Publishing Choices......

The DVD choice is new.

The CD option is more clearly noted as being for playback on computers or devices that can handle the WMV file format.

The E-mail option is the same, but the settings let you bump up the maximum size to 25 MB instead of the 10 MB upper limit of MM2.

... and the option to go back to a digital camcorder tape hasn't changed.

Quality Profiles

The choices when saving to the computer are fewer, less confusing, and with significantly higher quality options. Welcome to high definition.

The DV-AVI choices (NTSC and PAL) are the same... fixed by the standards for DV.

DVD quality is a 3.0 Mbps WMV file... the maximum for the standard choices in MM2.1 is 2.1 Mbps, so the quality is notched up a good bit in Vista.... and it's offered in both standard and widescreen.

The three High Definition choices are new... with fairly high bitrates. You'll be challenging your computer system to do smooth playback, and your video displays to see the full resolution.

The HD for Xbox 360 renders a widescreen 1280x720 pixel movie at 30 fps.

The two at the bottom, low bandwidth and VHS Quality, are traditional and there for those who need them.

Behind the Scenes

Tips and Tricks

• 1 - In Windows XP, a complex movie project might need more memory than the computer has. Vista uses memory smarter, effectively removing the complexity barrier.

  My first test was a movie of 8 hrs, 22 minutes... all video clips... rendering a movie takes time... 18-1/2 hours later I had a 4.1+ GB wmv file that was complete and played fine.

  Sometimes a super slide-show is harder to render than a long string of video clips. My second test was a 5-1/4 hour show that used 5,000 7-megapixel JPG files from our recent vacation, a transition between each, and music provided by 64 MP3 music tracks.

  Publishing to Vista's option for DVD quality took 10-1/2 hours of rendering, resulting in a great looking and sounding 2.4 GB WMV file (slide-show).

• 2 - If you select the DVD option, the movie doesn't need to be saved or rendered. When you select the choice, Movie Maker will automatically save the project file and open DVD Maker. DVD Maker will have the thumbnail for the movie in it, and will use the info in the project file when rendering the MPEG-2 files for the disc. From a finished movie project to the start of DVD authoring is just a few seconds, saving considerable time and producing a better result.

• 3 - In addition to the standard choices, custom profiles can be used as in MM2. Most of them can be simply copied from an XP system to the same folder in Vista (... Movie Maker\Shared\Profiles) and used without revision. Create the folder if it isn't there. See the Save Movies > Custom WMV Profiles page for more info and some downloadable profiles.

  Create or edit profiles with the same Profile Editor used in XP. Those from the Expression Media Encoder will also work.

  Here's a link to a Microsoft Vista Help page... Create custom movie settings for Windows Movie Maker

What Can go Wrong

• 1 - The issue about dropping frames when saving a DV-AVI file from DV-AVI source files is still with us, as it was in XP. See the 'generational loss' section of the Problem Solving > Video Issues page for more info about this item.

• 2 - Added custom profiles show up in the list when accessing it via the main menu > File > Publish Movie path, but may not show up if you go to the same place via Tasks > Publish to...

• 3 - This forum post of 2/3/08 sums up a commonly seen item "... when I published the movie, there was a big green space covering half of the screen..."

• 4 - Sometimes When I mix a Photo Story 3 wmv file in a movie project with other clips, the project previews fine and everything in the finished movie is good except the part from the story, which is just blackness.

• 5 - Even with Vista Home Premium and Ultimate versions, which have the new Microsoft MEPG2 codec, movies made from MPEG2 files can have problems.

  In Nov 08 I rendered a movie on my Ultimate system from a project made in a Home Premium system. All looked good to me as the movie aligned with my view of the project, but the author who knew the movie better noticed a couple places where the scenes in the saved movie differed from those in the project as she saw it. The two scenes were both from MPEG2 DVD files. The clip contents seemed to actually differ on the two systems.

• 6 - (12/9/08 forum post) When you include a wmv video on a new project, then mute the sound of the video, the Publish to This Computer might fail without telling a reason. Using the same video without muting the sound, Publishing creates a perfect wmv.

For fixes and work-arounds, see the same item number in the next section....

Fixes and Work-Arounds

• 1 - If you don't see or hear any issues when playing saved DV-AVI files, keep going. The number of dropped frames is minor and usually not noticable.

• 2 - Publish via the main menu, not Tasks.

• 3 - Fixing the Green Bar Problem in Windows Movie Maker by Bernie Zimmermann

• 4 - This happens on my Vista Home Basic laptop when the audio of the story is muted and the New Soft Audio Encoder Filter is listed and checked in the Tools > Options > Compatibility list. If I uncheck the filter (or rename it - the file is c:\Program Files\Common Files\NewSoft\NSM2AEnc.ax) and resave the movie, the story clip shows as usual. If I unmute the audio of the story and lower the volume to zero to quiet it, the movie also renders fine with the filter checked.

• 5 - I took a shot at resolving it by converting the two MPEG2 files to DV-AVI, and with MM6 closed substituting them for the original MPEG2 files (using the same file names, location, and file extension. That changed the content of the project in those areas and the newly published movie aligned with what the author wanted.

• 6 - (12/9/08 forum post response) That's a known bug in version 6 of Movie Maker. Workaround is to set the volume level of the clip to zero rather than muting it.