By Andy Thomas In this article, Andy Thomas explains what possessed him to create a video
for YouTube using Microsoft's Movie Maker.
The History of Harley-Davidson
While browsing through my hard-drive the other day, I came across a "movie" I had been
working on about a year ago, but had never quite finished.
I had started the project because I wanted to try my hand at producing content for YouTube.
I thought I would just throw something together about motorbikes, given that's one of my interests.
I recall that, at the time, I had just crashed mine and had a length sinew hanging out of my foot,
which I duly took care of with a sharp pair of kitchen scissors. But that is another story.
Still, it hasn't dampened my interest in motorbikes.
Anyway, as I was saying, I rediscovered my movie project recently and decided that
I couldn't bare to leave it unfinished. So I've made the effort to wrap it up and here it is.
When I started this, I had no idea what my video was going to be about, except that it was to have
motorbikes in it. However, I just decided to run with it and to see where it took me...
Finding the Content for the Movie
I began by searching for photographs of motorbikes that I could use. These had to be either public
domain, or have non-restrictive licensing terms, which kind of limited my choice a little. However,
I found some good sources of free-to-use photographs, and chief among them was
MorgueFile.com.
I knew that I wasn't going to be happy with a video that was nothing more than random pictures of
bikes, so I was hoping that some kind of topic or theme would emerge as I went along. Fortunately it did.
It seems that people take more photographs of Harley-Davidsons than any other bike; so I had lots
and lots of pictures of Harleys. As my own preference is for cruisers, this was OK with me.
So my video was going to be about Harleys, which quickly evolved into a history of Harleys.
I had my theme.
Now all I needed was a sound track to go with it. Fortunately, Uncle Sam helped me out with this,
as work produced by the US federal government is public domain. This includes the works of the United
States Air Force Band, who very kindly provide a selection of
music for download.
I must say that the quality of music here is excellent.
Microsoft Movie Maker
I knew that Windows Vista came with a free movie making application called, rather uninterestingly,
Movie Maker. Having never attempted to put together a video before, I'd never even fired it up, but
thought I thought I'd give it a shot now.
I wasn't too hopeful at first, I have to admit, but I was pleasantly surprised with
Movie Maker. Here's a screenshot, below.
Microsoft Movie Maker (Click for Enlargement)
To build a video, you first import the source media — photographs, video clips, and an audio track etc.
You then drag your content onto the time-line at the bottom of the window and use it to arrange the
sequence of events in your video.
In my case, I had a selection of Harley photographs I had downloaded from the web. I had also taken
the trouble of selecting only "landscape" oriented photographs with a width greater than 1280 pixels, and
had then resized each one so that it's dimensions were 1280x720. This was because I specifically wanted my
video to be compatible with YouTubes high-definition (HD) view, and one of the resolutions recommended by
YouTube for this is 1280x720 pixels.
By using original photographs with a width greater than 1280 pixels, and then sizing down, I maintained
a high resolution. Whereas if I had chosen a smaller picture and sized up, say from a width of 600 to 1280
pixels, there would have been a significant loss of resolution and the results would appear "pixelated"
or blurred.
I largely avoided the use of blank side bars in the video too, sometimes referred to letterboxing,
by using landscape rather than portrait oriented photographs. Side bars are added where the dimensions
of the original image don't match the viewing area of the video. I was forced to make a couple of exceptions
where the photograph I wanted to use was relevant, but I didn't have a more suitable alternative. You
can see what I mean below.
Photograph with Sidebars
While I'm not a professional videographer by any means, I found Movie Maker to be deficient in certain areas.
For example, my Harley-Davidson video uses subtitles to communicate with the viewer. I really struggled
to find a subtitle format that was simple and remained legible throughout the presentation. Ideally, I
wanted to place my subtitles at the bottom of the viewing area with a simple black background. While
Movie Maker offers a wide variety of subtitle formats, to my mind, these are too weighted toward animated and
gimmicky styles, with too little in the way of simplicity and legibility.
Despite the limitations, Movie Maker grew on me the more I used it. I think it's good for putting together
home movies orrelatively simple presentations. If you're looking to do something more sophisticated, however,
you should look towards a professional video editing package, but perhaps that's just the way it should be.
Saving the Video in a YouTube Compatible Format
While your video project is under development, Movie Maker saves your work as an "MSWMM" project file.
This is a work-in-progress file rather than a finished product; it is not self-contained, but links-up the
image and audio files on disk. When the video is finished, however, it is possible to package up the final
result into a standalone video file using the "Publish Movie" function.
Unfortunately, Movie Maker only supports Microsoft's own video file format (WMV), which is incompatible
with YouTube.
The solution is to save the video first as a WMV file, using a suitable resolution so as to avoid loss
of image quality, and then to convert the WMV file to one supported by YouTube.
In my case, I exported the video from Movie Maker using the "Windows Media 720p" setting and then used
an open source converter, WinFF, to convert the WMV file to the MPEG-4 (H.264)
format suitable for direct upload to YouTube.
WinFF Open Source Video Converter
For those wanting to know more, recommended YouTube video specifications can be found
here.
Acknowledgements
Finally, I think it's only fair to acknowledge the people who created the photographs and music which I used.
Music - Free
By MSgt Matthew Ascione & MU1 Ira Ostrowski
United States Air Force Band
Photos
"Irish Eyes" of Montanna, Ken W. Kiser & Peter Sterken
