The three popular formats for video from digital cameras is MOV (QuickTime), MPG and AVI. MPG and AVI are universal and Windows Movie Maker will show them with no problem. On the other hand, QuickTime was created by Apple, so Microsoft's Movie Maker won't show it. Similarly, if you create something in Movie Maker and save it as a Windows Media Video (WMV) file, people with Apple computers can't show it.

I have editing software on my computer that will take any of these formats and convert them to any other. For example, you can take an MPG or MOV file and convert it to WMV, which will play on your Windows-based computer.

New HD camcorders use either HDV or AVCHD, both of which are forms of MPEG. HDV uses MPEG2 technology similar to what broadcast HDTV uses. AVCHD uses what used to be called MPEG4 and it is somewhat more efficient. However, I think you're discussing video from a digital still image camera, not a camcorder.

As you can see, it gets pretty complicated. Good luck!

--Bob