Windows Movie Maker 2011/2012 - Webcam issues?

Windows Live Movie Maker is a free offering from Microsoft that offers novice and average users the ability to edit video and from there, be able to share/publish it to Facebook, YouTube, eMail, DVD and even custom resolutions. It's a basic editor with very simplified interface, and it's part of the Windows Live Essentials Suite of applications.

This offering from Microsoft hasn't been updated in some time. It still has all the same problems and issues it had in 2011. The only thing Microsoft added was the ability to export to MP4 and changed up the ribbon interface; which I don't think is a massive improvement, but oh, well.

One problem that has remained the same is the problem with Windows Movie Maker not working with certain webcams [web camera (s)]; even Microsoft's own LifeCam. This can be just about any webcam, but the point is that Windows Movie Maker sometimes just doesn't work.

WLMP Consolidator for Windows Movie Maker

If you have ever worked with Windows Movie Maker 2011 or 2012, you may have run into a situation where you're working on a project where it's partially done, but you need to build a Project to another location, on another PC and be able to work on that video project there as well.

Windows Movie Maker provides some baseline video editing abilities, but one of the things that it does not do is consolidate all of the media that are being used in the composition/rendering of the video. About two months ago, I was in the Windows Movie Maker support forums and there was an individual who is requesting for Windows Movie Maker to be able to grab all the media that was being used for his video composition and consolidate all media types into one folder.

Unfortunately, Windows Movie Maker 2012 doesn't do that. When you're working with a video project in Windows Movie Maker, Windows Movie Maker simply looks to the location where the source video is and works from there.

Download the Full installations for all Windows Movie Maker versions v6, 2011 and 2012

This is just quick post on being able to download all the various versions of Windows Movie Maker [Microsoft Windows Essentials 2011/2012 and Windows Movie Maker v6].

While Microsoft may like the concept of using their web installers, the truth is they're not efficient and the bigger truth is downloading a 120Mb file isn't really that big of a deal.

Windows Movie Maker 2012: Audio BUT No Video Problem?

Windows Live Movie Maker is a free offering from Microsoft that offers novice and average users the ability to edit video and from there, be able to share/publish it to Facebook, YouTube, eMail, DVD and even custom resolutions. It's a basic editor with very simplified interface, and it's part of the Windows Live Essentials Suite of applications.

It's a basic video editing package, but all the video formats it's supposed to support, the application doesn't support those standard video formats until you load the proper codecs. This isn't an end all be all solution, but it's important to mention when dealing with Windows Movie Maker; it doesn't support all the [listed] video formats right out of the gate.

A lot of users that want to use Windows Movie Maker 2011/2012 don't know this. If you are seeing this issue, your problem could be attributed to several things [video drivers, DirectX, codecs or system patches], but it's important to start with simple solutions versus what Microsoft normally does, which is recommend users completely reinstall Windows Movie Maker.

Windows Movie Maker 2012 - How Speed Up Or Slow Down Video

Windows Live Movie Maker is a free offering from Microsoft that offers novice and average users the ability to edit video and from there, be able to share/publish it to Facebook, YouTube, eMail, DVD and even custom resolutions. It's a basic editor with very simplified interface, and it's part of the Windows Live Essentials Suite of applications.

Windows Movie Maker 2012 has had the ability to speed up or slow down video since 2011, but it has not worked correctly until 2012. In previous versions, Windows Movie Maker could adjust the speed of the video, but in doing so the application would dump/drop the audio track completely; which, in some cases, makes the video that much more interesting.

If you'd like to download the full installer for Microsoft Windows Essentials 2012 for offline installation [includes all Windows Essentials apps], you can use this link to download it…

Link:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-live/essentials-install-offline-faq

This post is about being able to adjust the speed of the videos imported/created inside Windows Movie Maker.

Using Freemake Video Converter as a Windows DVD Maker Alternative

Windows Live Movie Maker is a free offering from Microsoft that offers novice and average users the ability to edit video and from there, be able to share/publish it to Facebook, YouTube, eMail, DVD and even custom resolutions. It's a basic editor with very simplified interface, and it's part of the Windows Live Essentials Suite of applications.

