Making movies on Windows 7

[awalt]

While I love Windows 7 as an improvement over Vista, I am flabbergasted by its inability to natively import Video from my movie camera to edit and create DVDs. This is a MAJOR step back from Vista. Out of the box it recognizes my video camera but can do nothing with it.

The issue I encountered was simply that there is no Movie Maker. The choices are download Windows Live and use the beta version, which is missing quite a few features that are in the Vista version of MM, or download the 2.6 version that was in XP about 4 years ago. I can't even believe MM in Windows Live doesn't import video, you have to go to Photo Gallery to do it!

Microsoft supposedly spends all this effort on usability, who really thinks up this stuff? "Gee, we can remove import from Movie Maker, and we can put it in another program so then they have to work with 2 programs to get the same job done." Don't they have better things to do then rearrange the deck chairs on the ship? Did it really work so poorly before? Couldn't that effort be better spent on some other new functionality?

Junior programmer in the back of the room says "Why don't we just create a download of the Vista version of MM, or put that in the install package, until we have something better to improve the user experience? (six very large managers quickly and decisively remove junior programmer from the room, never to be seen again).

I swear, the usability scenarios that Microsoft must come up with for using some of these tools are not what any normal user would be doing. Sheesh.

 

[noyb]

No replies yet ???
I didn't see a time line .. And none of the only two transitions are what I'd want.
I'm trying to figure out what to do without a functional WMM ???
I wonder if the old WMM will install in W7 (x64) ???

 

[awalt]

Sure it will - you can download it here.

It's old as the hills and a big step back from the MM that ran in Vista.

 

[noyb]

I just tried WMM 2.6 ..
Did you notice that it says for Vista with Vista's WMM installed only ??

Movie Maker 2.6 requires a version of Microsoft Windows Vista that has the Vista version of Movie Maker already installed.

 

[iseeuu]

The issue I encountered was simply that there is no Movie Maker.... Sheesh.

Yep, you have my vote. I have been trying to build a video processing PC for some time now and it always seems to be just out of my reach, mostly financially.

Some three years ago I had high hopes a 64 bit processor would give me enough raw video power to do the job, especially when I found an ATI TV card with 64 bit drivers. Well, XP x64 was and still is crap (in my opinion) and although ATI wrote 64 bit drivers, there was no 64 bit video software (that I coulkd afford) that would work with XP x64.

I was delighted to have WMC with 7 and have been watching and recording TV with ease like never before. The catch? The WTV file format. There is just no way to get even 2 hours of .wtv on a single DVD. And as yet, there is no support to convert WTV to anything. Yes there are 3rd partys working on conversion software, and no I don't know how far they have got yet.

With the Beta, I downloaded the Movie Maker Beta but was not impressed. It did process one of my wtv files into wmv, but it took some 10 hours.

PCWorld advertised a video app that is supposed to be compatible with Vista 64 and hopefully 7 x64. It is a trial and I haven't tried it yet.

I figured I would wait for the retail 7 to release and then see about acquiring compatible video software that would capture TV and my video cam and allow me to edit the video.

 

[WiFi Ed]

I've posted a few times about using Vista's Movie Maker in Win 7, it's worked great for me.

Find a Vista pc with Home Premium or Ultimate (I'm not sure if Movie Maker is in other flavors). Copy the Movie Maker folder from Vista (C:\Program Files\Movie Maker) to your Win 7 Program Files folder.

Register some .dll files with the attached batch file (renamed with .txt extension, rename to .bat after downloading and run from an elevated command prompt). You can open the batch file with a text editor to see what it's going to do if you have any concerns.

That's it, you're done.

 

[iseeuu]

I've posted a few times about using Vista's Movie Maker in Win 7, it's worked great for me.

What are you able to do with Vista's Movie Maker? Is it compatible with the WTV format? Will it convert WTV to mp3, for example?

My hope is that when the retail 7 is released, a compatible Movie Maker will be included.

 

[WiFi Ed]

I use Movie Maker to capture video from my MiniDV camcorder (a firewire connection) and older VHS tapes (using a Canopus converter box), edit the resulting .avi's, and burn DVD's. I haven't tried anything with the WTV format though.

I hope there's a new Movie Maker someday too. The Live version doesn't cut it for me...

 

[awalt]

My hope is that when the retail 7 is released, a compatible Movie Maker will be included.

