Transcript: Chat - Windows Movie Maker 2
Published: June 13, 2003
Please note: Portions of this transcript have been edited for clarity
Moderator KenM (Microsoft): Welcome to today's chat. Our topic is Movie Maker 2. Questions, comments, and suggestions are welcome.
Moderator KenM (Microsoft): We will make an effort to answer as many questions as he can. There may be times when a question may be asked that we do not have an immediate answer for or cannot get to. We encourage you to post any of these questions in the Microsoft newsgroups.
Moderator KenM (Microsoft): I'll now have the hosts introduce themselves.
Special Guest Gareth (Microsoft): Hey, I'm a Program Manager on the Movie Maker team, and I'll be able to answer all your questions, as long as they're not too tough ;)
Moderator KenM (Microsoft): I'm Ken McGrath, TechNet/MSDN Web and Communities Producer.
Special Guest Matt (Microsoft): Hi, I am Matt and I do documentation for Movie Maker.
Special Guest Gareth (Microsoft): Q: what types of enhancments are you thinking about for the next release of WMM? A: We're currently investigating enhancements for the next version. What kind of enhancements would you like to see?
Special Guest Gareth (Microsoft): JDanielSmith: Thanks for th feedback, if you have any more ideas for features you can post them on the MM newsgroup microsoft.public.windowsxp.moviemaker
Special Guest Gareth (Microsoft): JDanielSmith: What kinds of things would you like to customize with MM Automovie?
Moderator KenM (Microsoft): For those new to the chat - Our topic is Movie Maker 2.
Special Guest Gareth (Microsoft): JDanielSmith: Gotcha, thanks
Special Guest Gareth (Microsoft): Q: With Adobe out now with a DVD authoring/burning software package, does Microsoft have plans for a DVD package that integrates with MM2?
Special Guest Gareth (Microsoft): A: We've had this request from several people, and are investigating. Right now you can import the files that Movie Maker creates into 3rd party DVD burning applications like MyDVD 4 and Nero
Special Guest Gareth (Microsoft): Q: any chance of making the WMM2 code "available" in some way? Seems like it would be a nice demo app for the WindowMedia toolkit
Special Guest Gareth (Microsoft): A: Not at this time
Special Guest Matt (Microsoft): Q: when will HighMAT/*video* DVD players be generally available in the US?
Special Guest Matt (Microsoft): A: HighMAT support for WMA has already been built into 12+ HighMAT DVD players. As of now, HighMAT video is still in development with other companies and we cannot comment on their release dates unfortunately..
Special Guest Gareth (Microsoft): Q: will the next version of WMM run on W2003 Server?
Special Guest Gareth (Microsoft): A: There are no plans to make WMM available on w2003 server
Special Guest Gareth (Microsoft): Q: I have clips with an aspect ratio other that 4:3 (they are 2:3). WMM2 stretches them. Word on the street is these have to be reformatted in another tool first. Any way around doing this, to preserve the aspect ratio in WMM?
Special Guest Gareth (Microsoft): A: Yes, you can use any image editing application and insert black bars in such a way that the final image is 4:3. Save out the new image, and it will be treated like a 4:3 image
Special Guest Gareth (Microsoft): JDanielSmith: Good point, you can use the encoder (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/9series/encoder/default.aspx)
Special Guest Gareth (Microsoft): to create streaming video files. It offers a bunch more options (such as 2-pass VBR encoding and access to encode complexity settings) for creating streaming video
Special Guest Matt (Microsoft): Q: WMA HighMAT support doesn't help much for those creating HighMAT CDs from WMM2
Special Guest Matt (Microsoft): A: Yes, that is true :-) You can however download a viewer from http://www.highmat.com and then watch your movies on your computer.
Special Guest Gareth (Microsoft): Q: any idea of a freeware or MS app that does this? (resizing video/changing aspect ratio)
Special Guest Gareth (Microsoft): A: You can use the encoder to do this http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/9series/encoder/default.aspx (sorry, I thought you meant jpg images)
Special Guest Matt (Microsoft): Q: if you can't comment on target dates for HighMAT video players, can you mention who the hardware players are?
Special Guest Matt (Microsoft): A: Some manufacturers include Apex and Panasonic...
Special Guest Gareth (Microsoft): Q: is there a white paper someplace outlining Microsoft's "vision" for digital media? There seem to be a few holes right now (no VCD/DVD support, can't playback HighMAT on DVD players, etc.)
Special Guest Gareth (Microsoft): A: We don't currently have a white paper addressing this at the moment, for more info on things like this, you can look for keynotes (on microsoft.com) given by Will Poole
Special Guest Gareth (Microsoft): Q: any chance of the "Producer" API (or something similar) making into WMM? It would be nice to be able to drive all of WMM from code.
