Windows XP Pocket Reference

Name

Windows Movie Maker — \program files\movie maker\ moviemk.exe

Synopsis

Start → All Programs → Accessories → Windows Movie Maker

The Windows Movie Maker allows you to edit and convert video clips, and if you have video capture hardware or a digital video camera, you can even create your own video clips. Video editors don't work like most other applications. Instead of opening files, making changes to them, and then saving them, a typical video editing session works something like this:

1. Start a new project by going to File → New → Project, and then add one or more existing video files to the project by going to File → Import. Supported formats include .asf, .avi, .wmv, .mpg movies, .wav and .snd audio files, and .bmp, .jpg, and .gif still image files. All imported videos are then shown in the Collections pane; click a video filename to display "clips," arbitrary divisions in the file inserted by Movie Maker.

2. The actual video project consists of clips inserted into the timeline, the storyboard-style pane at the bottom of the window. To add a clip to the timeline, drag it from the Collections pane and drop it at the desired location. Go to Clip → Split (or press Ctrl-Shift-S) to break apart the current video clip into two discrete clips. Once you've split a clip, you can delete or rearrange the segments as desired.

3. Click the Play button to preview the video project, and then go to File → Save Movie to create a new video file based on your work in the timeline.