I've tried making letter box bars on my video using the mem mix function. I make the templates in photoshop and save them as JPEGS (the same format that the vx2000 uses for stills).

It won't work in the camera. What can I do to make appropriate memory mix screens in photoshop that my camera will recodnize?

Are you using a Mac perhaps? There's some problem with the way JPEG's are saved by Photoshop on the Mac. Wayne Orr was nice enough to suggest a solution to this awhile ago.

He said to use the program "GraphicConverter" to save a copy of the Photoshop file as a JPEG using a name similar to the files that came pre-loaded on your memory stick. I haven't tried this myself yet however.

You can find this program at http://www.lemkesoft.com. Perhaps Wayne will chime in with some further words of advice!

I know this is an old thread (got here from search result), but here's how I deal with Sony's Memory Mix JPEG format (my DCR-PC105 does not come with Picture Gear or software that I'm aware of that can import a bitmap and save as Memory Mix JPEG):

By comparing the JPEGs that come with the camera (DCR-PC105) and a Photoshop-saved JPEG, I noticed the first couple of bytes are different. I used a hex editor to remove some extra bytes at the beginning of the Photoshop JPEG and saved the image to the memory stick, and it shows up as a usable mask!

Here are the steps:
1) Open the Photoshop-saved JPEG in a hex editor
2) Select starting from the 3rd byte (should be FF followed by E0)
3) Continue selecting just before FF E1 (should be within 18-37 bytes)
4) Confirm that you have NOT selected the bytes FF E1
5) Hex delete the selected bytes
6) Save as binary
7) Copy the image to the memory stick

It should now work as a Memory Mix mask.

In what program can you edit the code? Where can I get it?

Any hex editor. I use UltraEdit (text + hex editor @ ultraedit.com). Do a search on hex editor and you can find many freeware.

I just updated the steps above.

Whoo Hoo, thanks Oreo Kat!

Perhaps the collection of Memory Mix images will help:

Preloaded MemoryMix Art on the Included Memory Stick Pro.
Sony DCR-TRV350 Digital Handycam / DCR-TRV351 extra images! (http://trv350.angelfire.com/trv351.html#155)

dsc00155.jpg, Sony Memory Mix, matte, chroma, 4:3 simulation of 16:9 panoramic anamorphic letterbox bars, with pixel scale
dsc00155.jpg, Sony Memory Mix, matte, chroma, 4:3 simulation of 16:9 panoramic anamorphic letterbox bars, with pixel scale on Flickr - Photo Sharing! (http://www.flickr.com/photos/disneywizard/3644588871/)