your Mac’s iSight (FaceTime) camera. To do it,

Go to File, Select New Movie Recording and hit the big red record button to shot. You can see an estimated size of the video file at the lower right of the control bar, during the record. This is really helpful if you are willing to email the clip as several servers keep an eye on the size of the file we send.

Record New Audio

Instead of New Movie Recording, you can opt for New Audio Recording to create a new audio clip. Next, hit the same big red button, which appears in the tiny pop-up that has limited control options.

Also, New Screen Recording option is available and it allows you to record what is being displayed on your system screen. You can decide, whether to record entire screen or only a portion of it.

Sharing video clips

Sharing is simply amazing in QuickTime app. Whether you wish to share a specific video/audio clip that you have created yourself or that you have opened within the QuickTime; but just one click completes your work.

There is a Share option available at the right side of playback control. You can also accomplish Sharing job from via File menu. But, any option you use, you can’t edit the file that you share.

Note: Sometimes, corruptions in files like MOV, AVI, MP4 etc. takes away the pleasure of video itself. In those times, you can make use of inbuilt options of QuickTime, VLC etc. and fix video clips. If you cannot manually do it then try an effective tool to repair MOV, MP4, MP3, etc.

Conclusion:

QuickTime has a handful of options than what we know or think. If you learn all those extended techniques available in QuickTime, then you can experience a splendid video playback.

How to Backup your PC with iDrive

How much confident you are that your sensitive data is safe and backed up?

Just imagine your PC with all essential data was stolen, or crashed after your child spills water on it, or destroyed in a fire!! So what do you do?

Usually, you will be forced to rely up on backup files when some computer disasters happen and your data is in danger. Here’s how you can securely store your crucial data and files

iDrive – Store and Backup all your data on Cloud

From its early stage to till date, cloud storage and backup services are very popular. Finding the best backup service should not be a difficult task!

iDrive is one of the popular cloud backup services available to those looking for best backup and features. So here is an interesting review of the service including what it is, how to use it to backup data, and the features you can enjoy using the cloud storage.

What is iDrive?

As it is mentioned before, iDrive is a cloud service that is specially meant to offer storage and backup for all your files, folders and digital media. With many free services available in the market, iDrive cloud storage and backup is one of the least expensive ways.

Backing up PC files with iDrive

First of all you need to create an encrypted hard drive of 5GB (just for instance) with a secure password. To perform encryption, you can use a method called VeraCrypt.

Once done with that, it’s time to create an encrypted cloud iDrive backup of your encrypted hard drive. Just follow below instructions…

Step 1: At first, sign up for your Free 5GB iDrive account.

Step 2: To make things simple, set your own Private encryption key using the same secure VeraCrypt password.

Warning – Don’t lose this password or you will not be able to recover your files!

Step 3: Click Continue. It will prompt you to download the iDrive setup file. So download and install the program, launch the iDrive and log in using your newly created account.

Step 4: Click on Change to remove the default folders to backup.

Step 5: Deselect all the default folders and drives. Now select only the newly created drive.

Step 6: Move all of your important documents to your newly created hard drive.

Step 7: Finally when you are finished, click on Start Backup Immediately in iDrive anytime you would like to backup your files.

Need more than 5 GB to backup your important financial documents? iDrive has a very competitive pricing plans for Cloud Backup and Storage – 1PC, 5 PC, and Unlimited.

Not only this, it has a vast support for Windows, Mac and Servers including 64-bit support. It also provides a scheduled backup and continuous backup plan, online storage and backup, free hard-drive transfer, instant access via web and mobile access via app, file synchronization as separate service, and of course a free 5GB account.

iDrive offers many other minor features within their plans and service to prove that no other way is as secure as cloud storage in backup most important credentials through a very less effort.

However, Cloud backup services are all about providing unlimited storage space where you can store all your digital data and restore them at any time. You can be very much sure that your data doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.

Even though you get plenty of external hard drives to safeguard your files and folders, but at times you may come across data loss cases. Once who come across such cases you can make use of any trustworthy data recovery tool and get your crucial data back

Protect your confidential data today!