Special Guest Gareth (Microsoft): A: We currently have no plans to do this at this time, MM is primarily intended for general consumers
Special Guest Gareth (Microsoft): SimplyDV_Colin : Direct-to-disk is a must-have feature of MM3 (!)
Special Guest Gareth (Microsoft): SimplyDV_Colin: Thanks for your feedback! if you have any more ideas for features you can post them on the MM newsgroup microsoft.public.windowsxp.moviemaker
Special Guest Gareth (Microsoft): Q: : why the "limited" focus? WMM2 is a nice piece of software that could be used by more than just "general consumers"
Special Guest Gareth (Microsoft): A: Thanks, based on your feedack and feedback from other users we're investigating what is possible
Special Guest Gareth (Microsoft): Q: What is the extention for MM2?
Special Guest Gareth (Microsoft): A: The format extension for MM2 project files is .mswmm
Special Guest Gareth (Microsoft): A: The format extension of the saved movie file is .wmv (Windows Media Video)
Special Guest Gareth (Microsoft): Q: if you made the MSWMM all XML, someone would have an (unsupported) way to do simple WMM manipulation
Special Guest Gareth (Microsoft): A: Yup, we don't support this in MM2, but this bears more investigation for future versions of MM
Moderator KenM (Microsoft): For those new to the chat - Our topic is Movie Maker 2.
Special Guest Matt (Microsoft): Q: I'm looking for a program that will allow me to burn a DVD from something on MM2. I would like to do just like a DVD with menu's on it. Do you know anything?
Special Guest Matt (Microsoft): A: Sonic MyDVD 4 will let you import your Movie Maker movies (i.e. WMVs) to create a DVD.
Special Guest Gareth (Microsoft): : Q: so "Producer" is still the prefered application for "power users"? Will it be updated to include some WMM2 features? For example, automovie is pretty slick.
Special Guest Gareth (Microsoft): A: Producer is focused on rich multimedia presentations that include slides, html and video. If you're looking for more in depth video editing you should try something from somelike like Pinnacle Studio or Adobe
Special Guest Gareth (Microsoft): Thanks for the compliment on automovie :)
Special Guest Gareth (Microsoft): Q: is the DVD HighMAT spec going to incude improved "authoring" support - menus, navigation, etc.
Special Guest Gareth (Microsoft): A: I can't comment on this at this time.
Moderator KenM (Microsoft): We will be continuing this chat for about 12 minutes and will continue to take questions. We encourage you to repost any questions we may have missed. Thanks all for participating in the chat.
Special Guest Gareth (Microsoft): Q: The Pocket PC choices in MM2 are the only ones that work across platforms - to places like Macs and Windows NT - because they use the version 7 video codec - any chance of adding a higher quality cross-platform choice?
Special Guest Gareth (Microsoft): A: You can create your own profiles in Movie Maker, and use wmv7 for those if you like, see : http://www.microsoft.com/WindowsXP/moviemaker/expert/customprofile.asp
Special Guest Matt (Microsoft): Q: what can I do with movie maker
Special Guest Matt (Microsoft): A: A good place to learn more about making movies using Movie Maker is: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/moviemaker
Special Guest Gareth (Microsoft): Q: Moderators - are the transcripts read by MS product teams?
Special Guest Gareth (Microsoft): A: Yes, your feature requests and others are definitely taken into account
Special Guest Gareth (Microsoft): Q: care to comment on the chances of next version of WMM2 directly writing DVD-Video? I know you're "thinking about it", but it is something that is "likely", "unlikely", "maybe", etc.? (I'm assuming "no" at thispoint)
Special Guest Gareth (Microsoft): A: Sorry JDanielSmith, we're not allowed to comment on future releases
Moderator KenM (Microsoft): We are going to have to wrap up this chat in about 2 min. We're working on the final answers for today.
Special Guest Gareth (Microsoft): Q: Gareth: the problem with many third-party tools is they don't support WMA (or WMV)
Special Guest Gareth (Microsoft): A: A lot of the newer DVD editing software supports wmv/wma, including Sonic MyDVD 4 and later, and the latest version of Nero
Moderator KenM (Microsoft): Thanks for joining us today and thanks for the questions. It's time for us to go now. You'll be able to find the transcript of this chat soon at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/chats/default.asp#transcripts. Please see the chats schedule for upcoming topics.
Special Guest Chris (Microsoft): Thanks everyone for participating. Send us any suggestions for future chats or feedback on Expert Zone chats. eztips@microsoft.com.
