LiveSide - News blog : Movie Maker

Descent into the video posting maelstrom

Kip Kniskern — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 05:39:00 GMT

Yesterday I drove out to Redmond (which can take anywhere from 25 minutes to 2 hours depending on traffic - actually made great time) to meet with Mike Torres and talk a bit about Windows Live Movie Maker, which was released as version 1.0 on a couple weeks ago. I purposely travelled light, no laptop, no messes of wires, just a pocket sized video camera. Not only did I want to talk about Movie Maker, I wanted to try it out, as many more people will be doing in the next weeks and months.

Since the demise of Soapbox, we've been scrambling a bit to get our hosting strategy in order, but as much as it pained us to do it, we thought the easiest thing would be to click on the YouTube upload link from within Movie Maker, grit our teeth, and use the "G-word". Well that didn't go so well.

I had checked the video quality both from within Movie Maker and also on Windows Media Player locally, and did a quick spot check once the video finished processing, but to be honest I didn't watch it once it was up. This morning I headed out for a few hours, and while I was out I started getting text messages, emails, direct twitter messages, and phone calls about the audio quality of the video.

Sure enough, the audio sync was all fouled up. I tried uploading the video again, same issue. I tried uploading using the YouTube uploader, same thing. Tried a different .wmv video (one that hadn't been processed with Movie Maker), same audio sync problems. Tried it from another computer (with a brand new Windows 7 install from Technet), same same same. Searching on Bing for "youtube audio sync wmv" seemed to point to audio codec issues, meaning that, for me, on our LiveSide YouTube account, wmv files weren't working.

The video I edited using Windows Live Movie Maker is fine. There aren’t any problems with it viewed locally. I've posted a self hosted Silverlight player version in the original post, and also posted it to our LiveSide Facebook page (by the way, log in and become a fan of LiveSide on Facebook, if you haven’t already!). They both work fine (no guarantees on our self hosting bandwidth, though, but we should be ok).

UPDATE: Yay, figured out how to embed the Facebook video into a Community Server post :)

(Please visit the site to view this media)

Google had its share of other problems today, and this looks like it’s a Google issue and not Movie Maker. They are supposed to support .wmv files, so maybe this was just some weird glitch. Still, what was supposed to be a fun exercise with Windows Live Movie Maker turned into a bit of a nightmare, and if success with YouTube can’t be guaranteed, maybe the upload link from Movie Maker shouldn’t be there in the first place. Anyway, sorry for the bad experience, believe me it wasn’t near as bad as mine ;).

Now that’s a serious webcam: the LifeCam Cinema – 720p HD widescreen video

Kip Kniskern — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 17:23:26 GMT

Yesterday Microsoft released Windows Live Movie Maker with HD support, and today they’re announcing a new webcam that may just be the perfect complement. The LifeCam Cinema, which will be available for pre-order from Amazon.com on August 24th, and available in September, offers 720p HD in 16:9 widescreen format, low light technology, auto focus, Microsoft’s new ClearFrame technology for faster processing, and a 74 degree wide angle of capture, the widest ever for a Microsoft webcam.

Also announced today is the LifeChat LX-1000, a high-quality noise cancelling headset. The LifeCam Cinema will retail for $79.95, and the headset for $24.95.

Windows Live Movie Maker – get it now

Kip Kniskern — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 18:25:00 GMT

Microsoft has taken the wraps of Windows Live Movie Maker, “the the one-minute way to turn photos and videos into great-looking movies that are easy to share — for free”. You can download Windows Live Essentials now and get the new Movie Maker (and what appears to be some bug fixes for the other WL applications, no real signs of Wave 4 yet).

(updated to include moviemaker preview link ):

We’ll get to the program and the new features in a minute, but along with the “unveiling” comes a new site extolling the virtues of Movie Maker: http://moviemakerpreview.com/ - lots of info there including a number of how-to videos and some sample content to play around with. http://windowslive.com/desktop/moviemaker also has links to the download. Always best to get it direct from Microsoft ;)

Note: Not sure if the new bits will be live all over the place all at once - you can download and save the installer, right click, select Properties, and check the Details for build number 14.0.8089.0726, just to make sure you're getting the new stuff).

