Windows Vista comes with an accessory called Windows Movie Maker (version 6) that lets you combine video, audio, and image files with special effects to create movies you can show on your computer or CD, e-mail to others, record on a digital camera, or place on a web page.
In Movie Maker, you create a project that contains the arrangement and timing information of audio and video clips, video transitions, video effects, and titles in a storyboard or timeline. You drag video and audio clips from a collection to the storyboard or timeline. After you arrange the video and audio clips in the sequence you want, you can add video transitions, video effects, titles, and credits. After you preview your project using the monitor, you publish it as a movie file to your computer or to a recordable CD, send it as an attachment in an e-mail message, save and send it to the web, or record your movie to a digital video tape. The movie you create can be watched in a media player, such as Microsoft Windows Media Player, or in a web browser. If you would rather create a DVD, Movie Maker connects you with Windows DVD Maker (New!) and automatically imports your movie. In Windows DVD Maker, you can insert additional video, pictures, and audio, add DVD titles and menus, and specify publishing options before you burn the movie to a DVD. Windows DVD Maker is a stand-alone program and can be used separately from Movie Maker.
Before using Movie Maker, you need to connect and install the equipment needed to transfer video content to your computer, such as a digital video or web camera. Movie Maker must detect the video device on your computer, and you must properly connect the device to a USB port, a video capture card, or an IEEE 1394 port. (Check your computer documentation for details.)
Movie Maker lets you combine video, audio, and image files to create movies you can show on your computer, e-mail to others, or place on a web page. You save the movie you create as a file, just as you would save a word processing or spreadsheet file, and you can play and view it at any time. However, movies and their accompanying files are larger than most other documents you create—usually exceeding 5 MB. Before you begin, it’s a good idea to plan your content.
Your movie might be a promotional piece or catalog for business use, or a vacation movie to share with family and friends. Your purpose determines the subject, type, and quality of the source material, which is the video and audio material you will use.
You might want to show your movie on a computer projection screen at a meeting, send it as an attachment in an e-mail message, or place it on a web site. When you place a movie on a web site, viewers might download it, which means to transfer it to their computers and store it for future viewing. If your movie is very long or has many high-quality images, the movie file will be large and will take a long time to download.
If you have a digital video or digital web camera, you can record or capture digital images directly into Movie Maker on your computer. To use existing video or audio segments, called clips, you must import them, or bring them into Movie Maker. You can also import clips from videotape, but your computer must have a video capture card to convert clips from analog to digital format. You can start the System Information accessory on the System Tools submenu to determine whether you have a video capture card installed on your computer.
Before putting your movie together in Movie Maker, it’s important to make a sketch of your movie that shows the order of the audio and video components. What audio clips do you want to play with what video clips?
First, you bring clips of source material into a Movie Maker project file. A project file, which is the working copy of your movie, is a Movie Maker document with the file name extension .mswmm. You then use the project file to do the following: set the order of your movie segments; trim (delete) portions of clips you don’t want to use; specify how clips display from one to the next, called transitions; add a video special effect to clips; add titles and credits to the beginning and end of the movie or individual clips; and, lastly, preview your work. Finally, you save your project file as a movie with the file name extension .wmv and display the completed movie using the Windows Media Player program.
Before you start Movie Maker, use Display Properties in the Control Panel to make sure the screen resolution is set correctly. Movie Maker is a Windows accessory program that you can start from the Start menu. You achieve the best results in Movie Maker when the screen resolution is set to 1024 by 768 or higher. When you start Movie Maker, a new untitled movie project is displayed. You can either create a new movie project or open an existing one.
Click the Start button, and then point to All Programs.
Click Windows Movie Maker.
If an alert appears, indicating your computer video card does not support the required level of hardware acceleration, you can download another version of Movie Maker (version 2.6 for Vista) from the Microsoft Web site designed for video cards with lesser capabilities. You can click the video card requirements link in the alert dialog box to access the download site.
You can check online for the latest version of Movie Maker. Click the Start button, point to All Programs, click Windows Update, connect to the Internet, scan for updates, check for a new version of Movie Maker, and then download it.
See “Changing the Display” on page 105 for information on changing the screen resolution.
After you save a project in Movie Maker, you can open it and continue to work on the project. A Movie Maker project file is saved with a .mswmm file name extension, which you can open using the Open Project button on the toolbar. The project file’s extension will change, once the project is finalized.
