[Davetherave]

Hi ive played around a bit with windows movie maker but to be honest its a nightmare of a program and freezes and fails more times than you could imagine. Can anyone recommend a decent program that allows me to make my own movies using images, video etc.

Thanks Dave

[Dabhand16]

I found that Pinnacle was very easy to use. I've got Studio Plus 9.3, however, there were a few issues with it that made me look elsewhere, and I moved to Premiere Elements 2. I think this is a better app (now in Elements 3 guise), but I found it much more difficult to 'get into' than the Pinnacle.

Like most things, people will advocate their favorites, but in the end, it depends on how you get on with them.

ULead is supposed to be very good. Pinnacle has a very easy interface, and the issues of old may well be resolved now, PE3 is supposed to be better/easier than PE2.

You can download free 30 day trials of these apps, so you can try them before you buy.

I've also used Movie maker and thought it was very good, although the features are limited. There is a guy called PapaJohn who is the guru of Movie Maker so it might be worth visiting him before you spend. You might find that MM will do what you want.

Frequently, problems with video are due to issues with hardware and preparation. for instance, it is recommended that video files have their own dedicated HDD (not the system drive), the screensaver is switched off during all video work, idle tasks are carried out prior to video work and the basic system can cope with the very high workload that video puts on a computer.

[j sotelo]

Out of the free applications Movie Maker is one of the best, with a little know how on XTML and you can even make your own transitions.
your problem almost sure was space problem thats why it crashed.
and if that was the case its going to crash with probably all

[Davetherave]

Thanks Guys

I cant seem to find any free download trial links but my mate says he can get me a good programme

As for size the movie i was creating on moviemaker is only 1mb and i have plenty of room on my pc for this yet moviemaker just seems to crash every now and again so now i save everything at every stage, really annoying though

Thanks Dave

[Rob Barron]

I know it's expensive and you also need to be prepared to put some time into learning it as it's got a steep learning curve but Adobe Premiere Pro really is the bees knees when it comes to video editing. If you are not wanting to pay top whack (and I wouldn't recommend you do unless you are going to recoup the cost from selling your work afterwards) then I would recommend Premiere Elements which is a cut down but still excellent version of the main program.

The freebie with Windows is good for what it is. If you want something basic but easy to learn then you've got a program right there without paying a penny. I am not sure why you're getting crashes but remmber it is a Micrsoft program and ipso facto is memory hungry! It therefore could well be because of lack of memory for it to utilise.

It must be a tiny video to be only 1Mb in size but remember two points: the video being worked on takes a lot more memory than the final rendered product so although it is tiny as a file, it will be bigger during working on it. Also, the thing that is memory hungry is not just the video itself but the program and as I said, the fact it is MS is not good news for your RAM!

How long is your video if you don't mind me asking? I am a bit non-plussed as to how you have got it down to 1Mb unless it is extremely short. My tutorial videos on YouTube come in at roughly 15 secs per Mb as an avi file with mp3 audio track.

Cheers,
Rob

[j sotelo]

Windows Movie Maker is great if you want to learn, there are A LOT of editing programs out there, from premier to elements to Vegas 8, heres a link to another free one Lives,
one of the best editing programs is Final Cut Pro, but that is for MAC computers.
Premier is very good but you will have to learn the basics. and for that Movie maker can do the job for you.
heres a website that will help you a lot with Movie Maker http://movies.atomiclearning.com/k12/moviemaker2
and this one Tutorials and Articles - Windows Movie Maker 2 another Movie Maker 2 tutorials.
I personally use Vegas Pro 8 but I learned a lot from movie maker I even learned how to make my own transitions. I recommend you learn with a free one that way you can really decide what you need, before spending on a full pro version, their quite expensive.

[marcinklysewicz]

Adobe Premiere is professional and very good tool for movie editing. I was using it for some more advanced work and it was quite easy to find all options.

[photoshopmad]

I use Magix Movie edit Pro Plus, and have found it to be very good. I have never had any problems with it. You can download a trial to see if it suits you from their website.
music, photo, and video software from the market leader - MAGIX