Make a Movie... or a Story in Windows XP or Vista,

Written by: PapaJohn • Edited by: Rhonda Callow
Updated Mar 5, 2010 • Related Guides: Microsoft | Movie Maker

Microsoft has includes Movie Maker in each copy of XP and Vista. A lessor known free download that also makes video files is Photo Story 3. What's the difference?

In the Windows environment, you make a Photo Story with one software app, and a movie with another. Movie Maker comes bundled with each version of XP and Vista, while Photo Story 3 is a free XP download that works fine on Vista also. Here’s the link.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=92755126-a008-49b3-b3f4-6f33852af9c1&DisplayLang=en

With the exception of video clips, story and movie projects use the same kinds of inputs. The obvious advantage of a movie is the ability to include video clips. The not-so-obvious benefits of stories are their far superior quality when panning and zooming digital pictures of more than 1/3 of a megapixel in size. Zoom into the eye of someone in a 7 megapixel image and see all the pixels available. Do the same in a movie project and see the low quality pixilization that comes with software not designed to use all the pixels. If you want superior looking “Ken Burns” pan/zoom effects, a photo story is the way to get it.

Another advantage of stories is their far smaller file sizes. I’m used to seeing them at about 10% the file size of an equivalent movie. Both are .wmv file types, but compressed with different codecs. The straight-line movements of stories can be much more compressed than the quick almost random movements of movies. The differences in file size are due to the codecs.

A disadvantage of a Microsoft Photo Story is the inability to view it on a Mac computer. But, with the appropriate Mac viewer, you can watch a wmv movie file made with Movie Maker. It’s the codec differences again. If your audience includes Mac users, an option is to run the wmv story file through Movie Maker and distribute the wmv movie file.

YouTube has a pretty good success rate converting uploaded movies to the Flash format it uses, but a dismal rate when converting wmv story files. That’s another situation where running a story through Movie Maker will help.

Movie Maker can use video clips in a project, including those made by Photo Story. I often make clips as stories to mix with video content from other places. The story clips have such smooth pans and zooms that it enhances the overall experience of the playing movie. Enjoy the best of both!

PapaJohn Aug 23, 2010 12:06 PM

Hi Deb....

1) No, brightness is a one-dimensional adjustment to a picture video clip in Movie Maker.... with limited use. I use other graphics or video utilities to enhance them before importing into a story or movie project. I use curve adjustment features of IrfanView for still pix and VirtualDub for video clips for much more powerful changes to color, contrast and brightness.

2) For the audio track of a story, including narration, I use MM also to make the full track and then use it as the background music for the story project.

3) Easing in and out in MM is always to or from the center. If you have a face that isn't in the center and you want to zoom into it, you can do it better with a pan/zoom feature... or you need to move the face to the middle of the picture..

4) The automatic transition in Photo Story is a pan/zoom. A fade in MM doesn't including panning or zooming.

Cheers... PapaJohn

Deb Aug 23, 2010 5:44 AM

windows movie maker

Thank you so much for answering my questions. If I can follow up with just a couple more:

1) Will the effect called "brightness"in moviemaker help to make the pictures improve in a way similar to the way pictures are rendered in photostory?

2) Do you have a tutorial discusses how to get narration with a mic coincide properly with the pictures (right now I am just using MM so if it can be done there that would be great).

3) I was alternating using easing in and easing out over a bunch of still photos in MM and think it came out good. But is this a good effect alone (or should pan and zoom always be used as well)? Can you say how zooming is different than ease in and ease out?

4) Is the type of transition used in photostory that is automatic the same as the fade in mm?

Thanks.

Deb

PapaJohn Aug 23, 2010 1:15 AM

Hi Deb,

1) A wmv from Photo Story can be uploaded to YouTube, but experience shows the chance of it being successfully converted by them to a flash file is pretty low, whereas the wmv file from Movie Maker almost always gets converted OK. Stories and movies are both wmv files, but compressed with different codecs.

2) The motions applied by effects in PS3 and Movie Maker are similar but not identical. Minor or slight pans and zooms could be close enough to be called the same, but PS3 outdoes Movie Maker in more extreme cases.... unless you're using Pixelan's Pan/Zoom wizard for Movie Maker, in which case results are very similar.

3) Yes, as a rule of thumb the more motion a movie clip has, the larger the file size needed for a given level of quality.

Not knowing what your project files consist of, it's hard to say anything more than to encourage you to make small test projects to see how they they convert and play on YouTube.

Deb Aug 23, 2010 12:13 AM

windows movie maker vs photo story 3

I have a few questions on your very interesting analysis:

1) Are you saying that the wmv from photostory can't be uploaded to youtube , but the wmv output from movie maker can?

2) This may be basic but can the effects in movie maker such as ease in/out, pan and zoom have the same results as using photostory? I know that photostory does some automatically. Is the motion that is automatic in photostory the same as the ease in/ ease out that is in movie maker? Is the only advantage in using photo story the size of file and clarity of images (of course these are pretty important)!

3) Finally, I was using moviemaker and made a video where I added effects of ease in/out to one I had only had previously as still pictures. It turned out to be double in size. Is this due to just having effects within the movie? I was very surprised as the length of movie was the same- 34 seconds!

Thanks and I will study your site and am trying to determine if I can do everything on mm itself w/o using 2 applications. My main interest is for youtube videos I can create.

PapaJohn May 19, 2010 1:54 PM

Hi Barbara....

You might need to fix or refresh your Photo Story 3 app by reinstalling over it...

If your setup is OK, some users have problems with audio files not in WMA format, so file conversions might be needed.....

Worst case... take your silent story to Movie Maker and add the sound track there.

Barbara May 18, 2010 1:23 PM

PhotoStory3 won't save story with music

whenever i add music to my photo story 3, i am not able to save my STORY to the computer. i even bought the sonic plug in and it won't do it either. i took out the music & it saved the story just fine. but i want to add the music. i tried both my own music download & the ones that comes with it.

PapaJohn Feb 8, 2010 12:09 PM

Hi Mark.... you could be

in need of some help with the basics of editing with Movie Maker, in which case the Online > Tutorials and References page of my website at

www.papajohn.org

.... or it could be that the video clips you're inserting are of a file type that Movie Maker doesn't get along with.... in which case you can get help at the forums at

/www.windowsmoviemakers.net/Forums/

Mark Feb 8, 2010 5:04 AM

windows photo story & movie maker

I have made some photo story files (with narration) and imported these into movie maker. I want to insert some video in between some segments of the story. There seems to be some problems now with the next picture coming up before the video starts. Is there any way to improve this or other tips to do this better?

Peter Reyes Aug 17, 2009 6:54 PM

movie maker

when make a movie I downloaded the video from my camer kodak z760 I can't get the sound to work in the Movie maker ???? tried everything.

Make a Movie... or a Story in Windows XP or Vista,

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