What's New?
This page is about the more significant recent changes to the site, comments about what I'm currently working on that will effect it in the future, and anything else that might be of interest to users of Windows Movie Maker, Photo Story and Expression Media. The info is for a rolling one year period.
PapaJohn's Products and Services
Although this site is in English and I live in the Kalamazoo, Michigan (USA) area... almost half of the visitors are from other countries.
Here are some of the statistics that help me understand who visits this website... as of 1/15/12 the previous 12 months of data show:
What's New and Where's the Website Going?
facebook Windows Movie Maker group
Jan 31, 2012 - I added Method 5 to the page about how to reverse a video clip... use the
I tested it with a 10 second HD 1280x720 sized wmv file made by WLMM. Here's the result - 10 seconds going forward followed by the same clip in reverse.
Jan 15, 2012 - One of my projects this year is to make a set of about 100 videos from the critter pictures and video clips my brother and his wife took over about 20 years of traveling, and publish them as a YouTube playlist. It's up and running now with the first 4 videos in it.
Dec 29, 2011- Happy New Year...
Dec 15, 2011- Added this notice to the top of the main website page.... for a month or so, until the transfers and transition are well past.
Dec 2, 2011- BrightHub is ending their 'shared success' program. Over the next couple weeks I'll be changing my links from articles on their site to new ones here.
Nov 22, 2011- Have a wonderful holiday season...
Nov 17, 2011- For years I've been using GoToMeeting to conduct one-on-one training or problem-solving sessions. Last night I hosted an open meeting for anyone who wanted to join in.... we covered how to make and use animated menu files from Windows DVD Maker to add a WOW effect to a video, and touched on Pixelan's Pan/Zoom Wizard.
The session went well and I'll be holding more about different topics. See the facebook Movie Maker group for announcements of the dates/times, and links to access them.
Oct 31, 2011- BrightHub is closing down their hubfolio corner, where I have a number of online articles.
They'll move my 5 most popular ones (about WLMM) into one of the main channels and return the others for me to use elsewhere.
More significant to me is how it changes the path I started down toward writing an e-book about WLMM. I was planning on drafting it as hubfolio articles and publishing it when done. Instead of the hubfolio I'll do it in a new website... if you want to follow it, here's the link.
Feel free to comment on the draft as it goes, posting to the facebook Windows Movie Maker group.
Oct 10, 2011- Here's a music video that, in addition to recording and sharing memories for the musicians, demos a couple things about Windows Live Movie Maker (WLMM) projects...
Sept 28, 2011- There are always newer ways to review, edit and publish vacation pictures and videos. We used a private facebook group to share highlights of the day with selected family and friends. After returning home we started the never-ending process of doing them all.
During the first week I looked at the 6+ hours of trip video clips (1,181 HD1080 sized MTS files) and used Sony's PMB app to take frame snapshots (1920x1080 pixel sized) for a facebook picture album. I found a current facebook album to be limited to 200 pictures, so I ended up with two albums.
They are public for viewing... clicking an image opens a larger sized one with comments below. Feel free to make one. They are sequenced in the order recorded by the camcorder.
As I publish related pictures and videos to facebook, vimeo, YouTube and other places, I'm embedding links and players in the comments. This makes the album a full table of contents for the trip.
This photosynth is an example, a full 360 degree image made from a composite of 7 megapixel pictures from my little Canon camera.
Sept 19, 2011- My favorite video scene from our vacation is this one in the White Sands National Monument in New Mexico.
Sept 18, 2011
We just returned home from a 3 week, 3,700 mile driving trip around New Mexico, Colorado and the southeast part of Utah. Video clips and pictures are on their way into our computers...
August 20, 2011
Testing how Microsoft's zoom.it website handles the large panoramic.... explore!!
August 19, 2011- Here's a new tutorial-like video showing how to make and use a large panoramic image...
August 1, 2011- Added a new tip/website page about taking full sized snapshots from each frame of a video clip.
The tip is #8 on the Windows Live > Movie Maker > Add Pix page. Here's a direct link to the new Movie Maker Frame Snapshots page.
