Rotate Digital Camera Videos with Windows Movie Maker

It's strange how questions sometimes come in clusters. I've seen several question for both Mac and PC users on how to rotate video clips shot with digital cameras. Apparently there's a whole crowd of people titling their digital cameras sideways this week. :)

For anyone with a Windows computer, rotating movies is easily done using Windows Movie Maker. This is one case where the defacto video editor for Windows outshines Apple's iMovie. Mac users will need to install an additional effect before rotating video clips in iMovie. For Movie Maker users, simply add your video to the Movie Maker timeline and apply a Rotate effect to turn the video right side up. Watch the video to see this in action.

Add 2 Audio Tracks to Windows Movie Maker

"Is there a way to add two audio clips to a Windows Movie Maker video which overlap each other?"

Windows Movie Maker only supports two audio tracks: the audio track recorded with the video is one of the tracks; the other movie maker audio track is the Audio/Music track. In your case you need an additional audio track, so that you can layer your two audio files on top of each other. If you plan to do this regularly , the easiest thing to do is graduate to a more complete video editing suite, like Pinnacle Studio, Roxio Easy Media Creator, or Sony Vegas. If you're on a tight budget or you'll only do this one time, you can combine the two tracks in another application, save out a single audio file, and import the combined audio file into Windows Movie Maker.

Edit Flip Camcorder Videos in Windows Movie Maker

"How do I get Flip camcorder videos in Microsoft Movie Maker? I tried adding a video to Movie Maker by dragging and dropping the file, but it shows up as an MP3."

Flip makes it insanely simple to record and edit movies on your computer, as long as you use the Flip Video application. Things get a little more complicated if you want to use other applications, like Windows Movie Maker, Roxio Easy Media Creator, Nero Vision Express, etc. The best way to insure success, is to first launch the Flip Video software from your Flip camcorder, which makes sure their video codec installs on your computer before you save the videos to your hard drive. After you step through the Flip Video software for the first time, follow these steps each time you want to edit your Flip videos with Windows Movie Maker.

Editing DVD Camcorder Files

Rosa writes, "Students recorded a movie project at home with camera using a DVD as a recording. Now they want to edit at school in Windows Movie Maker. They cannot import their movie to Movie Maker."

There's no guaranteed method for importing DVD camcorder movies into the Windows XP version Windows Movie Maker and editing them. Windows XP doesn't include the required DVD decoder software by default. Many of the consumer DVD software solutions available don't consistently work with every camcorder because some of the software packages don't include both the necessary video and audio decoders. The most reliable solution I've found for editing the files created with DVD camcorders in Windows Movie Maker is Elecard MPEG Player. Even if you already have another DVD playback solution on the computer, this method may fail without installing the Elecard software.

Are MSWMM Files Mac Compatible?

"How do I convert mswmm files to a Mac compatible file?"

mswmm files are the project format for Windows Movie Maker. The files tell Windows Movie Maker things about your video editing project like what video clips are used, which audio files you imported, which transitions go between which clips, and which effects are used. These files are essentially readable only in Windows Movie Maker and will definitely not work on a Mac. The two options for saving out a video file from Movie Maker are either DV-AVI or WMV. To create a Mac-compatible video file, open the mswmm file in Windows Movie Maker, save the movie at the highest quality setting WMV or preferably as a DV-AVI format file. Import this finished AVI or WMV file into iMovie or other Mac video editing application.

Windows Vista Sony Camcorder Driver Support

"Is there a place to download a driver for my Sony camcorder for Vista? I upgraded to Windows Vista, and found that my Sony video camera no longer works. I need a new driver in order for my computer to recognize my video camera."

Some of the Sony camcorders support transferring video from tape over USB or iLINK. The USB connection requires a special driver for each version of Windows. The iLINK connection conforms with the standard FireWire transfer common to most digital video cameras. If you were previously using the USB connection to transfer video from your Sony camcorder to your computer, that feature no longer works with Vista because Sony doesn't have an updated driver for the USB support. Since Sony has not announced a timetable for updating the USB drivers, the only current solution to this problem is to use the iLINK connection instead.

Copy Camcorder Tapes to Computer

Bennett asks, "How do I upload a camcorder tape to my computer? I want to upload my daughter's video I took with my camcorder to the computer. What do I need to do?"

Since you mention that the camcorder uses tape, I'm going to assume that your camcorder is some sort of digital video camera using MiniDV. This means you need a FireWire connection in your computer and the correct cabling to connect your camcorder to your PC. You also need to have software for capturing the video from your camcorder - assuming you have Windows XP or Vista, you can use Windows Movie Maker to capture your video from tape.

Save a Picture from a Video

"How can I save a still image from my video project in Windows Movie Maker?"

Windows Movie Maker provides a very simple solution for saving a frame of video as a still image. Keep in mind this still image will be saved at whatever the resolution of your video is, which is probably not high enough quality for printing. If the video you want to grab a still image from is on DVD, you'll need to use a slightly different method for saving still images from DVD.

Edit YouTube Videos with Windows Movie Maker

Livy asks, "How do you put a YouTube video on Windows Movie Maker?"

To edit YouTube videos in Windows Movie Maker you need to do a couple of things. First you need to download the video from YouTube. Next you need to convert the video from the FLV file from YouTube to a video format supported by Windows Movie Maker (like WMV). Keep in mind that the YouTube video will be 320x240, which is not a television display resolution, so if you're planning to burn a DVD the video will look even worse than it does on your computer because it will contain all of the compression artifacts introduced when it was uploaded to YouTube. Read on for step-by-step instructions.

Reverse a Video Clip and Play it Backwards

Many of the popular consumer video editing apps lack an effect for playing video in reverse. Windows Movie Maker has no method for playing video backward on the timeline. The Videowave editor included with Roxio Easy Media Creator has no video reverse mode. Using AVISynth and VirtualDub you can play out almost any video file backward, saving an AVI to import into your favorite video editor.