Windows Movie Maker (Windows XP) 2.1

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Full user review

• 3 stars

  Version: Windows Movie Maker (Windows XP) 2.1

  "Glitchy but Capable and Fun"

  by Boogaloo on November 4, 2009

  Pros: For home use, it has a respectable set of photo, video and music edit/transition features. One can make very entertaining photo/video shows timed to music (WAV is BEST) to include video and music audio blends.

  Cons: The program needs time to process your edits. If you get 'ahead' of it the program will FREEZE. It's best used on projects less than 10-minutes. Auto-Movie has a glitch with a work-around. SAVE after EACH major edit.

  Summary: It's not professional, yet it really can make some fun projects with appealing affects. It will earn the monker "Mr. Freeze", but if you go slow and give the program a chance to digest your edits, this will minimize. If you try to edit too quickly, it will BALK. As it is, the program will PAUSE during some processes that LOOK like a freeze, but it's just taking its time. It has an auto-save function while you work, but it is better if you SAVE after any major edit. If you do not do this, you will be hitting CTL-ALT-DEL way too often to end and restart the task. Freeze ups often occur during auto-save. I have defeated auto-save in place of discipline.
  
  This program gets disproportionately slower as your project length grows. 10-minutes acts like the practical maximum length. The program refused to encode a 1200-photo / 88-minute long basic slide show claiming an untrue disc space error. The answer is to break up long projects into 'chapters'. As WMV files on a computer, this might somewhat destroy a seemless presentation as the files run like a music CD. However, many DVD video encoders can present the multiple chapters into one seemless presentation, albeit without a fancy transition.
  
  A NOTE ABOUT AUTO-MOVIE
  
  This is a quick way to lay down your vacation photos with automatic transition effects and still have the ability to edit to your taste. This includes timing your photos and transitions to music beats with an audio display that can be expanded to see the 'hit points'. It has faults. If you select something more than 50-photos at a time, it will NOT lay down every photo; it skips files. Who knows why, but the good news is that you do NOT have to lay down all photos at one time to take advantage of the feature. Select 25-50 at a time. It will STILL skip some files (aw, c'mon), but it is relatively easy to run through the timeline to insert them in order if you care to. As you check to ensure all files exist, it is also a good time to update/change desired transitions and effects. Go to the end and lay down another group in order. It's not a big handicap, but by golly SAVE the project after each session and limit the total segment length to 10-minutes or you'll wind up kicking the dog out of frustration.
  
  It takes about 30-minutes to encode a 10-minute segment at maximum quality and you get quite a few movie quality and aspect ratio settings to include European PAL. Another benefit of segments is that it allows you to segment your project time as available.
  
  Considering the price, it's a pretty good option.

  Thank you for submitting your feedback!

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