June 29, 2011- In a couple months I'll be marking the 10th anniversary of my first online internet post. It was to Microsoft's alt.graphics.photoshop newsgroup, something folded up last year with the others as Microsoft moved online and peer support to forums.
As I look at my 10 years of collected online work I see a personal website showing significant signs of aging, Movie Maker going forward in the Live suite without its classic timeline, my articles at BrightHub that were smacked hard in viewing stats a couple months ago by changing Google search algorithms, and hundreds of videos at YouTube and vimeo....
Moving up the ladder of activity is facebook, where I publish personal work to family and friends, and host a Windows Movie Maker group to present tips and discuss all aspects of Movie Maker. My new format of packaging tips in a video (wmv) format, with fast-flowing user comments to follow, makes for an exciting new wave of online experiences. Join me there... at PapaJohn's facebook Windows Movie Maker group
June 16, 2011- It's graduation time for many.... our oldest grand graduated high school last weekend. For me it's prime time for making some family videos to record the occasion.
I've been publishing them on facebook... to my profile, with links to those in the videos, and to the private group for the graduating class.
I'm showcasing this 2-1/2 minute one here, not for the people involved but to illustrate the combined use of a number of movie-making tools: an animated menu by Windows DVD Maker, a widescreen Photo Story 3 made from 10 megapixel pix, background music recorded at the ceremony, and some HD sized video clips, all mixed in WLMM 2011.
June 7, 2011- Yesterday on my facebook Windows Movie Maker Group I cautioned users of WLMM to not do large serious projects with WLMM until a serious bug is resolved, one that suddenly makes your project file 'corrupt'.
Today I explored WLMM limits for the duration of a transition. The menu includes a drop down choice of settings. Select one or type in a different number, but if you enter one higher than 10 seconds you'll get a message telling you it must be between 0.04 and 10.00 seconds.
If you want a longer duration and you're a little adventurous, save the project and open the .wlmp project file with Notepad. Find the duration setting and change it to what you want. As a test I took a couple two hour long DV-AVI files and found I could make a transition between them of over 22 minutes. I then used part of the transitioning segment to make this short 2 minute video...
The limit for the duration depends on the durations of the two files. The longer the clips, the longer the transition you can make.
May 24, 2011- freemake's Free Video Converter is my new recommended all-purpose conversion tool.
freemake's Free Video Converter
I've found it to be very robust in the variety of file types it converts from and to, and good at most conversions... with this short list of items to be aware of.
May 10, 2011 - It's not like I resisted being involved in social media sites such as facebook, but I hadn't been actively driving toward them.... until now. I've been pulled in by family and friends and am enjoying the ride.
It seems the priority of having a personal website has been trumped by the need to have a facebook profile, a gaggle of friends, and a specialty group. In such a social environment you might find it easier and better to ask your friends about something than to navigate through search engine results and associated marketing material. The recent Google 'panda' wave of changes seems to lean on what your friends are doing to help you choose, and it's probably just the beginning.
With more versions of Movie Maker to pick from, and additional choices, I'm writing a new article to help.... a roadmap for jumping into the center of the social circle with your video clips and movies. With a lifetime of source material I find myself publishing most of my videos from Windows Live Movie Maker to facebook, where they are appreciated, no matter how short.
If you're already using facebook, join my Windows Movie Maker group.
Apr 26, 2011 - There's an interesting thread on the Windows Live forums about differences in the audio codec used by WLMM 2011 profiles resulting in playback issues on devices such as a PS3. Some profiles use the WMA 10 Pro codec and others the WMA 9.2 codec which is more compatible with PS3.
Apr 22, 2011 - I started to test Freemake Video Converter version 2.1.3 as a general purpose file converter to get clips to Movie Maker... looking for a general purpose app to recommend since dropping Xilisoft.
Apr 21, 2011 - While following who's saying what about the search engine changes, there are video clips to explore...
Apr 20, 2011 - I'm itching to write another article about some aspect of Movie Maker, but some Google seach engine changes might effect where I put the next article... and the share of advertising revenue that flows from it.
While I study daily viewing stats of Bright Hub and my website (which doesn't appear affected by the changes), I'm busy in forums and the new facebook Windows Movie Maker Group, which is off and running well.
Apr 2, 2011 - Here's another video from a single picture...
