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Microsoft Windows Movie Maker in Windows Me and XP

Version 1 of Movie Maker was in the Windows Millennium (Me) operating system in late 2000.

It was an extremely easy to learn and use app for video editing. A user could be up and running comfortably in a couple hours. But it lacked any special effects and its only transition was a fade or dissolve from one scene to the next by overlapping them on the timeline. It was meant to be a basic starter app for home video enthusiasts like myself, and was a bridge from the analog editing environment to computer-based editing. Once over the bridge, you don't look back.

Movie Maker version 1 was also included in Windows XP when it was released in late 2001.

In January of 2003 Movie Maker version 2 added features of special video effects and transitions, and text clips that could be used either as video clips or overlays with the video showing in the background. This version was only for Windows XP... no further updates were available to Windows Me users.

In addition to including the new features in Movie Maker, Microsoft provided info about how others could ‘hook’ into the software using custom xml code. Third parties, geeks, and hackers could make their own add-on effects, transitions, and text clips… like filter factory add-ons for Photoshop. Today my laptop has over 1,000 special effects and transitions, more than 10 times those included in MM2 itself. The community of users took off, creating all kinds of neat innovative custom video clips.

Movie Maker 2 in XP offers something for everyone. If you want to make content, it might be a long time before you need to move on to mid to high end editing software. If you’re not as much into video content, but like to explore the behind-the-scenes technology of effects and transitions, there are infinite possibilities. Some of my videos are nothing more than eye-popping WOW type effects and transitions. Who needs real Hollywood content when you can produce short bursts of eye candy?

With YouTube and other online hosts facilitating the ultra-easy distribution of videos, and with broadband advancements reaching more computer users, online video is taking off. You need more of a reason to not be onboad today than you do to start using the services.

The latest version 2.1 for XP was released in 2004 as part of the large Service Pack 2 for the Windows XP operating system. It had minimal changes in movie-making features.

Movie Maker, as an entry-level tool to help home users easily turn their memories into videos, served its purpose well, as you can see by browsing the videos on YouTube today, and noting that many or most of them were made with Movie Maker.

As good as it is, Movie Maker in XP falls short in some key areas…

• Crashes and hangs resulting from codec or direct show filter issues need work-arounds beyond the skills of average users. Version 2.1 provided a new compatibility tab to make it easier to work around the codec issues. Microsoft said the filter issue was due to a bug in the direct show component that caches the information about effects and transitions.

• Many video files such as recorded TV, DVDs, and HDD camcorders are in MPEG-2 format. To use them directly in a Movie Maker project, one needs a 'good MPEG-2 codec that works with Movie Maker'. Early on, there was a quest for such a codec… which only succeeded in rare cases.

  It evolved instead to where it is today, a matter of how to easily convert all kinds of files to AVI types that work well in movie projects.

• With options to add special transitions, effects, and titles to a project, the typical project complexity grew. It soon became apparent that saving a movie from a more ‘complex’ project might need more computer memory than was available. If the extra needed is minor, closing down other running apps or tweaking virtual memory settings might provide enough.

  Adding more RAM or virtual memory may also help, but 2 GB of memory seems to be a programmed ceiling, and the only way past it is to subdivide the project and render the movie in segments.

• Movie Maker includes an option to save a movie to a disc, with the idea being a CD with the movie in WMV format, wrapped in a HighMat disc menu structure, could play on stand-alone DVD players. Unfortunately, the DVD player manufacturers who supported the HighMat structure for still pictures and audio didn't add the playing of wmv video files.

  To get movies to standard DVDs, users have to use other disc authoring and burning software.

Vista’s Movie Making Process…

Vista's Movie Maker 6.0 takes a big step forward (versions 3, 4 and 5 were skipped to align the version numbers with that of Windows)… it resolves all 4 short-falls of Movie Maker 2 in XP. And it evolves Movie Maker from a program to a process in which it works in tandem with other related programs and wizards.

• The new program resolves the direct show filter issue which resulted in some crashing as Movie Maker opened. And the compatability tab is still there to help you manage codec conflicts.

• The Home Premium and Ultimate versions have an MPEG-2 codec that lets you use source files such as those from DVDs and recorded TV in Movie Maker... those using other versions of Vista may be able to do the same using a third party MPEG-2 codec. I'll be looking at user experiences about which ones work.

• Memory management ‘under the hood’ is significantly enhanced. The more complex projects that won’t render in XP may in Vista. My first check was a 50 minute project I needed to break into 7 segments in XP; it renders fine in Vista.

• With Vista's new DVD Maker, the users of Home Premium and Ultimate versions will have 20 great animated menu styles, and nothing more needed than the operating system to make standard DVDs that play anywhere and have great animated menus... your audience may prefer watching the menu rather than seeing the movies. Here's a link to a page with demo video clips showing each of the 20 animated styles.

  Windows DVD Maker

  

My website is expanding to include the apps wizards of Vista's moving-making processes. The kind of basic ‘how-to’ info that I had in my books about Movie Maker 2 will be online for Vista users as I write it. Don't think of Vista as having a new Movie Maker app... it's a new moving-making process. The Movie Maker app may not be doing the importing, nor will it need to do the rendering when heading to a DVD from a movie project.

Movie Maker 2.6 for Windows Vista was released on 4/6/07 for those whose computer can't run the Vista version 6 of Movie Maker. This would be due to video cards that either don’t have the right driver model or that lack Shader 2.0 capabilities. Once their video cards are upgraded, the systems should switch to the v6.0 that came with Vista.

Movie Maker v2.6 is an interim step for only those with the issue... it was made by paring down v2.1 to drop some features and then compiled to work on a Vista system.

Photo Story 3 didn't come with XP and isn't included in Vista... but the version for XP runs fine on Vista. Keep using it.

Vista SP1 was released for manufacturing in Feb 2008... Movie Maker is the same version 6.0.6000.16386 as it was on the original Vista release.

Anyone can say something to Microsoft using their online form shown below. Click the image, log in, and fill it out. Use it for a suggestion, comment, bug report, etc.

An MVP can formally submit abnormal behavior/bugs and feature requests using the Technical Resources > MVP Product Feedback tool on the Private MVP Member site