Windows Movie Maker

[NutWrench]

I was editing some game videos I recorded with Fraps and recently re-discovered this amazing video tool. If you've upgraded to Service Pack 3, you should have the latest version in your "Program Files/movie maker" directory. Check it out.

[Crosma]

Well, it's the Paintbrush of the video editing world. And like graphics programs, there are many commercial-level free ones.

[Steve]

It does a simple job well. I love it :)

[jimbob]

its nice. nothing more than that. holds no candle to most other software though

[d3ad connection]

It's good when I want to make a simple video, fast.

[Wamplet]

NutWrencheh,

what settings are you using in fraps to record and what programs do you use to output? :confused:

I have been having problems using fraps with virtualdub recently. :tinyted:

[hightreason]

Movie Maker is a good tool when you have a simplistic editing job and dont want to load a resource heavy program like Ulead Video Studio of Sony Vegas (I hate Sony Vegas BTW - sorry) and just want to get the job done quick and easy.
I use it a lot if i spot a mistake in a vid just before a youtube upload, no heavy project files and ram filling stuff, just open, cut/copy/paste/export etc, upload.

[NutWrench]

NutWrencheh,

what settings are you using in fraps to record and what programs do you use to output? :confused:

I have been having problems using fraps with virtualdub recently. :tinyted:

Hi Wamplet,

Under the 'Movies' tab, I'm using Half-Size and 20 FPS, though I usually get more than that. I'm using version 2.2.5 of Fraps, which is optimized for DX9: you might get much worse frame rates if you're using an earlier version.

I'm using AviDemux (http://fixounet.free.fr/avidemux/) for editing, now. It's free. :)

[Daveman]

It can be taken a surprisingly long way if you have Photoshop to use with it. I made this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-bycfpg24E) video last year in a few hours for a class, never having used the program but having some exposure to iMovie and watching my friend work Adobe Premiere a bit. I mean, it's not a complicated video or a particularly well-done one (the final version didn't have the greyish bars around the pictures, I fixed that in Photoshop) but it got the job done and I got second place in the class film festival. It's certainly a really limited program but you can make it work in a lot of ways you shouldn't have to deal with in the first place!

[Kristian Joensen]

Well, it's the Paintbrush of the video editing world. And like graphics programs, there are many commercial-level free ones.

Any particular ones you have in mind?

[peoplessi]

Only proper editing tool for cheap I can think of is Sony Vegas Platinum or what ever it's called nowdays. It's a proper tool, missing only few broadcast enviroment features, can be had under $100.

[Bludd]

Depends on what you mean by proper editing tool. Megui uses Avisynth and it is a powerful, albeit slightly (:D) user-unfriendly, editing tool.

[Phait]

I used to use WMM but moved to Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum, it's great and cheap. http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=justinlself&view=videos

[peoplessi]

Depends on what you mean by proper editing tool. Megui uses Avisynth and it is a powerful, albeit slightly (:D) user-unfriendly, editing tool.

Well, I don't mean encoders at all, which MeGUI is essentially a front-end for. A software you can sequence and edit your takes, and add transitions and effects and all that. Phait has done some good work on Vegas check that out.

[Bludd]

Well, I don't mean encoders at all, which MeGUI is essentially a front-end for. A software you can sequence and edit your takes, and add transitions and effects and all that. Phait has done some good work on Vegas check that out.

You can do all that with Avisynth was my point, but it is of course almost infinitely more convenient to use software with a GUI.

[Crosma]

Any particular ones you have in mind?
Not on Windows. There are some great free ones for Linux which are far more advanced than Windows Movie Maker, but no-one seems interested in releasing free ones for Windows. You can get away with charging for stuff for Windows that people expect to get for free elsewhere.

For instance, there's the completely open-source Adobe Premier beater Cinelerra, which is totally worth dual-booting just to use. If you're really serious about video editing, that is. The industry totally ignores it though, because of its free/open/Linux-only status.

Cinelerra is basically the Windows Movie Maker of the Linux-world, except with a stronger feature-set than Premier.

[peoplessi]

That's some hard talk Crosma, I've used some version of Cinelerra(about a year ago), and it was no match to Sony Vegas or Adobe Premiere.

You can do all that with Avisynth was my point, but it is of course almost infinitely more convenient to use software with a GUI.

I didn't check what Avisynth was, but it seems it could be pretty good in right hands :)

[Crosma]

That's some hard talk Crosma, I've used some version of Cinelerra(about a year ago), and it was no match to Sony Vegas or Adobe Premiere.
Well, Cinelerra has realtime effects (for everything, not just some things), theoretically infinite video/audio tracks, free audio panning, chroma keying, motion-interpolation, seperate camera and projector panning/zooming (per track), render farming, 3D denoising, masking, support for RGB and YUV colour models, keyframing on effects/panning, audio pitch-shifting (without changing speed), audio speed changing (without changing pitch), alpha-channels, and non-destructive editing for applicable video formats (like MJPEG and DV). Premier didn't really have many of these features until quite recently (although it has most now), while Cinelerra has for years. When I switched from Premier to Cinelerra, Premier didn't have any of these features.

Adobe Premier has been playing the catch-up game, touting these features with recent new releases. Premier is arguably a worthy professional editor now, like... as of about a year ago. Cinelerra's been a little more stagnant, because they've pretty much run out of features to implement.

I'd like to know what you thought Cinelerra was missing, exactly.

[Bludd]

I didn't check what Avisynth was, but it seems it could be pretty good in right hands :)

Yeah, Avisynth is very powerful. You can write your own GUI in say .NET and have it use Avisynth and the almost infinite amount of plugins (get the plugin SDK and get cracking) makes for a potentially awesome app.

[peoplessi]

Crosma, I didn't say it was missing, I haven't used it in years. 1 year estimate was too optimistic, about 2-3 years ago would be more correct. I'm no pro, but what I've used Vegas, it has been more fluid. Cinelerra and Premiere share one thing in common, clunky GUI.