Windows Movie Maker: Creating Clips

One of the ways to take your large volumes of raw footage and turn them into multiple smaller pieces is through creating clips. There are a number of ways to do this in Windows Movie Maker, but this usually occurs right at the beginning of footage when you import or capture the footage in.

When you are trying to bring a video file into your Windows Movie Maker project after it is already on a storage device you will start by going to File in the upper task bar and selecting Import into Collections. From here, you will be given a file search box, but at the very bottom will be a check box that says “Create clips for video files” to the right.

If you select this, then Windows Movie Maker will separate the raw footage into a number of smaller clips when putting it into Collections. If you do not check this box it will be imported into Windows Movie Maker as one large video clip containing all of the footage.

This same process can be done when capturing raw footage. If you select the “Create clips for video files” when capturing from a digital video tape, then Windows Movie Maker will separate clips based on changes between frame or on the “time stamp” if there is one.

On other types of analogue capture methods, such as a standard web came, the clips will also be decided by frame changes. The final size of each of these clip files will be determined by Windows Movie Maker when considering the overall size of the raw footage it is taking in.

If you already have a video clip in your Windows Movie Maker project that you want to turn into smaller clips without editing, this can be done through the same process. Select the clip you want to split up in Collections. Go to Tools in the upper task bar, and select Create clips.

Where it splits up the larger clip will again be based on previous standards, such as time stamps or frame changes as set from its base format.