- Quick specs
- Price: Free
- Operating system: Windows Vista/Server 2008/7
- Date added: August 19, 2009
- Total Downloads: 25,607
- Downloads last week: 2,279
- See full specifications
- CNET editors' rating: stars
- Average user rating: stars out of 9 votes
See all user reviews
CNET editors' review
Reviewed by: Jessica Dolcourt on August 19, 2009
Functional freeware that's aimed squarely at the casual consumer crowd, Microsoft's Windows Live Movie Maker easily turns photos and video clips into slideshows and movies on Vista and Windows 7. However, its toolset and interface lack a certain sophistication that users of all levels would appreciate. The app comes bundled into the bulky Windows Live Essentials suite of apps; to separate it out, you'll need to uncheck the other boxes before installing.
Like Microsoft Office 2007 apps, Windows Live Movie Maker tucks its actions and menus into a visual ribbon. You'll get started dragging and dropping video clips and photos into the storyboard. You could finish a minute later with a click of the AutoMovie button, which populates the movie with a title, transitions, and pan and zoom effects. It'll also prompt you to add a song from the hard drive. Automating movies is handy, especially for time-restricted users. After all, you can always tweak later with the help of the menu tabs.
The intermediate photo-, audio-, and video-editing features are sparse--you can split and trim videos, fade songs in and out, and pick a start and end point for audio and video. The publishing and sharing options are better thought out. Windows Live Movie Maker can e-mail a finished video, burn it to DVD, or upload it to YouTube or Facebook (with a plug-in). Videos also save in HD format for your TV (standard or wide screen), and can convert to a mobile-phone-friendly format.
All in all, Windows Live Movie Maker is decent freeware that lives up to its promise of making movies fast. You won't find many advanced tools, but more ambitious types can still create interesting videos and slideshows.
Watch the CNET video review of Windows Live Movie Maker:
Publisher's description
From Microsoft, Inc. :Windows Live Movie Maker is the one-minute way to turn photos and videos into great-looking movies that are easy to share -- for free. Windows Live Movie Maker is a new offering that allows you to easily turn photos and videos into great-looking movies to share with family and friends across a TV, PC or mobile device using the most popular camera types and file formats on the market today.
Supported image and video files include: Windows Media Video (WMV), Windows Media, DV-AVI, Microsoft Recorded TV Show, 3GP, 3GPP, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, Motion JPEG, JPEG, TIFF, GIF, Bitmap, PNG. Windows 7 users can also view QuickTime MOV and QT files, AVCHD, and MPEG-4 video formats.
CNET Editor's Note: The "Download Now" link will download Windows Live Essentials. An installation window lets you choose to install Windows Live Movie Maker and any other Windows Live applications. To install Movie Maker only, deselect the other boxes.
What's new in this version:
This is the first version on CNET Download.com.
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User reviews
- Average user rating: 3.2 stars out of 9 votes
- My rating: 0 stars Write review
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Showing 5 of 9 user reviewsSee all 9 user reviews
This software version | All versions -
Version: Windows Live Movie Maker 1.0
Pros: None, waste of time.
Cons: Big step back from movie maker for windows xp
No Timeline
No good editing optionsSummary: This app is almost completely pointless. It's only "use" is to upload to youtube maybe, or to do a quick trim of a video's length. No real editing options beyond trimming and and adding transition animations, which arent all that great. Windows movi... read more >>
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Version: Windows Live Movie Maker 1.0
Pros: None at all
Cons: no timelime, not place to import the clips, storyboard way to confusing to use .Need to be designed better.
Summary: There's no way that this ciuld be easier to work with. The timeline with Windows movie Maker 6.0 and the importing of the clips help make it much easier.To me, WMM 6.0 is much better then the Live Movie maker.
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1 out of 1 people found this review helpful
Version: Windows Live Movie Maker 1.0
Pros: it works, transitions & effects drag n drop
Cons: Gates should be terribly embarrassed and ashamed of that crappy roll out of vista and shouldnt be so stingy with these apps. i run every MS software, but where is the love??? more features should b included!!!!!
Summary: Microsoft is stingy. If i wasnt a starving student i would be on a MAC
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0 out of 2 people found this review helpful
Version: Windows Live Movie Maker 1.0
Pros: It works well for me
Cons: notings specially
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1 out of 1 people found this review helpful
Version: Windows Live Movie Maker 1.0
Pros: The basic features are outlined clearly, nothing is too difficult. All the tricks to learn soon become natural.
Cons: If you view it as 'free software' then none at all really.
Summary: I wouldn't over dramatize this software, but it does what it's cut out to do, and it does it without much fuss.
- See all 9 user reviews Write review