... with an opening animation by Windows DVD Maker.
Mar 29, 2011 - Custom profiles and the tools to make them can be a confusing topic for novice Movie Maker users. I removed the link to get the Profile Editor utility in the Windows Media 9 Encoder package, as Microsoft shifted the link to go to the newer Expression Encoder.
There are at least 3 ways to make or change a profile...
On another note, after a couple weeks studying a 'corrupt' WLMM project file I published info about it in this new article at Bright Hub...
Analyzing and Fixing a 'Corrupt' WLMM 2011 Project File...
Mar 21, 2011 - I finished my 9 minute 'Quality of Movement' video.
It's done in Windows 7 using MM2.6 and WLMM, with assists from Windows Live Photo Gallery and Pixelan's SpiceFX 6 Pan/Zoom Wizard.
March 19, 2011 - I enjoy studying software to try to figure out how it works... to learn enough to resolve issues, understand limitations, and think about how to work-around things. Movie Maker has always been a great subject to study and Windows Live Movie Maker even more so.
Why is WLMM more intriguing? Because the project files are text-based, readable and changeable with an app like Notepad, the same app I use to maintain this website.
A number of users reported saving a project file and, when trying to open it again, getting an error message about the file being not valid or corrupt. Being text-based, I should be able to open it with Notepad and tweak it.... to either resolve the issue or understand it.
That's the concept, but I'm only in the early stage of understanding the structure of project files and how to do surgical operations on them. I've succeeded at adding a text clip using the normal project editing features, removing it by editing with Notepad, and then re-opening the project with WLMM to verify it still worked as usual and WLMM hadn't noticed the missing part.
March 4, 2011 - Social sites are popular today for good reasons. facebook is my most visited website for interactions with family and friends. It's easier to reach them there than by email or phone.
While at the Microsoft MVP Summit this week I decided to start a Windows Movie Maker Group open to anyone interested in the subject. I need to let you in but, once there, I won't do moderation as done at forums or Bright Hub... all are welcome and free to look or get involved.
facebook supports pictures of up to 8,000 pixels on a side, and video clips from smaller phone sized ones to HD. It's a great place to not only comment about Movie Maker, but illustrate your comments with multimedia items.
Feb 25, 2011 - My two Windows 7 'workhorse' laptops had SP1 installed yesterday... quiet routine steps forward with no effect on any of the 5 versions of Movie Maker I use on them.
Feb 20, 2011 - We did a usual day trip to Chicago last Monday and I took 4 sets of snapshots with my 7 megapixel Canon PowerShot SD750, to use for an article and sample video about Pixelan's v6 of its Pan/Zoom Wizard...
Feb 17, 2011 - About books, eBooks and online articles...
eBooks accounted for 86% of the books sold.
My hard copy book sales haven't gone down with it being available as an eBook.... and offline information hasn't slowed the growth of online viewing.
Feb 7, 2011 - Pixelan's recently released version 6 SpiceFX software works well in the Windows 7 environment... using MM2.6 like I do (or MM6) but not Windows Live Movie Maker.
I started a new website page about the subject, and a new 5 article series at Bright Hub. Use the menu > Edit Movies > Pixelan SpiceFX to go to the new page.
Jan 29, 2011 - A couple months ago I wrote Pixelan about an issue I had with the Pan/Zoom PRO wizard. When I used custom effects to make a video clip longer than 30 seconds the frames were spreading out with very noticable visual studdering throughout.
Pixelan responded by reworking the wizard and releasing it in their new Spice FX version 6 which installs and works on Windows 7 in addition to XP and Vista.
I did my first checks of the new version last night, making a 2 minute video clip with MM2.6 in Windows 7 and taking it's output .wmv file to Windows Live Movie Maker 2011 to add overlying animated text. The results were great!!... starting with a single panoramic picture of 43 megapixels (a dozen stitched together 7 megapixel pictures from a Canon PowerShot SD750 into an 11,073 pixels wide by 3,908 pixels high composite). The resulting HD720 sized video played baby skin smooth throughout.
Here's a link to the 2nd generation output from WLMM...
The first generation .wmv file from MM2.6 is also online at vimeo, where my original uploaded file is downloadable for those who want to study it closer.