No chance on that score unfortunately - Windows Live is here to stay.

I spent the $60 to get Roxio Creator 2009 (an OEM version came with my PC), and I am very pleased with it. I am not doing anything with WMC, but it imported from my camera, gave me tons of flexibility in editing film, adding transitions, effects, text, etc. It also has very nice way to search and use music. It has better support for 1440 x 1080 format than MM did (and this is the format my camera shoots in), so I have better DVD quality. If I have longer movies it supports a ton of compression technologies that MM did not.

I am very happy and while I'll keep any eye out for new versions of MM I won't load all that Windows Live junk on my PC.

After MS killed Microsoft Money and will not allow online updates any more NOR will they let you reactivate Money if you have to reinstall it after 2011, effectively killing the product even though I bought it, I will never trust MS online software again. It's one thing to stop support of software, which I totally understand, it's another to cripple your ability to continue to use it.

 

[burtie]

I've posted a few times about using Vista's Movie Maker in Win 7, it's worked great for me.

Find a Vista pc with Home Premium or Ultimate (I'm not sure if Movie Maker is in other flavors). Copy the Movie Maker folder from Vista (C:\Program Files\Movie Maker) to your Win 7 Program Files folder.

Register some .dll files with the attached batch file (renamed with .txt extension, rename to .bat after downloading and run from an elevated command prompt). You can open the batch file with a text editor to see what it's going to do if you have any concerns.

That's it, you're done.

Sorry but how do I register the .dl files? I downloaded your attatchment but its just a txt file

Whops just googled it and got it sorted dont worry I renamed the file extension. lol

 

[burtie]

Hmm some of the transition effects dont seem to work properly or not at all..is this normal?

 

[WiFi Ed]

Hmm some of the transition effects dont seem to work properly or not at all..is this normal?

I haven't tried all the transition effects myself, but those I have tried have worked. I did have a problem with some title effects, but it was caused by one of the recent nvidia drivers (it affected Movie Maker in Vista too). The latest nvidia driver seems to be working ok though.

See if you can update your video card driver, it might help.

 

[burtie]

Oh cool I unpdated my graphics driver last night...will test it soon

 

[burtie]

YAY it worls you were right

 

[WiFi Ed]

Glad to hear it!

 

[yipcanjo]

I've posted a few times about using Vista's Movie Maker in Win 7, it's worked great for me.

Find a Vista pc with Home Premium or Ultimate (I'm not sure if Movie Maker is in other flavors). Copy the Movie Maker folder from Vista (C:\Program Files\Movie Maker) to your Win 7 Program Files folder.

Register some .dll files with the attached batch file (renamed with .txt extension, rename to .bat after downloading and run from an elevated command prompt). You can open the batch file with a text editor to see what it's going to do if you have any concerns.

That's it, you're done.

Thanks to your help, I was able to get WMM 6.0 running great on my Win7 64-bit box! I took the time to make a write-up for the benefit of others. Your batch file is included in the download.

Thanks again,

Yip

 

[Vertex]

Windows Movie Maker 2.6 works very well with Windows 7. Although WMM 2.6 was originally made for Windows XP, it launches quite fast in Windows 7 and I was even able to make a video there that I uploaded to Youtube.

I have heard a rumor that Windows Movie Maker for Vista is actually more buggy and lags more often that Windows Movie Maker 2.6. Its free to download and I prefer it many times than that Windows Live Movie Maker which is crap!!!!

 

[yipcanjo]

Windows Movie Maker 2.6 works very well with Windows 7. Although WMM 2.6 was originally made for Windows XP, it launches quite fast in Windows 7 and I was even able to make a video there that I uploaded to Youtube.

I have heard a rumor that Windows Movie Maker for Vista is actually more buggy and lags more often that Windows Movie Maker 2.6. Its free to download and I prefer it many times than that Windows Live Movie Maker which is crap!!!!

Well, I'm just trying to help *and* give folks some choice. The WMM "Vista" Version has support for hardware-accelerated effects, an updated interface, and additional transitions/effects to choose from. It also imports video faster and *lacks* a few bugs I've seen in Ver 2.6.

Certainly both versions work, but I prefer version 6.0 over 2.6. I like a few features of Windows Live Movie Maker, but they stripped out too much for my tastes Too bad.