Windows Live Movie Maker will be the simplest and easiest to use version of Movie Maker ever... yet more powerful. That's what the announcements say. How can it be? We'll explore it.
Movie Maker's roots are in the era of mini-DV camcorders, when connecting the camcorder to a computer with a firewire cable got you the easiest capture process and the best digital video quality. But over the years public preference shifted to tapeless hard drive, DVD, and flash card camcorders, along with the video options of digital cameras and phones. Adapting to that shift, Microsoft moved the future of Movie Maker into the camp of the Windows Live Suite.
It can handle a much broader variety of source files, has a minimal number of editing features, and more hooks into online host services.
The few users who are heavily into editing videos, or those such as myself with mini-DV camcorders and tapes, will miss the familiar interface and features, and need to adapt. There are many other software apps in my video-editing toolbox to fill in for the features being dropped.
Microsoft released a public beta of Windows Live Movie Maker in mid-September 2008, and an updated beta version in December. The latest beta is a free download for any and all. Unlike other Windows Live apps, this one runs only on Vista systems. If you run Vista and want to follow along, here's the download link
http://download.live.com/moviemaker
It doesn't replace or conflict with Movie Maker 6 or the optional v2.6, the other versions in Vista. I have it on two computers, a low-end Toshiba laptop running Vista Home Basic, and a higher end desktop HP with Vista Ultimate.
In their zest to streamline Movie Maker, Microsoft has gone pretty far. Many users are upset about this version only having a storyboard view of a project, dropping entirely the option to work in a timeline view. I can roll with most changes.
I'll be updating this series of 5 articles as beta versions are released and the final rolled out. The series has 6 articles:
- this overview
- the types of source material you can use... pictures, video clips, music and audio
- the editing phase, which for now is mimimal as editing features haven't been fleshed out yet
- publishing to a website host
- saving a movie to your hard drive
- the optional plug-in to publish the video on YouTube
Microsoft has the talent and resources to produce a great product. One can argue about which features a video editing/movie making application should have. Personally I'm more interested in how well they deliver on whatever features they include.
Making videos and movies is a complex process. Some software can hide most of the complexity so users are not aware of it, or don't need to get involved. Higher end software can provide options that engross and consume users in infinite editing details and variations. Time will tell where Windows Live Movie Maker strikes the balance. It's obvious to Microsoft and myself that the entry level versions 1, 2 and 6 of Movie Maker were too complex for most users and this significant step to simplify the software will be better for most.