Using Movie Maker s Finish Movie Section

Using Movie Maker's Finish Movie Section

You need to decide how you want to save and share your movie, so let's get started in the Tasks pane's Finish Movie section in Movie Maker.

When you choose a format, Finish Movie launches the Save Movie Wizard and presents you with easy optionsas well as more detailed settings, if you want a specific formatto save your movie.

With Finish Movie, you can save your movie for playback on a computer or a CD. You'll probably want to save your movie to your computer first. In addition, it's a good idea to make a backup copy on a CD or a miniDV tape.

With Finish Movie, you can also format a movie to send to others via email, the Web, or a miniDV tape (using your miniDV camcorder).

An email movie is a smaller file that you send via email. A Web-formatted movie is also (typically) smaller than the version you save to your computer.

Let's try a movie editing exercise, using the clips you edited together in Chapter 3, "Editing Basics: Movie Maker and More." In this practice exercise, you should use the Finish Movie option Save to My Computer, which allows you to save your movie to either your computer's internal drive or an external hard drive. (If you don't see any options under Finish Movie, click the arrow next to Finish Movie to see the different sections under Finish Movie.)

You should use the Save to My Computer option if you plan to make a DVD later (see Figure 4.1).

Figure 4.1. Saving a movie to your computer using the Tasks pane.

Using the Save Movie Wizard

Selecting Save to My Computer (or any of the other options under Finish Movie) launches the Save Movie Wizard, as shown in Figure 4.2.

Figure 4.2. Naming and saving a movie by using the Save Movie Wizard.

(This wizard is quite similar to the Capture Video Wizard you used in Chapter 3.)

You need to enter a name for your movie and tell the Save Movie Wizard where to save it.

Saving Formats and Versions

You can choose to save multiple formats and versions of a movie:

• Formats You can save the same movie in different formats (if you want to both make a DVD of it and also email it, for instance). If you have a 3-minute movie, you can make a movie to play back on your computer. It's best to make another movie file for emailing by using Send in E-mail if you want to share your movie with a friend because an email file (which you can create by using Movie Maker's Save Movie Wizard) will be much smaller.

  It's a good idea to name your different files clearly; for example, for a movie called My Movie, you should name your files MyMovieforDVD and MyMovieforemail, so you can easily keep track of the different formats of the saved movies. You can probably tell which is which from the file sizes, too, but it's easier if you label them from the beginning.

• Versions You might want to make long and short versions of a movie if you're planning to share the movie in multiple ways. After you've collected all the elements, you can leverage your efforts to make movies for different audiences and settings. It's usually (though not always) much easier and quicker to make a second, short version of your movie after you've made a long version.

  Let's say you have a 20-minute movie you want to put on a DVD, and you also want to send someone a movie email of the movie. Email and Web movies are better if they are short because video files sizes are large. But large file sizes are only part of the problem. The other issue is attention span. Because it's much more compelling to watch your movie on a big screen, people may watch a 20-minute movie on a computer or DVD player, but if the movie is a postage-stamp-size Web movie, 20 minutes is often too long for the audience to maintain interest. In that case, it's a good idea to make a short version of your movie, say 2 minutes (or less), with just the highlights or best parts of your movie.

  First, you save the longer version, using Save to My Computer. You can then re-edit your project and save a shorter version, using Send to e-mail (or another appropriate format).

  Again, it's a good idea to name your different files clearlyfor example, MyMovieLong and MyMovieShortso you can easily keep track of the different versions of your saved movies.

Selecting Movie Settings

The Movie Settings screen gives you one option: Best Quality for Playback on My Computer (Recommended). You should select this option, which saves your movie as a .WMV file.

Determining File Size

You can look at the text at the bottom-right of the screen to see the file size. Movie Maker also tells you how much space you have available on the hard drive you selected, so you can determine whether you have room to save your movie.

Reducing File Sizes

If you don't have enough space, you can use Show More Choices to tell Movie Maker a specific file size to save your movie to. However, if you make your movie file size smaller, the movie quality is reduced. It's best not to specify a drastic reduction in file size. (However, if you want, for instance, to fit your movie on a 650MB CD, this feature is very helpful because you could enter the desired file size here and have Movie Maker calculate the settings to make the file size you want.)

Specifying Other Settings

You can save a file to dozens of different formats by using the Show More Choices option and scrolling through the pop-up menu, which has a long list of movie formats. You can even save your movie to put on a PocketPC.

For this exercise, you should use the setting Best Quality for Playback on My Computer (Recommended).

Saving a Movie

The final step in the process is for Movie Maker to save your movie, which takes awhile, depending on the length and size of the movie file.

Completing the Save Movie Wizard

When your movie is saved, you have a chance to play the saved movie. You should check the check box if you need to see the saved movie or uncheck it if you don't want to watch it now. Then you click Finish.

Creating Additional Formats and Versions

At this point, you should save any additional formats if you want to play back your movie in other environmentsfor instance, in email.

