"Near HD" in Windows Movie Maker + fanvid tutorial (The Vampire Diaries, Robin Hood, etc)

Tutorial link below. Okay, so I messed around with Windows Movie Maker and some HD clips and discovered a viable way to make an "almost sorta HD" fan video come out of Windows Movie Maker 2.6 (which as far as I can see, doesn't export as HD--at least I can't find the setting). You can see the results above. (Just a bunch of clips strung together, sorry. And yes I know the audio drops out for a second in the RH clip; not sure why, probably due to some ineptitude on my part.)

The quality is a little "blocky" in parts, and I'm not trying to make this out to be more than it is, but still, I think it's pretty darn good considering this is just the non-HD version of WMM we're talking about here.

The process was pretty easy, but you do have to convert and then re-convert the HD file to get WMM to recognize it. (Annoying.) BUT, if you have access to HD files in the MP4 or MOV format (and some of us Richard Armitage fans do) . . . it's even easier.

My system is: Mac Mini Core 2 Duo, 2 GHz, 4 GB of RAM. Windows 7 64 bit. (I'm doing this in Boot Camp, obviously) All these clips were made from downloaded HD MKV files (which are easy to find online).

Software:
Windows Movie Maker 2.6
Any Video Converter
MPEG Streamclip http://www.squared5.com

Companion tutorial on the foolish passion fan video forum. http://fpvideos.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=tutorials2&a... (Free membership required to view, but don't worry, we don't bite! LOL.)

Hopefully it'll help more vidders make the jump to *real* HD! :D (By "real" HD, I mean the really sharp clips, like from a Blu-Ray disk.)

Even better HD can be had with other software (for Mac and PC), like Corel VideoStudio, Sony Vegas Movie Studio, iMovie, Premiere Elements, Final Cut Express and Pro.

Clips are from:
The Vampire Diaries with Ian Somerhalder and Nina Dobrev.
Supernatural with Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles
Strike Back with Richard Armitage
Robin Hood with David Harewood and Richard Armitage

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• windows movie maker
• sony vegas
• imovie
• final cut
• richard armitage
• supernatural
• strike back