You can capture video and audio to your computer from a digital video (DV) or analog camera, web camera, videotape (VCR), or television tuner card directly in Movie Maker. Similarly, you can record audio source material from a microphone, radio, audio or video tape, or a CD. Before you can capture video and audio, a video capture device must be connected properly and detected on your computer by Windows Movie Maker. If you record clips from any commercial source, however, be aware of copyright restrictions that regulate how you may or may not use the content. In the capturing process, Movie Maker converts the material to Windows Media format.
Make sure the digital video camera is connected properly, and then set the camera to play recorded video.
Click From digital video camera in the Tasks pane.
Click the digital video camera, and then click Next to continue.
Type a file name for your captured video file.
Select the location where you want to save the video, and then click Next to continue.
Specify the video settings you want for capturing video and audio, and then click Next to continue.
Click Capture parts of the tape manually.
To separate the video into smaller clips, select the Create clips when wizard finishes check box.
Click Start Capture.
To stop capturing video, click Stop Capture.
Click Finish.
Make sure the digital video camera is connected properly, and then set the camera to play recorded video.
Click From digital video camera in the Tasks pane.
Click the digital video camera, and then click Next to continue.
Type a file name for your captured video file.
Select the location where you want to save the video, and then click Next to continue.
Specify the video settings you want, and then click Next to continue.
To separate the video into smaller clips, select the Create clips when wizard finishes check box.
To automatically stop the capture, select the Capture time limit check box, and then type or select a time limit.
Click Start Capture.
To stop capturing video, click Stop Capture.
Click Finish.
If you want to use existing video and audio clips in your movie instead of recording them yourself, you can obtain them from various companies that specialize in video processing, or you can download them from the Web. Commercial CDs are excellent sources for audio clips. You can import the video and audio clips into Movie Maker from files on your computer, from your CD drive, or from the Web. If you already imported a video clip and need a still picture of a frame from a video, you can take a picture of the video frame and save it as a file, which you can then import back into Movie Maker.
Click the Import Media button on the toolbar.
Select the folder that contains the video or audio files you want to import.
To select a specific media type, click the Files of type list arrow, and then select a file type.
Select the files you want to import.
Click Import.
Movie Maker creates a new collection for the imported video or audio clips.
Instead of using video clips, you can create slide shows in Movie Maker with still images that you create using a digital camera, web camera, or scanner. You can import the clips into Movie Maker and create transitions between them, just as you would in a movie. You can change the duration of individual pictures in Timeline view. You can also add sound clips to create a sound track that plays as your pictures appear on the screen. Portrait-oriented pictures in Movie Maker are the same height as landscape-oriented pictures, and Movie Maker inserts a black background on either side of each one.
Click the Collections button, and then click the collection where you want to place the imported pictures.
Click Pictures in the Tasks pane.
Select the folder that contains the picture files you want to import.
Select the files you want to import.
Click Import.
Movie Maker adds the imported pictures into the selected collection.
When you bring video clips, audio clips, or pictures into Movie Maker, the program stores them in a collection folder in the Collections pane. The contents of the selected collection folder appear in the Collections area. As you continue to collect media clips for use in different movie projects, the number of clips in a collection and in Movie Maker can grow rapidly and become hard to manage. You can use the same management techniques you use in Windows Explorer to help you organize and remove clips and collections. Once you have clips in your collections, you can move them around and rename the clips and collections as you would a file or folder and use them to create a movie. When you no longer need individual video and audio clips or entire collections, you can remove them from Movie Maker. When you remove video and sound clips and collections, they are deleted only from Movie Maker; the original video and sound files, which you imported into Movie Maker, are not deleted and remain unchanged on your hard drive.
Click the Collections button.
Click the Collection folder you want to view.
Click the Views button on the toolbar, and then click Thumbnails or Details.
Click the Views button on the toolbar, point to Arrange Icons By, and then click an arrangement type.
To create a new collection, click the File menu, click New Collection Folder, type a name, and then press Enter.
To close the Collection pane, click the Collections button.
To open the Tasks pane, click the Tasks button.
After you capture or import a video clip or audio clip, you can preview the individual clips within a collection in the monitor. The monitor works similarly to a VCR/DVD. If you have a long clip that you want to divide into smaller clips, you can split the clip on your own or let Movie Maker try to do it. Movie Maker creates clips automatically based on time stamps insert by the digital video camera or significant frame change in the video.