You could also start on a new (shorter?) version of your movie at this point. You can come back to do this another time, or you can return to the project now and edit it further, repeating these steps to save to a different format or edit to another length.

Saving to CD

Making a CD of your movie is a very good idea. You need an internal or external CD burner to make a CD of your movie. Making a CD accomplishes two goals:

• It frees up disk space on your computer or external hard drive. If you want to erase the movie file on your computer to make more disk space available, you can use a CD to store a digital version.

• It backs up your movies.

The best practice is to save two copies of your completed movie project to protect your valuable edited movie and all the work you've put into making it. Even if you have unlimited disk space (but who does?), digital files on computers are fragilethey can be accidentally erased by human beings or affected by a computer crash. A good practice is to save one copy on your hard drive (for easy editing later) and one copy on a CD for backup.

To save a movie to a CD, you put a blank CD in your CD burner. If you are using an external CD burner, you need to make sure the CD burner is connected to your computer. Then you follow the steps in the Save Movie Wizard to burn a copy of your movie to a CD.

Remember that most recordable CDs are 650MB, so if you are saving your movie to a CD and you plan to put it on a single CD, you need to make sure your file is no larger than 650MB.

Sending in Email

To send a movie in email, you select the option Send in e-mail under Finish Movie in the Tasks pane, to launch the Save Movie Wizard. The wizard saves a smaller movie file size, opens your email program, and attaches your movie. You fill in the address of the person you're sending to and click Send.

It's good email etiquette to send only small files, so be courteous!

Sending to the Web

To send a movie of a movie to the Web, you select the option Send to Web under Finish Movie in the Tasks pane, to launch the Save Movie Wizard.

The Save Movie Wizard asks you how you connect to the Web to determine the right size movie file to create, depending on the speed of the connection.

After the wizard saves your movie, it asks you where to put your movie online. If you have Web hosting, you enter that information on this screen.

Putting Your Movie on the Web

When it comes to finding a home for your movie on the Web, many sites now offer free hosting for publicly accessible movies. Others provide hosting for a fee. Here are some of the options:

• Google VideoGoogle Video offers free movie uploading. Google Video prefers a different format (MPEG2 or MPEG4) than the WMV file you create by using Movie Maker, but it still hosts WMV files. Google Video allows both free and paid movie uploads. In order to upload your movie, you must own the copyright to your movie and meet Google Video policy guidelines. For details, visit https://upload.video.google.com/video_faq.html#overview2.

• OurmediaOurmedia is a nonprofit group dedicated to personal media that provides free movie hosting in association with Archive.org, a nonprofit Internet archive. By opening a free account, you can publish your movie to the Web. For more information, visit www.ourmedia.org/help/publish-video.

• Neptune MediashareMicrosoft has partnered with Neptune's Mediashare to provide movie hosting for a fee. Your movie can be password protected or openly available. Mediashare offers a free trial account to use and evaluate the service for 3 days. After that, hosting is $59 a year for 15MB, with larger storage options for a higher fee.

Tips for Making Your Movies Searchable

Do you want search engines on the Internet to point people to your movie when you post it on the Web? If the answer is yes, new movie search engines want you!

Google (https://upload.video.google.com/video_faq.html#overview2) and Yahoo! (http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/submit) are actively seeking submissions for their new video search engines. Each of them offers an online way to submit your movie to help people find it. Google provides free movie uploads and accepts transcripts to help searchers find you. Yahoo! accepts RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds for movies posted on the Internet. Yahoo!'s movie RSS feeds allow people to subscribe to your movies. Check the Yahoo! Video Search website (http://video.search.yahoo.com/?&ei=UTF-8&p=) for details on how to create RSS feeds for this Yahoo! service.

Another site, Blinkx.tv, also offers movie submissions to its movie search site. For details, see www.blinkx.tv/beta/PodcastSubmit.

MSN and AOL may provide similar services in their new movie search features; check www.msn.com and www.aol.com for the latest details.

Tip

The Save Movie Wizard also offers to help you buy hosting online by opening a Mediashare account with Microsoft's partner Neptune. For complete information, visit www.neptune.com. See the sidebar "Putting Your Movie on the Web," in this chapter, for a list of free hosting sites.

Sending to a DV Camera

You can use the Send to DV Camera option when you want to do the following:

• Make a backup of your movie on miniDV tape

• Watch your movie on TV, using your camcorder to play your movie

If you're saving your movie to your miniDV camcorder, remember to put a blank tape in. If you have to use a previously recorded tape, you need to make sure the Record/Save tab is in the Record position. You want to avoid the tragic mistake of recording over any valuable footage on a previously used tape!

To watch your movie on TV, you connect your camcorder to your TV, using the proper cables. The cables to connect your camcorder to the TV probably came with your camcorder when you purchased it. (If not, they are usually readily available at an electronics store.)