Vista Tips and Tricks: Windows Movie Maker
By Matthew Murray
Not that long ago, if you wanted to make videos on your home computer, you had to spring for expensive software that would let you capture your clips and combine them into a finished film. But if you're using the Home Basic, Home Premium, or Ultimate edition of Windows Vista, you have that capability right at your fingertips in Windows Movie Maker (WMM). You might need a little bit of time, but with Vista it's easy to blend video, still images, and audio into a movie that's ready for sending to friends or family, uploading to YouTube, or burning to DVD.
IMPORTING VIDEO FROM A DIGITAL CAMCORDER
The first thing you'll have to do is collect all the individual video clips you're planning to include in your movie. If the clips are on your digital camcorder, WMM makes it easy to access them and capture them onto your computer's hard drive.
Connect your camcorder to your computer with a USB or FireWire cable. (Your camera's manual will explain which to use.)
Make sure the camcorder is in Playback mode.
In the "Tasks" section of the WMM window, click on "From digital video camera" to start the Import Video wizard.
Type the name of the video file you want to create, then choose a location in which to save it. Click Next.
Specify whether you want to capture the entire recording or just selected scenes of it. If you selected the entire recording, the capture process begins immediately.
If you just wanted to record certain scenes, the Import Video window will appear, allowing you to preview your recording and operate the camera with controls such as Play, Stop, Rewind, Fast Forward, and Pause. Use the controls to find the scene you want to import, then click the Start Video Import button to begin importing. When you want to stop, click the button again—its text will have changed to Stop Video Import—or use the "Stop importing after" option at the bottom of the window to specify how many minutes should pass until the importing stops automatically.
Once you're done, click Finish. You can repeat these steps as many times as necessary to get all the video clips you need.
IMPORTING VIDEO, SOUNDS, OR IMAGES FROM YOUR HARD DRIVE
If you want to use pre-existing files instead of digital video you shot yourself as part of your movie, you can do that, too.
Click on the appropriate link in the Tasks section of the WMM window. (Your choices are Videos, Pictures, or Audio or Music.)
This will open the standard Open File dialogue box. Navigate to the file you're looking for, and double-click it to import it into WMM as a clip.
LIST OF SUPPORTED FILE FORMATS
Windows Movie Maker supports the following file formats:
Video files: ASF, AVI, DVR-MS, M1V, MP2, MP2V, MPE, MPEG, MPG, MPV2, WM, WMV
Audio files: AIF, AIFC, AIFF, ASF, AU, MP2, MP3, MPA, SND, WAV, WMA
Image files: BMP, DIB, EMF, GIF, JFIF, JPE, JPEG, JPG, PNG, TIF, TIFF, WMF
EDITING YOUR CLIPS
Now that you have imported all the video, image, or sound files you need, it's time to start assembling them into your movie. Icons representing your clips will appear in the middle section of the WMM window—it's up to you to fuse them all together.
Choose storyboard or timeline view. The bottom section of the screen is where you'll need to place your clips to make a movie from them, and how you'll work with them depends on your own personal preference. You can toggle between storyboard or timeline view at any time using the button in the upper-left corner of the lower section: Storyboard presents each clip as a same-size icon, while timeline uses a horizontal bar of varying width to represent each clip's different duration, and shows you the different "layers" of audio and overlay at your disposal. The magnifying-glass-shaped controls let you zoom in or zoom out on your clip, and you can resize the timeline or storyboard section by dragging the upper border of it with your mouse.
Move your clips to the storyboard or timeline. Drag each clip f
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