Windows Movie Maker 6.x: Windows 8

[rjm]

"The Sequel" -- Wow, this seemed like it wouldn't be solved. Yes, there are many video editors, and they're all whiz-bang great, and I will learn Adobe Premiere, etc. But Windows Movie Maker, in its Vista SP2 incarnation, which runs just dandy on Windows 7, also does on Windows 8!

Now, I can't give you the link here to the appropriate file for 64 bit systems (and there's one for 32 bit, but I don't think Win8 is 32 bit, ever), but there's a wonderful add-on company called Pixelan, who actually helped Microsoft with the effects and transitions that are included. Well, they make a lot more - they make it for XP, for Vista, etc. You will have to locate this yourself: I know nothing. (It's all free software, anyway. Microsoft always gave it away free, and I imagine, always will.)

The reason I won't give you the link is that Microsoft has ceased development on the REAL, timeline-based Movie Maker, and is going with what they used to call "LIVE" Movie Maker, which totally s*cks. They now call it just "Movie Maker" or 2012 or something, but you want the original, but in 64 bit, and 6.x version. It's wonderful!

But if you upgrade to Win8, and had it humming along, it will be moved to the "windows.old" directory. You cannot use it. And you also must re-download the setup file for your system. You must. Or you'll get an "Invalid Pointer" message, and it won't know where anything is, and won't import media. (And you need to uninstall and reinstall your add-ons: make sure you still have your serial number! But they have great, personal tech support, and would help you, anyway.)

I suppose there are many things one can do in other, fancy pants editing programs, but you can do almost anything in this one, actually, especially with the add-ons. There is even an HD add-on you can pick up (somewhere else - at your own risk: do be careful with your security), but if you're making quality camera videos, and you have good software to run that through when you put it on your computer, it will be HD anyway: it will come out as HD. If you're making narratives, it would only matter if EVERY photo and video clip were in very hi-resolution. And even then, it won't make too much difference to the experience of the viewer. If you put in a lower res clip, it'll just look really bad. (Garbage in, garbage out.) HD is really good for movies you shoot with your camera, and special things. And that's something you can do with a conversion program, if you want to use the clips in Movie Maker. And then just import. You can even import After Effects clips! Yup! Just render in Windows format, and Movie Maker thinks it's a movie you shot, and you're set to look like Ken Burns, and then some. You can make beautiful things happen! And fun things, too.

Oh, yeah. That "one audio track" thing. A deal-breaker for many. Well, if you have a good little audio editor, just mix your audio tracks in there, and you can have all the tracks you want! Music, dialogue, whatever you want. Mix it, then import it. You can split video, you can . . . do whatever you want.

So . . .

That was really bothering me about Win8, and it's solved! I've taken a little sabbatical from video making, but I'll be back with something cool. Meanwhile, I HAVE it. It's a free thing, always has been. It's just that MS has ceased development, and hopes you will use something else - why, I don't know. (Another program, "Photostory" which generally doesn't look good on YouTube, won't work on Win7 PRO, so I assume it won't work on Win8 Pro. It's really nice for a family photos slideshow on a tablet, but no biggie. It does create custom music, synced automatically to the photos. Good for newbies. But it's not that big of a deal.)

Hope this helps! There are, of course, all those fancy programs, also.

rjm

[promiseland]

You can post the link as long as it's not a hacked or modified version from the original.

[rjm]

You can post the link as long as it's not a hacked or modified version from the original.

They're a good company who worked with MS and created the effects for the Vista SP2 version.. So, I think it's fine.

When I'm back on my laptop tomorrow.

For the life of me, I don't know why MS moved away from this wonderful video editor in subsequent operating systems. They must know what everyone says! I have seen wild effects done in WMM! And beautiful stuff, too.

rjm