Easy Easy Easy

We had a chance to try out Movie Maker in advance, but didn’t need much lead time to create a quick video out of pictures and video (the subject: puppies, of course!). We found it easy to create and manipulate the video, with a few surprises (not being able to use files from a network location, for example). Actually if anything it was TOO easy to manipulate – we tried to figure out how to change transitions for a few minutes before realizing it had already changed. Here’s the video we created, not quite in less than a minute, but close:

(Please visit the site to view this media)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAunmskHRH4 (The music is Mumbles, by Oscar Peterson) (oops, YouTube pulled the audio. Movie Maker did a great job with laying down the slides and video to match the length of the audio, but I just grabbed an mp3 without thinking about publishing it - the next video we do we'll pay more attention)

Key Features

Microsoft is touting Windows Live Movie Maker as easy to use and the videos it makes as easy to share, above all else. Still, there’s a lot packed in to this new release. First off are an array of features to make movie/slide show creation easier. These include:

Auto Movie: … it’s back. Just select some images/video and some music, and let auto movie create your production for you. Yes it’s that simple.
Video editing: Select a piece of video, set in and out times, do a simple copy/paste to capture multiple pieces of video out of a longer piece. Again, very simple.
Fit content to music length: with one click, Movie Maker will fit your content to the length of video you select. Now that’s useful!
Share Online: While it pains us to give so much attention to the “G word”, publishing to YouTube, or to DVD. A publish to Facebook plugin is available, with more to come.

Next are tools and features to go beyond the basics:

Live Preview: just mouse over transitions and effects to see what they will look like, making it easy to choose the right transition (or reject the wrong one)
Ribbon interface: the familiar Office Ribbon interface drive Movie Maker, making it very familiar to users of Office and Windows.
Photo animations: animate your photos for more than a static slide show
Audio editing
Save in HD 480 and 720, and using Windows 7, in 1080p
Work with files in a number of formats:
- Windows Media Video (WMV)
- Windows Media, DV-AVI
- Microsoft Recorded TV Show
- 3GP
- 3GPP
- MPEG-2
- MPEG-1
- Motion JPEG
- JPEG
- TIFF
- GIF
- Bitmap
- PNG
- QuickTime .mov* and .qt* (Windows 7 only)
- AVCHD* (Windows 7 only)
- MPEG-4 files* (Windows 7 only)
And share to a number of destinations:
- Save to a mobile device
- Share via e-mail
- Burn to DVD
- Display on your PC
- Display on TV (Media Center Edition, Blu-ray) in high definition
- View via streaming media player
- Display on Xbox
- Display on Zune
- Display on iPod
- Send to file share Web site, such as Windows Live SkyDrive
- Send to a video-sharing Web site (YouTube, Facebook)
- Publish to other sharing sites (coming soon)

Windows Live Movie Maker is a free download, as part of Windows Live Essentials, and requires Windows Vista or Windows 7

LiveSino gets a sneak peak at new Windows Live Movie Maker

Kip Kniskern — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 16:25:00 GMT

Our buddy PicturePan2 has been busy (again), and he’s found out some new information about the upcoming release of Windows Live Movie Maker. We can’t say much beyond what he’s said at this point, but here are some highlights from his post:

As you can see, Movie Maker is coming along nicely. Note the extensive use of the ribbon interface, with tools changing contextually, according to LiveSino.net

PicturePan2 explains that while there is no professional timecode based “timeline”, editing is based on “objects”. I talked to him a bit via IM this morning (Bing Translator does an ok job (on translating LiveSino.net), but still it’s a bit confusing):

users can trim the video or audio clip, can arrange the order of photos and videos, can choose when the text appears, and the durations of the objects

Since Movie Maker has been removed from Windows 7, it makes sense to us that Microsoft would try and get out a “working” version before the new OS hits the shelves, even as an out of band release with Wave 4. Looks like that may come sooner rather than later ;), stay tuned.

LiveSino.net on Windows Live Movie Maker (more screenshots at source)

Sneak peek of what’s coming in Windows Live Movie Maker

damaster — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 14:00:00 GMT

Last month, the Windows Live Movie Maker team made a blog post with a status update on what’s been happening to Movie Maker. To give you a recap, in the post Mike Torres offered some glimpses of what to expect from the new version, including more rich-editing capabilities (more transitions, trim, split, multiple soundtracks), “some sort of a timeline”, and a simple interface that would “allow more experienced people to go deeper when they need to”.

