New Media Center

Here is a screencast of an example editing session using VideoSpin. We take the video that we digitized from Windows Movie Maker, import it, add it to the timeline, insert transitions and titles, and then send it to YouTube.

In my previous post I referred to the latest Windows Movie Maker program for Windows Vista has issues with frame accuracy. Well, here I present to you a very graphic demonstration (a screencast) of that lack of accuracy. What you will see is how erratic the native Windows Vista Movie Maker program is. For that, and the other reasons mentioned previously, go download Windows Movie Maker 2.6 to get slightly less erratic behavior.

An even better idea would be to download another free Windows video editor called VideoSpin. This video editor is a scaled down version of their Pinnacle Studio editor. VideoSpin has the same general features as Movie Maker and it also adds a nice YouTube upload feature. I’ll have more to write (and screencast) about VideoSpin in the future. For now, enjoy the screencast.

This post finds me answering the question of what have I been up to lately. Well, I’m trying to find easy ways to edit and produce video for as close to zero expense as possible. So I find myself on the Mac and on the PC side of this MacBook Pro working with Windows Movie Maker for Vista and iMovie’08 for Mac. Now I’m going to jump straight to the ending and say that I don’t recommend you use either one of them, at least not for start to finish video editing projects.

What I will recommend that you do is go download the previous version of the editors and use them instead. So However, if you use a Mac, go download iMovie HD iMovie HD is no longer available. The latest version of iMovie is at least slightly improved over the awful iMovie '08. If you are using Windows XP, you’re OK, but make sure you have at least version 2.1. If you have Windows Vista Home Premium or Ultimate, go download Movie Maker 2.6 for Vista. If you have Vista Home Basic, or Vista Enterprise/Business, it looks like you’re out of luck because version 2.6 seems to require that you have the original Vista Movie Maker program. Home Basic and Enterprise versions don’t come with Movie Maker so it looks like a non-starter.

Another caveat, the download page for Movie Maker 2.6 for Vista says to test if you can run the original version of Movie Maker. They say “If Movie Maker launches, you should not download version 2.6”. I have not discovered any incompatibilities with having both versions on my computer. As a matter of fact, I’m seeing that the original version of Movie Maker runs better once you install the old version. By better I mean that the original version has big problems with frame accuracy, in other words finding the exact point where one scene ends and the other begins. Still, Movie Maker 2.6 is more frame accurate.

Also, when you import video into the original Vista Movie maker, it does not detect scenes correctly. However, here is a truly weird situation. If I open a movie in 2.6 it does the scene detection correctly, and then if I open up the original Movie Maker with the same video all the scenes are now there as if it detected those scenes all along. Here’s a screencast of the phenomenon:

Expect more from me soon, regarding Windows Movie Maker and iMovie. Here’s a teaser for a large project I’m working on.

Here is a screencast demonstrating how to transfer your footage from a digital video (DV) camcorder to a Windows PC using Windows Movie Maker.