When you start Movie Maker, a new, untitled project opens. A project contains the arrangement and timing information of audio and video clips, video transitions, video effects, and titles you have added to the storyboard/timeline. You can view a project in one of two views: Storyboard view, which shows the order of your clips, and Timeline view, which shows the duration of each clip and the types of transitions between them, as well as, the sound track. To create a movie, drag video and audio clips from your Collections area to the project file’s storyboard or timeline, and then rearrange the clips in any order you want. After you preview your project using the monitor and you are satisfied with the results, you can save it as a movie file.
Click the Collections button.
Click the Collection folder that contains the clips you want to use in your project.
To switch between the Timeline and the Storyboard, click the Timeline/Storyboard button, and then click Timeline or Storyboard.
Drag clips from the Collections area to the place in the storyboard or timeline where you want them.
To rearrange the order of clips, drag clips on the storyboard or timeline.
Frequently, the clips you record or import into Movie Maker run longer than you want them to in your final movie. You can easily trim clips in Timeline view by playing the clip and setting the trim beginning point and trim end point. The portion between the trim points remains in your movie. The frames before and after the trim points are deleted from your movie, but the original clip in your collection is not affected and retains its original length. You can trim a clip as it plays, or you can pause and set the trim points. You can use the Trim Beginning and Trim End commands on the Clip menu or drag the timeline trim handles (small triangles at the beginning and end of a selected clip).
Click the Timeline/Storyboard button, and then click Timeline.
Select the clip you want to crop.
Drag the Seek bar to the point where you want to start the clip.
Click the Clip menu, and then click Trim Beginning.
Drag the Seek bar to the point where you want to end the clip.
Click the Clip menu, and then click Trim End.
A transition is an effect that provides a smoother, more gradual change between clips in a movie. A transition plays before one clip ends while another starts to play. You can add a transition between two video clips, pictures, or titles on the storyboard or timeline. Movie Maker provides a variety of video transitions that you can quickly add to a movie project, such as Bow Tie, Eye, Diamond, Fan Up, and Shatter In.
Click the Locations list arrow, and then click Video Transitions.
Click the Timeline/Storyboard button, and then click Timeline or Storyboard.
To view the Transition track in the timeline, click the plus sign (+) next to the Video track in the timeline.
Drag a transition to the video transition cell in the storyboard or between the two clips in the timeline.
To increase the transition duration in the timeline, drag the beginning of the transition towards the beginning of the timeline.
To decrease the transition duration in the timeline, drag the beginning of the transition towards the end of the timeline.
Movie Maker offers a variety of video effects that you can add to a movie project, such as Ease In, Blur, Film Age Old, Mirror Vertical, Speed Up Double, and Watercolor. A video effect is applied for the entire duration of a clip, picture, or title in a movie project. You can add multiple video effects to the same clip, as well as customize the order. If you no longer want to use a video effect, you can remove it.
You can add titles and credits to your movies just like the professionals. You can add any text you want, such as the title of your movie, your name, captions, and credits at the end. You can add a title at the beginning of a movie, before or after a clip, or overlapping a clip or credits at the end of a movie. You can also change the appearance of the title or credits, and you can add special animation effects, which play for the time you specify in the Title Overlay track in the timeline.
Select the clip you to which you want to add a title.
Click the Tasks button, if necessary, and then click Titles or credits in the Task pane.
Click the link to where you want to add a title or credit.
Type the text you want to appear as the title.
Click Change the text font and color.
Specify the font, font color, font size, formatting, background color, transparency, and position you want.
Click Change the title animation, and then select a title animation.
Click Add Title.
With Movie Maker, you can play a video clip sound and soundtrack simultaneously and have one play louder than the other. You can put two types of sounds in your movies: sounds that are part of a video clip, and separate sounds, such as music or narration, that appear on the Audio bar of the timeline. You can import and edit sound clips in the soundtrack the same way you edit video clips using the Audio bar. Remember that if you use a clip from a CD or DVD, you must obtain permission from the publisher.
Click the Tasks button, if necessary, and then click Audio or Music.
Select the folder that contains the files you want to Import.
Select the files you want to import, and then click Import.
Click the Timeline/Story Board button, and then click Timeline, if necessary.
Drag the sound clip onto the Audio/Music bar at the location where you want the clip to play.
Click the Tools menu, and then click Set Audio Levels.
Click the Rewind Timeline button, and then click the Play Timeline button.
Drag the Audio Levels slider to adjust the balance between the video click and the soundtrack.