Jan 28, 2011 - You can use text clips in different languages with any version of Movie Maker...
Jan 20, 2011 - This chart is a link to my Bright Hub article Windows Movie Maker in Windows 7, which will soon reach the mark of being viewed a million times.
To support the growing wave of interest in Windows Live Movie Maker, I'm publishing a new series of articles about it. The latest one went online last night...
Working with Pictures in Windows Live Movie Maker (WLMM) 2011.
Jan 17, 2011 - I found the Xilisoft Video Converter Ultimate has a frame rate bug. I've done dozens of tests and found, regardless of source files or custom settings applied, .wmv files made from the conversion process have a frame rate of 25.
Files converted with other codecs such as Motion JPEG and Xvid are OK.
Jan 16, 2011 - Using text in WLMM is one of its strong suits.
Jan 12, 2011 - You can hide a body part like a face in Windows live Movie Maker easier than in classic versions of Movie Maker:
Jan 9, 2011 - Another common question is about how to mix video and audio clips from different source files with WLMM 2011.... here's another new article about it -
Mixing Audio and Video in WLMM 2011.
Jan 8, 2011 - A common question is how to highlight something or someone in a WLMM project using a circle or arrow. It's easy to do.... this new article covers it -
Highlighting in WLMM 2011.
Jan 2, 2011 - My articles at Bright Hub are popular.
Windows Movie Maker in Windows 7, first published 2 years ago, will reach a million views around the end of the month.
Interest in the article
Windows Live Movie Maker - Editing for the initial version of WLMM, has moved up the leaderboard to 5,000 views a month. I just published another similar article for the 2011 version...
Windows Live Movie Maker 2011 - Editing
Dec 29, 2010 - My wife got a new iPod touch for Christmas and I got her hand-me-down-last-years-model. As a Windows guy so used to hearing about iPod touches and iPads not being able to see flash files I was a little surprised to see my videos at vimeo playing well on it.
Then I remembered selecting vimeo's option of having other copies of my uploaded videos in a format viewable on portable devices.
Dec 28, 2010 - Here's a little video about what I did this year, and where I'm heading in 2011.
Dec 22, 2010 - Here's another sample video that uses the animated menu clips from Window DVD Maker...
the Sports menu style
Dec 16, 2010 - My problems with the MPEG2 files from my new camcorder were only on my main working computer, a 32 bit Toshiba Satellite that had been upgraded from Vista to Windows 7.
The files work fine in WMP and WLMM 2011 on my 64 bit HP Pavilion laptop, a computer that began its life as a Windows 7 system. So it goes with different codecs on different systems. Some work and some don't... and for the most part we don't know why.
Dec 15, 2010 - At our family cookie-baking day on Saturday I took some video with my new HD camcorder, not realizing I had the menu switched to shooting in standard def. As the HD clips work fine in WLMM on Windows 7, I expected the standard ones to work also.
Wrong!!! the files were MPEG2, didn't play in Windows Media Player or work in WLMM 2011. So I made a little movie with the first thing I found that would handle them... MM6 running on a thumb drive. It gave me something new to study and blog about.
Dec 4, 2010 - I love the menu animations of Windows DVD Maker but rarely make discs... so I decided to use the animations in online videos. The Holiday Greetings video below now starts with the 'Photographs' menu style of Windows DVD Maker.
Dec 3, 2010 - There's a new version of Windows Live Essentials that updates the suite to build 15.4.3508.1109. The new files are dated Nov 10, 2010, but there doesn't seem to be any changes to the features of Windows Live Movie Maker.
Install the update over your current setup. You won't lose any projects, movies, or other working files.
It works well on my 32 and 64 bit Windows 7 systems. It's a free download and has features that go beyond conversions... such as simple editing, and making video DVDs and Blu-Ray discs.
Google implemented some changes a week ago that effects search results and article viewings at Bright Hub. I'm taking a closer look at the subject of plagiarism. Direct copies of content from my two most viewed articles appear in search results (Google and Bing), sometimes higher placed than my originals.
It won't automatically follow the selected item... you can make the font size larger to cover minor movements or add multiple captions to different video segments.