Novice: Really basic queries!

[Terry Pinnell]

Although I'm fairly adept with still photos, I've never edited a movie
before. Just discovered WMM and taking first faltering steps, but I
must be missing some embarrassingly obvious points.

I have a short MPG file on my HD created with my digicam's 'movie
mode'. I import or drag it into WMM, which creates an entry (movie?)
under My Collections, and a single 'clip' in the large pane. All I've
been able to do is to rename both of those, and play the clip. There
are no pictures in the 'frames' at the bottom. I seem unable to (for
example) cut a few seconds off the end. The item Edit|Audio Levels is
greyed out, so I can't change the sound track either. Also greyed is
the File|Save Movie. So even if I could edit it, there seems no way to
save it!

Could someone point me in the right direction please?!

Oh, and this image was taken in Portrait (vertical) mode, so it's now
playing 'sideways' on. How do I rotate it to vertical?

BTW, another movie I imported (also from my digicam), split into
*three* clips. What decides how many clips are created?

Any help would be much appreciated please.

 

[Rehan]

Movie Maker does not work properly with MPG files. Convert the MPGs to AVi
using VirtualDubMod and then use them in Movie maker.

If Movie maker has not made shorter clips then you can make them manually by
playing the clip in the Colelctions and stopping at the point you want to
split. Then use the Split button located under the preview screen.

To edit the movie you need to drag the clips in your desired order onto the
Storyboard/Timeline. Press Ctrl-T to switch between Storyboard and Timeline
View.

For movies captured through digital camera the clips are made using the
timecode. otherwise some scene change algorithm is used to determine
record-pause-record action during recording.