Windows Movie Maker

[Paul]

Thank you for that advice. Unfortunately, the file that Install wants -
moviemk.exe - is not on my XP Pro install CD either.

:

Did you remember to search for "moviemk.ex_" ?

In a previous post, I tried to explain compressed files, and naming
conventions. The uncompressed file would be "moviemk.exe". If it
is stored compressed, they change the character on the end to an
underscore character. That is how you're supposed to know it is
compressed. It also screws up searching for that file by name.
Which is the reason, when I'm searching for files, I don't add
the extension to the end. If I'm searching, I look for "moviemk"
with the search command, and just accept the fact I'm going to
get all sorts of stuff.

You can expand a file using the system utility called "expand".
For example, let's say you find a copy of moviemk.ex_ . Open
a command prompt window, and first try

expand -D moviemk.ex_

That will cause the utility to print the name of the file as
it would appear when unexpanded (always a good plan to verify).
Next, you can use that name information, to do the actual expansion.
This step makes the file you wanted, from the compressed one.
(And if you lose track of what you did with the output file, just
search on the name again.)

expand moviemk.ex_ moviemk.exe

The program prints this out in response to the command.

Expanding moviemk.ex_ to moviemk.exe.
moviemk.ex_: 1243742 bytes expanded to 3558912 bytes, 186% increase.

Now you have a moviemk.exe, all ready to pass to your installer.
But you still have a whole pile of other files to expand. I tried
to explain before, that the INF file contains a list of stuff to
do, and from that file, you can guess at what files it is going to
need to finish the installation.

I use 7ZIP for expansion tasks, as it is a tiny bit easier
to use. Still not as efficient as I'd like, but better than
the command window and the above method.

HTH,
Paul

 

[JohnD]

I overlooked that when I searched the install CD's that I have, although I
hadn't overlooked it when I searched the SP3 CD.

But, having taken that into account now, a summary of what Install needs and
what I have is:

On two XP Pro and three XP Home install CD's:
Moviemk.ex_,
moviemk.ch_,
moviemk.in_.
(All of which expand fine.)

Missing from these CD's and wanted by Install:
Any DLL's starting with WMM2
Filters.xml (.xm_)
Empty.txt (.tx_)
Blank.txt (.tx_)
Two .png files (.pn_)
Two .jpg files (.jp_)

On the SP2 disc and SP3 disk: moviemk.pdb.exe
all the .dll's, but with
..pdb.dll extensions
None of the above files that Install wants: Filters
Empty
Blank
2 .png files
2 .jpg files
with any kind of extensions.

Any further ideas?

 

[Paul]

I overlooked that when I searched the install CD's that I have, although I
hadn't overlooked it when I searched the SP3 CD.

But, having taken that into account now, a summary of what Install needs and
what I have is:

On two XP Pro and three XP Home install CD's:
Moviemk.ex_,
moviemk.ch_,
moviemk.in_.
(All of which expand fine.)

Missing from these CD's and wanted by Install:
Any DLL's starting with WMM2
Filters.xml (.xm_)
Empty.txt (.tx_)
Blank.txt (.tx_)
Two .png files (.pn_)
Two .jpg files (.jp_)

On the SP2 disc and SP3 disk: moviemk.pdb.exe
all the .dll's, but with
.pdb.dll extensions
None of the above files that Install wants: Filters
Empty
Blank
2 .png files
2 .jpg files
with any kind of extensions.

Any further ideas?

WindowsXP-KB936929-SP3-x86-ENU.exe 331,805,736 bytes

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...a8-5e76-401f-be08-1e1555d4f3d4&DisplayLang=en

Download WindowsXP-KB936929-SP3-x86-ENU.exe , as I'm seeing things like this
inside. Using 7ZIP, I see the following inside the .exe. Using 7ZIP,
I can extract the contents of the EXE, without starting an install.

moviemk.in_
moviemk.ex_
moviemk.ch_

wmm2ae.dl_
wmm2eres.dl_
wmm2ext.dl_
....
wmm2res2.dl_

filters.xm_
empty.txt <--- this one isn't compressed because it is "empty"
Redmond's idea of a joke.

and so on.

So what you want to do is:

1) Find the standalone SP3 download.
2) Extract it, but do not run the main .EXE
3) Extract all the files into a folder. Then right click
on the ones ending in an underscore, and use 7ZIP to
expand those. With a lot of work, you should be able to
assemble all the needed files (by trial and error if needed).

This doesn't open everything, but it is a very nice tool.
Move your WindowsXP-KB936929-SP3-x86-ENU.exe file into a
separate folder, before you extract it. You can do all your
work in that folder, until you have all the files you need.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7zip

Good luck,
Paul

 

[JohnD]

Thanks for this latest. I am certainly going to try it, but I won't have
time the next few days. But stay tuned if you don't mind because something
tells me I will have more questions. I will let you know what happens
anyway. Probably late Tuesday or early Wednesday.