Today I was fortunate enough to catch a glimpse of the new version. The first thing I’ve noticed is a more comprehensive ribbon menu with much more functionalities compared to the version we’ve been seeing since December last year. First things first, here’s a screenshot of the newly updated Movie Maker:

We can see that the ability to add titles, captions and credits is back. New options such as image/video rotation are also available. One noticeable button is “AutoMovie” – which will automatically “add titles, credits, transitions, and effects, and fits it all together for you.” Here’s a clearer view of the ribbon:

Many people were disappointed about the lack of a “timeline” in the new Movie Maker. Although as Mike stated that the timeline might not make a return, he promised that there will be something that resembles a timeline. While we’re not sure what the “View” menu will do, here’s a preview of the new “storyboard”-like view now showing you the positions of titles and soundtracks:

As seen above, Movie Maker also now take advantage of the new ribbon interface with the “Video Tools” and “Music Tools” tabs only appearing when you’re selecting a video or audio section of your movie. Trimming and other editing tools will be available on these tabs which will allow you to edit that section of the movie. In addition, as promised by Mike, dozens of new animations, transitions and visual effects will also be available:

Finally, as Soapbox on MSN Video is due to be shut down by the end of this month, Windows Live Movie Maker now supports direct upload to YouTube instead, built-in right out-of-the-box:

It does seem like the Microsoft have added tons of improvements to Movie Maker, however, we’ll still have to wait to see whether the “timeline” view will make a come back or not. Of course, do bear in mind that the screenshots and features discussed here are still in the works, and things might still change before v1 ships. So stay tuned at LiveSide for the latest updates!

Windows Live Essentials strikes back – completing the Windows 7 experience

damaster — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 14:03:00 GMT

Remember Windows Live Essentials, the service that went through its early beta stages back in 2006 and never made it out of beta, that’s meant to “offer integrated and bundled e-mail, instant messaging, photo-sharing, blog publishing, security services and other Windows Live entities into a seamless whole”? Today Brandon LeBlanc at the Windows Experience Blog talked about how Windows 7 + Windows Live will “complete the Windows Experience” together – once again through the suite named “Windows Live Essentials”. The reasoning behind this, as explained by Brandon, is that:

Microsoft has learned that many end-user experiences need to be updated more frequently. Instead of waiting for the next Windows release, we began delivering updated versions of the Windows Live applications to improve those end-user experiences. While this was a great way to improve the Windows experience for users, many of these updates in Windows Live Wave 2 seemed duplicative of applications already in Windows.

To address this, Microsoft will now only ship these applications (which include Windows Live Mail, Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Photo Gallery, Windows Live Writer and now Windows Live Movie Maker) as part of the Windows Live Essentials suite.

Although branded with a new (or should I say “old”) name, “Windows Live Essentials” in simply the installer that we’ve been seeing since wave 2 that installs the entire suite (or selected applications) of Windows Live products, with the Wave 3 installer available at http://download.live.com. What’s interesting about Brandon’s post is that it showed us a few screenshots of the internal builds of Wave 3 applications, or the “Windows Live Essentials” suite, currently being tested inside Microsoft:

We notice there’s minor updates to all these applications, such as:

• Integration with Windows Live Photos in the Messenger conversation window
• Personal Status Message comes back in the Messenger conversation window
• Removal of the “said:” part in the Messenger conversation history
• A nice shade of blue in the background for Mail
• A new “Edit” submenu in Movie Maker
• Removal of more icons from the programs, especially in Messenger and Mail, to align with "Windows 7” design principles

The one major change that caught our eyes is the new icons for Messenger, Mail, Calendar, Photo Gallery and Movie Maker. It seems like Microsoft icon designers are obsessed with the “yellow ribbon” around their icons. Here’s a close up view of the new icons and also a close-up shot of a photo taken from the Windows 7 keynote at PDC2008:

Do these icon change and the “yellow ribbon” signify anything? Are they in any way related to the “yellow ribbon” around the Internet Explorer icon? Perhaps we’ll have to find out later. Stay tuned with us as we keep you updated on the latest Windows Live news.

More on Wave 3: Windows Live Writer to support YouTube, Events and Photo Albums

damaster — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 14:52:00 GMT

Having told you about what's coming in Messenger, Mail, Movie Maker and Photo Gallery, it's now time to cover the next one in the series: Windows Live Writer. Let us start off with a screenshot for you:

We've noticed on the right pane that you can now insert "Events" (Windows Live Events?) and "Photo Albums" into your blogs. From the screenshot it's already showing what it will look like when you insert a Photo Album into your blog post - it even includes an option for slideshows.

The next screenshot shows that Windows Live Writer now supports directly uploading videos onto YouTube! Also take note of the tab "From Video Source" - the current version of Writer only mentions "From Soapbox", meaning the new version will support inserting videos from other video sources other than Soapbox as well. Keep in mind that Movie Maker will also support uploading videos onto MSN Soapbox, YouTube and other video sharing websites.

Thanks to Picturepan2 from LiveSino again for the info!

