/ Video editing in Movie Maker

Video editing in Movie Maker

My husband recorded a friend’s wedding on his camcorder. He then downloaded it as normal in Windows Media Player which was fine. He then proceeded to edit the video to cut out the rubbish, which he did in Windows Movie Maker. The problem is he tried to download it onto disc and it is not allowing him to do so and at present it is showing all the pages of movie maker with the frames, when all he wants is the finished video like the original which downloaded fine. Can you please shed some light on this problem? The size of the video is 521 KB.

Celeste Stewart Editing Videos in Movie Maker

Windows Movie Maker is a basic video editor that comes preinstalled on Windows Vista. When editing, you have two views to choose from: Timeline or Storyboard. These views show you the frames of the clips in the center of the screen with a bar below where you drag and drop your scenes. Off to the right side of the screen is the preview monitor section where you can see the video in motion.

In Timeline view, you see several “tracks” such as audio, video, and titles laid out in a linear fashion. In the Storyboard view, you see a series of frames representing each scene. To change the view, go to the View menu and choose the view that you prefer. When in either of these views, you can edit the video and add the various effects. As you work, you will want to save your file frequently.

Saving Videos in Movie Maker

It’s important to note that when you save a video in Movie Maker, this is not the same thing as “publishing” the file. For example, when you say the size of the video is 521 KB, I immediately suspected that you must be mistaken as that is incredibly small. Most digital videos are in the gigabyte range. I have a 17 minute AVI video on my computer that is 3.4 gigabytes large. However, the Movie Maker file for that same video is well under a megabyte. The Movie Maker file is not the same as the finished video file that you will download and distribute. The Movie Maker file usually ends with the MSWMM file extension and represents the instructions that your software will eventually follow to create the finished video. Your finished video will eventually end with a file extension of .AVI, .WMV, or .MPG depending on the choices you make.

Publishing the Video

Depending on the ultimate format desired, you will need to “publish” your edited video. For example, if you want to have a DVD copy of the video, then you will publish the video to DVD. If you want to e-mail the video, you would choose the e-mail option. Look on the left side of the Movie Maker screen. There, you’ll see a Tasks list. Go down to the Publish section and click on your desired choice (Publish to: This Computer, DVD, Recordable CD, E-mail, or Digital Video Camera).

Once you make your selection, follow the prompts. For example, when publishing to DVD, you will be prompted to allow Movie Maker to close and Windows DVD Maker to open. No matter which option that you choose, expect the computer to take a long time to compile the video and create the finished file. I highly recommend that you close out ALL other programs and let your computer do this overnight without any interruptions, especially if the video is long.