It's important to know exactly how Windows Movie Maker creates a DVD. So to clarify, Windows Movie Maker DOESN'T CREATE A DVD; it exports a WMV file to a TEMP location where Windows DVD Maker with the WMV in its queue for processing. Windows DVD Maker takes the WMV file and CONVERTS it again to a VOB format that DVD's use natively; it's just useful to know how the application accomplishes this process.

In the Microsoft Windows Essentials support forums, issues about having problems burning to DVD keep coming up. This is why you need an alternative to creating a DVD, outside of using Windows DVD Maker. 

How to install and use Freemake Video Converter

When Windows Movie Maker can’t handle the video format you want to work with, it’s time to convert it to something it likes more natively, WMV.

The depressingly sad facts about Windows Movie Maker is that it really doesn’t fully support the video formats it says it does until you load the codecs, but if you don’t want to do that, you have to convert. And the most commonly recommended video converter is Freemake Video Converter.

Freemake Video Converter is a great software package, but people can be really apprehensive about dealing with ‘video converting’ software. Even more so, Freemake bundles their software with ‘opt-out’ software.

This post covers the download, installation and conversion of a video file to WMV for use with Windows Movie Maker.

How to Load K-Lite Codecs for Windows Movie Maker 2012 [step-by-step]

While Windows Movie Maker says that it supports popular video formats, but the truth is the application doesn't natively support those video formats until the proper codecs installed.  Without having the proper video codecs installed, you may have issues with importing, editing and exporting video [MOV, MP4, AVI, etc…].
As a suggestion for downloading codecs, http://www.free-codecs.com/ has an array of codec packs to choose from. I have used the K-Lite codec pack [standard] for years, and I've had very good success; it even gave me the ability to edit FLV files in Windows Movie Maker. I have never had a problem.
I put this together because there are apparently a lot of people scared to install software if they don't know what it is. So, below is a step-by-step installation with screenshots so people can see what's going to happen before they do any thing.

Installing and Using MediaInfo for Videos [Windows]

When you're working with video editing, you may run into situations where the media editor you're trying to work with isn't working properly. There are several reasons for not being able to import video into a video editor, but one of the most common issues is not having the proper codec installed.

If you're new to video editing, the concept of a codec may be completely foreign to you, but this doesn't devalue the requirement for the codec, and the bigger question is, how do you find the proper codec for the video file that you're trying to work with.

Luckily, there is a free application called MediaInfo that will allow you to open and inspect the media file you're trying to work with. The application will give you detailed information about the media file and what codecs are being used to encode the file. In addition to giving you this detailed information, it also gives you options for downloading the proper player and the proper codecs for video editing.

The Top 10 Frustrating Things About Windows Movie Maker 2012

I think everyone has experienced their fair share of difficulties with Windows Movie Maker 2012. It’s fair to say that the application is basic in nature and that Microsoft didn’t intend that Windows Movie Maker would be a high-end video editing package.

My personal experience with Microsoft support was that Windows Movie Maker was intended to encourage me to purchase a separate video editing package if I was going to be doing video editing on a regular basis; and that’s what I did. But I still use Windows Movie Maker from time to time for very simple video editing projects.

I continue to try to assist other Windows Movie Maker 2012 users, through the support forums, and if you spent any time in the support forums, you’ll see a recurring trend of stupid problems with Windows Movie Maker.

Windows Movie Maker: How to add Videos and Images

Windows Movie Maker is a free offering from Microsoft that offers novice and average users the ability to edit video and from there, be able to share/publish it to Facebook, YouTube, eMail, DVD and even custom resolutions. It's a basic editor with very simplified interface, and it's part of the Windows Live Essentials Suite of applications.

Most of the functions of Windows Movie Maker 2012 are supposed to be viewed as common knowledge, but since Microsoft doesn't provide an user manual, some people need some guidance on how to do these functions; such as adding videos and images…

So, here's how to do that…

Windows Movie Maker 2012 - Exporting MP4 video files

I was happy to see that Windows Movie Maker 2012 had native support for exporting MP4s; I really was. I've been playing with it, to see what's new, what's changed…

I was working with some video, exporting it to MP4 and I thought, that's a pretty big MP4 video file for being as short as it was…

The video was from one of my son's football games. Once all the video clips were imported the video was 4:50 sec. The resolution was 854 x 480, The original file was 87Mb and the other file with the same resolution and the same length was 56Mb… bandwidth wise, that's a big difference.