Movie Maker to join Windows Live family with Wave 3

Kip Kniskern — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 20:57:00 GMT

We first told you about Movie Maker moving over to Windows Live back in March, and our old pal Bill Gates confirmed it to Todd Bishop of the Seattle PI at the end of June. Movie Maker, up until now a feature of Windows, will join Windows Live Photo Gallery to offer a more complete set of photo/slideshow/video management and sharing tools (and get Movie Maker out of Windows in the process).

Movie Maker will work with both photos and videos allowing users to produce simple to make videos, for free.

Then once you’ve produced a video, Windows Live Movie Maker will make it easy to upload and share to MSN Soapbox, YouTube, or most video sharing services:

Windows Live Movie Maker will offer expanded capabilities to what is already offered with Windows Live Photo Gallery, upgrade the current Windows Movie Maker offering, and move Movie Maker (and from what we hear Mail and Photos as well) out of Windows. That can only be a good thing for the teams shipping Windows 7, giving both fewer bugs and therefore fewer delays in shipping.

More information on Windows Live Wave 3

damaster — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 17:29:00 GMT

Mary Jo Foley recently reported on her blog that Windows Live Wave 3 have completed the M1 (Milestone 1) stage. Our friend Picturepan2 over at LiveSino was lucky enough to be given the opportunity to interview a manager for Windows Live chatting about the progress of Windows Live Wave 3. Although there were many interesting details that he wasn't allowed to disclose, here's a quick summary of what's currently going on in Microsoft with Windows Live:

New Unified Header - as we've reported previously, all online Windows Live services upon release will have the brand new header that allows users to change the background and colour themes of their pages. This is aimed to reduce the branding confusion that we've had with Windows Live previously.

Windows Live Hotmail - this has recently completed its M2 (Milestone 2) stage. The new version concentrates on extra integration with other Windows Live services such as SkyDrive and Home, as well as a new service People (will this replace Contacts? or perhaps has something to do with the C2 project at Microsoft Research?)
Windows Live Messenger - M1 build is now complete, and is currently in development for the M2 stage. Messenger 9 will feature a new look as well as additional new features (that we're not allowed to disclose yet )
Windows Live Mail - some minor improvements and interface changes in the M1 build. With the recent release of Outlook Connector 12.1 with Windows Live Calendar support, the new Windows Live Mail will also feature Calendar syncing.
Windows Live Photo Gallery - the main new feature in the current M1 build is facial recognition. Photo Gallery will automatically recognise people's faces in your photos, and users will be able to add tags to each person (similar to how Facebook photos works by tagging each person). However, these added people tags will only be viewable in Photo Gallery.

Currently these are the only set of features we are allowed to disclose. There are no mentions of the new Windows Live Movie Maker application nor any details on the new Windows Live People and Windows Live Groups services. But stay tuned as we'll keep you updated with the latest news in the development of Windows Live Wave 3.

Getting ready for Windows Live Wave 3

Chris — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 04:03:01 GMT

With Wave 2 now well behind us, the focus of our writing is now moving onto the next set of Windows Live products - Wave 3. Kip has already talked about how Windows 7 will see a number of programs being removed from the core operating system, notably Photo Gallery, Mail and Movie Maker.

Only the last of these is not yet available as part of the Windows Live Suite, but that should change in the near future as Microsoft readies Windows Live Movie Maker (Codename Sundance). We certainly expect to see upgrades to most if not all of the other Windows Live products currently included in the Suite, as well as the much-rumoured Windows Live Groups. We've even heard that Favourites may be on the receiving end too :)

Then there has been the talk this week of the new Microsoft Value Box (Codename Albany), that makes Microsoft's current software + services approach available to home users from off-the-shelf. Office and Office Live Workspaces will combine with Windows Live OneCare 2.5, though the Windows Live Suite is also rumoured to be making an appearance as a bunclled program too. The only potential downside to this being included is the seemingly inevitable conclusion that Microsoft is going to start charging users for the Windows Live services they currently get for free (which they won't). Lets hope the PR champions are ready to take this challenge on.

And then there is the service that underpins all of the above, Windows Live ID. This appears due for an upgrade to v5.5 in the near future, with the new Delegated Authentication website already using the new version. WL ID has made great improvements in the last few releases, notably with Linked Live IDs and the new developer SDKs - it'll be good to see what else they have up their sleeves.

(To recap, consent.live.com allows users to manage the websites that have access to their information and contacts, and if they so wish, to remove this access. This is particularly relevant in light of the Microsoft + social networks sharing contact information announcement this week.)