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…

Bug found: Beware of Windows Live Writer 2012

I like Windows Live Writer, it's been a great blog editor and it has some definite benefits for ease of use in blogging, but when I visit the forums and then see people reporting where there posts had just disappeared; my response was 'yes; it's happened to me too'— Well, I got slapped with it again the other day and I lost everything past the point of my MORE tag.

To say the least, I was VERY upset that Windows Live Writer would do this… I mean, WHY?!

So I decided that was the day we're going to find out why this happened and how to recreate the problem…

Below, I'm going to give explanation and screenshots of how you can lose your entire blog post past the MORE tag… and I encourage you to do this and test it, and report it to Microsoft.

Windows Movie Maker 2012: How To Remove Audio From A Video

It seems like a recurring question in the process of doing video editing with Windows Movie Maker 2012;  how do you remove the audio from a video, or how do you remove the audio from a portion of a video?

The answer is actually pretty simple, but since Microsoft doesn't provide a user manual  for Windows Movie Maker 2012, it's left up to the users to try to figure out how to accomplish this.

Most can figure out how to work with the audio simply by poking around in the application,  but obviously it would be easier if there was a user manual that tells you what to do. Users can also visit the Windows Movie Maker support forums by submitting their questions and hoping that other users or a support representative will assist…

The purpose of this blog post is to explain how to use the Video volume/audio mixer in Windows Movie Maker.

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.

Windows 'Movie Maker' 2012 - Adding narration and additional sound tracks

Microsoft dropped the LIVE from their vocabulary; throwing the Microsoft Live world on their heads again. I can honestly say I never thought that Microsoft 'Live' was a good idea; to the point that I believe the guy who thought of it should be publicly shot for outright stupidity.

But Microsoft has been trying to compete with Apple on their basic grounds or video and picture handling and that battle has actually produced some nice 'essential' tools for the mass Microsoft user base. The battle produced the Windows Live Essentials collection, currently just 'Windows Essentials'… well, in that suite of products there's Windows Movie Maker 2012; just released, just updated.

After months and months of complaining about the obtuse move to remove narration from the base application Windows 'Movie Maker'; Microsoft has 'wisely' reinstated the function of narration, but it's not so much as just narration; they added an option for a second  audio track…

I hear the screams and woes of many who needed this…