When you’re done adjusting the volume, click the Close button.
If you have a microphone attached to your computer, you can record a narration to accompany your movie. Your narration is saved as a .wav sound file directly in your Collections area so that you can place it in the Audio/Music bar like any other audio clip.
Click the Timeline/Story Board button, and then click Timeline, if necessary, and then drag the playback indicator to the place where you want to start the narration.
Click the Tools menu, and then click Narrate Timeline.
To select an audio device, input source, and other settings, click Show Options.
Drag the slide to adjust the input levels.
Click Start Narration.
When you’re done speaking, click Stop Narration.
Save the audio file.
Click Close.
See “Adding a Soundtrack” on page 270 for information on changing the audio levels.
You can use AutoMovie to help you automatically create a movie based on the selected clips or collection. AutoMovie analyzes the selected video clips, pictures, and music and combines them into a movie based on your AutoMovie editing style. To use AutoMovie, the total length of the clips you use need to last for at least 30 seconds; each picture needs to play at least 6 seconds, and an audio clip needs to play at least 30 seconds.
Select the clips, pictures, and audio you want in the Collections area.
Click the AutoMovie button on the toolbar.
Click an AutoMovie editing style.
Click Enter a title for the movie.
Type the text you want to appear as the title.
Click Select audio or background music.
To select an audio or music file, click Browse, locate and select the audio or music file you want to use, and then click Open.
Drag the slider to adjust the audio balance level.
Click Create AutoMovie.
If you’re still working on a project, you can save the project file and open it later to continue working with your movie. A saved project file in Movie Maker has an .mswmm file name extension. Before you save your project, you can include general information about the movie, such as the title, author, copyright, a rating, and a description, that is often displayed during playback by many media players.
After you preview the final project using the monitor, you can publish the project file as a movie file. Using the Publish Wizard, you can publish the movie file to your computer or a recordable CD, send it as an attachment in an e-mail message, or save and send it to the web. If you have a digital video camera connected to your computer, you can also record your movie to a tape. After you save the movie in the .wmv format, you can play it in a media player, such as Windows Media Player, or in a web browser. If you want to create a DVD, Movie Maker connects you with Windows DVD Maker (New!) and imports your movie where you can customize it, and burn the movie to a DVD.
Click the Tasks button, if necessary.
In the Task pane, click This computer or Recordable CD.
Type a file name for the movie.
Select a save location or insert a recordable CD.
Click Next to continue.
Click the movie quality option you want: Best quality, Compress, or More settings.
Click Publish.
Wait while Movie Maker saves the movie file.
Click Finish.
You can save a movie to a digital video camera. Turn on your digital camera, and connect it to your computer. In Movie Maker, click the Tasks button, click Digital video camera in the Tasks pane, select your digital camera, click Next, use your video camera controls to cue the tape, click Next, click Yes, and then click Finish.
In Movie Maker, click the Tasks button if necessary, click DVD, and then click OK to burn your movie to a DVD.
Click the Add items button, locate and select the media you want to insert, and then click Import.
Select a media item, and then click the Move up or Move down button to arrange the media on the DVD.
Click DVD Burner list arrow, and then select a DVD burner.
To set options, click the Options button, specify the options you want, and then click OK.
Type a disc title, and then click Next to continue.
Click the Menu text button, specify the text you want, and then click Change Text.
Click a menu style in the right pane.
Click Burn.
Click the File menu, click Save, specify a location and name, and then click Save.
With Windows DVD Maker (New!), you can insert video, pictures and audio, and combine it with titles and predefined menus to create a DVD video disc that you can play on a TV using a DVD player. To create a DVD, you add and arrange your media, add menu text, select a menu style, choose DVD playback options, and then burn it. If you have still photos, you can also create a slide show set to music.
Click the Start button, point to All Programs, and then click Windows DVD Maker.
Click the Add items button, locate and select the media you want to insert, and then click Import.
Select a media item, and then click the Move up or Move down button to arrange the media on the DVD.
Click DVD Burner list arrow, and then select a DVD burner.
To set options, click the Options button, specify the options you want, and then click OK.
Type a disc title, and then click Next to continue.
Click the Menu text button, specify the text you want, and then click Change Text.
Click a menu style in the right pane.
To customize the menu, click the Customize menu button, specify the options you want, and then Change Style.
Click the Slide show button, specify picture length and music, and then Change Slide Show.
Click Burn.
Click the File menu, click Save, specify a location and name, and then click Save.