Quite the impressive update. The trimming tool might be quite effective with the way they have set it up, and the great control over timing of objects showing up or fading looks pretty good too. The timeline looks like something it would take getting used, due to its vertical nature, but we’ll see what the final bits end up like. Overall, it at least creates hope where there was none.

Still not convinced. They might pull the lack of a timeline off, but it’d have to be something -really- amazing… otherwise you’d constantly be thinking “You know, it’d be really conveniet if I could just drop this on the timeline.”

Not only do they have to come up with something no other video editing software offers, it has to be -better- than the simple timeline every other video editing application offers. Frankly, I don’t see them doing that for something as minor as Movie Maker.

according to neowin.net and other sources. movie maker has been released!

Sorry about that Kip. :-(

The goal with this version of Movie Maker is to bring basic editing to people who don’t want to spend 4 hours in a timeline on a Sunday afternoon. Just like many of our other tools, the focus is on automatic creation, quick task completion, and get in/get out. We really strived to optimize for both people who don’t have experience with editing, and people who do but who want to get the simple things done more quickly.

The reality is that the simple things were really quite hard in the old versions (and in many competitive products) and we wanted to make sure the simple things *stayed* simple. As an example, I put together a video for my wife in Windows Vista Movie Maker a couple years ago and it took me over 2 hours to do what I can do in 10 minutes with WLMM, mostly because my needs shouldn’t have required 2+ hours of effort.

Going deeper is still possible of course, and expect we’ll continue to invest in this over time.

BasP: don’t think of Movie Maker as “minor”. It’s a core component to Windows Live Essentials and something we’re actively improving each and every day.

@Mike Torres: I’m completely fine with simplicity. I understand the need for that, and Microsoft’s intention at making something for the everyday user, not something high-end.

I just think that a new and improved type of timeline in WLMM that made it super easy to use for anyone would be a much better idea. I haven’t actually used the latest WLMM but based on the screenshots, the current solution seems more tricker and not simple.