Thanks,
John

 

[JohnD]

HI, Paul:

Well, I now have WMM installed. All I have to do now is figure out how to
use it!

Thanks again for your help.

 

[Paul]

HI, Paul:

Well, I now have WMM installed. All I have to do now is figure out how to
use it!

Thanks again for your help.

Good work!

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/moviemaker/getstarted/default.mspx

I played with it a little bit, and the first problem I had, was
controlling transitions. I wanted to change the speed of the
transition (like a fade). But I couldn't figure out how to do it.

WMM chops a video up into "scenes", which can be a blessing or a curse,
depending on what you're trying to do.

In terms of using the processor, the final render of the movie to
an output file, can use more than one core of the processor. WMM
is one of the few programs on my computer, which gets some benefit
from a dual core processor.

Paul

 

[JohnD]

I know what you mean about the scenes. Doesn't suit me at all. When all's
said and done what I am looking for is a way to capture analog video and get
mpeg files out of it instead of .avi. I use Pinnacle Studio for editing and
rendering. But I'm interested to see if WMM offers anything that Studio
doesn't.

Thanks for the link to the documentation.

 

[Daddy]

Breaking video into scenes makes it easier to work with - for you and the
software.

For you: If you make a mistake while editing, in the absence of scenes the
entire video could be damaged. If the video is broken into scenes, you will
not damage more than one scene.

For you: You can't make chapters if your video isn't divided into scenes.

For the software: If the program has to recompile the entire video every
time you make even a minor edit, it could take days to put together your
final product. If the software only has to recompile one scene, it works
much faster.

Like most utilities Microsoft includes in Windows, Movie Maker is designed
to provide only a basic level of functionality. Almost any third party video
editor has more capability than Windows Movie Maker.

Daddy

 

[JohnD]

If you are having those kinds of problems with whatever software you are
using, try Pinnacle Studio.

 

[Twayne]

WMM, as long as you have version 2 (which comes with SP3, not sure of
SP2), if actually a pretty decent program for editing videos and best of
all it's free. It's inclusive enough that the only reason to go to a
full blown package would be to get the extra controls and capaabilities
they provide with much greater accuracy and ease of use as long as you
don't sit around counting the hundreds of different possible functions &
commands<g>.
But WMM does provide all the basic stuff one needs, from splitting
out scenes, keeping a storyboard handy, scene shortening, lengthening
(fast/slow motion), coltrollable transitions, filters, audio/video
controls and so forth. I have professional video capture/edit
applications, but if what I'm doing is simple I use WMM. It's actually
faster than pro ware as long as all you have to do is set the exposre,
arrangement and timing on scenes.
So it really depends on what you want to do and how precisely you
want to do it and what special effects, etc, that you want to use. WMM
IS lacking in that it can't burn an ISO image IIRC and the DVD
management IIRC again was a little clunky, but otherwise it'll do the
job. I also have MediaPro 7 laying around somewhere but never really
used it other than to install it & see what it really was. It came with
the computer and I found the book with it more useful than the actual
application. But that's me, and only an opinion since I have a pro
application otherwise, so ymmv is definitely a possibility.
Someone men tioned re-rendering for having made a change, and that's
true of any of them because of the way they're designed; it's necessary.
But that shouldn't be much of a problem because you can easily preview
the results without having rendered it. You just make sure it's right
before you render; rendering is for the finished product, not interim
testing.
Actually, cpu speed, a Gig or more of RAM, multiple physical hard
drives (at least 2) and minimum 7200 rpm drives are as or more
important than the application since the most time is going to be spent
in rendering the outputs.

IMO unless you do a LOT of video capture/edit/rendering, WMM is all you
need. But if you do it on a daily basis, over and over with lots of
different content, then the professional programs are the way to go,
albeit a little expensive. If you really want to know what the diffs
are, read the Help on WMM and then visit sites like Adobe, Ulead and so
forth, and compare their capabilities and see if they're "better" enough
to warrant the price you'd have to pay. I've also had good luck
checking prices at their sites for upgrading, then go to EBAY and try to
get an old version there to use to upgrade to a current level.
Sometimes you can save a bundle, other times it's not worth the few
bucks you'd save, so the research is necessary. Of course, you should
also know your way around EBAY and how to check out your sellers before
y ou hand over any money. I use PayPal for payments and the one time
someone tried to fraud me, PayPan/Ebay made it right and I had a full
refund in two days. If you've done your homework, EBAY is a good place
to buy from. Not so for the inexperienced though.

HTH,

Twayne`