make your own movies (Windows Movie Maker)

Member Name: ajbluestar

Product:	Windows Movie Maker
Date:	16/10/09 (48 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: good for video making novices/amateurs, easy to use

Disadvantages: not that complicated

Windows Movie Maker is a great piece of relatively simple software for video making novices. It is a video creation and editing program which comes with windows and is available on the likes of Windows XP and Vista as well as some of the earlier versions of Microsoft's operating systems.

If you are not familiar with Windows Movie Maker it is quite easy to get into and create some personal videos. To go to the program you will have to look for windows movie maker either in your start -programs or by doing a search.

Once you have started the program you will be presented with a screen with tabs at the top including file, edit, view ,tools,clip,play and help. In the middle of the screen is a place to store all your imported media items and to the right of this is a video screen which lets you preview your creation before you choose to publish it.

At the bottom is the video timeline which you will need to drag your various media items to create the video. The media items that you can add include pictures, videos and also pieces of audio and music which can be added to the background of the pictures/videos.

To import media items you click on import media in the top left of the screen and select the various items you want to import to your new video creation. These could be audio tracks, videos you have from your video camera or on your computer or pictures. The videos though have to be in a certain format for use on windows movie maker. If they are not in the correct format they cannot be used. The main accepted formats for import are .WMV/.ASF, .MPG (MPEG-1), .AVI (DV-AVI), .WMA, .WAV, and .MP3. If your video/audio is not in these formats you may have to use a video conversion program to convert the file to an accepted format.

Once you have added the items you can create the video by dragging them across to the timeline and moving them around. You add videos and pictures at the top and audio tracks at the bottom.

That is the basics of creating the video. You can add effects and transitions to parts of your video and to your clips by clicking on the appropriate links on the side. You can also add titles and credits by going to tools and creating one of these to put at either the start or end of the video. There is also a help section with various help topics.

Once you have created your video you can preview it by clicking the play button below the video screen. You can continue to edit and when you are happy you can publish the movie either to save on the computer, to dvd, on a recordable cd, to email or record it on to a digital video camera for playback. You can choose to compress the file if you are pressed for space or choose the best quality for playback option which is the default choice. Then you can sit back and wait for your video to be published wich you will be able to view in windows movie maker.

This program is great for video amateurs who can create pretty good personal videos using their favourite clips, music and pictures and I have created quite a few videos using this software. It is easy to access and use and is not too complicated. This can also be a drawback as it is not very complicated and there is not many advanced features which you may want to create better videos. There is other software around I guess for more serious video makers but this is good for the novices and amateurs.

Summary: pretty good video creating/editing program

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