Battle of the Movie-Making Tools: Why Windows XP Movie Maker 2 Beats Apple's iMovie HD
Date: Aug 19, 2005
Are you ready to ruuuuuuuuuummmble?
Recently, Apple Computer released an update to their iLife suite of tools that included an upgrade to their video editing tool, iMovie. In many ways, iMovie competes directly with a video editing tool Microsoft has available called Windows Movie Maker 2. In this article, you'll find out why Windows Movie Maker is the tool you should be investing your time in. I have been using Movie Maker 2 for professional projects for over two years. Movie Maker allows me to create movies quickly on Windows XP.
Using Movie Maker 2
When Microsoft released Windows XP, they threw in a klutzy video editing tool called Movie Maker for free. Just after the launch, Movie Maker received a huge upgrade when Movie Maker 2 was released.
Essentially, Movie Maker 2 enables the video hobbyist to quickly and easily create non-linear videos. If you're new to movie-making with Movie Maker then I'll give you the skinny.
First of all, Movie Maker 2 is only for Windows XP. If your copy of Windows XP is an older edition, then you may have Movie Maker 1 installed. If that's the case, you should use the Windows Update service to install the upgrade (it's free).
Movie Maker 2 really makes movie development fun. When you open Movie Maker you will see a series of tasks, located along the left-hand side of the application, which you'll need to complete in order to produce a movie. The Wizard-like interface steps you through what you need to do.
The first step is to have both video and still images to add to work with. You can add these to a "collection" that Movie Maker manages for you. Video and still images can then be dropped easily onto a Timeline along the bottom of the screen. At any time, you can press the play button and review what you are creating. Do I make it sound easy? That's because it really is.
I recently turned my brother on to Movie Maker. He's deputy head for a school in England, and he had been struggling with Adobe's Premiere for the school materials he was creating. It took him less than an hour to get up and running with his first five minute video in Movie Maker 2. Now I can't stop him.
Movie Maker 2 comes with a lot of tools that you would only expect to see in purchased software. You have the capability for titling opening/closing credits and subtitles, you have myriad transitions and video effects, you can easily export your movies to e-mail, the Web and your hard drive, and you can create soundtracks and voiceover tracks very easily.
Finally, Movie Maker is tied into Microsoft's DirectX technology, which is a boon because a lot of third party plugins have been developed that use DirectX. What this gives you, as a movie maker is a massive spectrum of tools.
Comparing Apples to Apples (no pun intended)
Oh, did I also mention Movie Maker 2 is free? Yeah, that's a big plus when you compare it to iMovie, which first requires a Mac (and you better get a good Mac if you want to run high definition content) and then requires you to spend $79 on iLife '05, which you have to buy to get iMovie.
Movie Maker is the only tool that Microsoft supports for video editing. This says a lot, as Microsoft is heavily invested in the video market, from their Windows Media Player to broadcast tools, such as streaming video servers and the like. Movie Maker delivers what you need to produce video content. In contrast, whenever I work with iMovie I feel very aware that Apple has other, higher-end video editing products and that they may really be better than iMovie. Final Cut Pro, a $1,299 Apple product, is the real editing tool Apple wants you to use.
Another area that will drive you nuts with iMovie is hard drive space. It's a given that when you work with digital video you'll use a lot of hard drive space. You can expect to use at least 5 MB of space for each minute of DVD quality-video produced with Movie Maker 2. This may seem like a lot. But, check out iMovie. Apple notes on their web site that two minutes of HD movie will cost you 400 MB of hard drive space. Holy cow! That means you get less than five minutes of video for each gigabyte. At that rate, even DVD-ROM's don't look large enough to store or back-up your movies.
What Microsoft can learn from Apple
Ease of use is the staple that makes Movie Maker a joy to use. There are, however, some areas, where Microsoft can learn from Apple.
The number one feature I would add to Movie Maker is a DVD Menu tool similar to iLife's iDVD tool. You'll find that it's easy to create a lot of video in Movie Maker that you can then add to your web site or e-mail to a friend, but trying to create a DVD can be challenging. There are no Microsoft-supported tools that allow you to create a DVD with a menu system for your new movies.
I'd also like to see Movie Maker take another look at high definition support. Apple's iMovie supports the new high definition video format. Microsoft isn't reticent about the idea of HD either, as they are requesting all of their future Xbox 360 games to be built in HD. So, why not video too?
Finally, and this is just a picky issue, I would like to see support for broader video formats such as Flash Video, QuickTime, MPEG, and others. You can use tools such as AVSConverter to perform this conversion trick, but it would be nice to have all of this in one tool.
Where Apple Can Learn From Microsoft
While Microsoft can learn from Apple, the same can also be said in reverse.
The very first thing Apple should do is create a Windows version of iMovie. Apple has released QuickTime and iTunes for Windows, which demonstrates that they know how to program for Windows, so why not give us iMovie, too? These three tools seem very related to me. Of course, providing iMovie as part of iLife is a marketing tool designed to keep users on the Apple OS X platform.
In addition, Apple needs to remove some of the complexity in iMovie. I want to shout "Keep it simple, stupid!" Apple adds some complexity with everything that they do, but you would not expect Movie Maker to trounce iMovie for ease of use. The reality is that Microsoft does a sound trouncing.
The Bottom Line
I have been using Movie Maker 2 for nearly two years. It's a solid tool that delivers for an amateur audience. (This is the same audience using iMovie.) While I like the iMovie/iLife integration, I really don't like the fact that Apple has not branched out to the PC world. Of course, that would be counter-culture, but I have to say it.
While having a product that works is good, what makes a product great is easy access to training tools. You will find that Microsoft has provided a large number of training videos, articles, and support forums to help you get the most out of Movie Maker 2. You really get the feeling that Microsoft wants this product to sing. In addition to the Microsoft support, there is a host of companies and authors writing about Movie Maker 2. One of the most vocal goes by the moniker Papa John. You will want to check out his web site at http://www.papajohn.org.
Finally, Movie Maker 2 has all the power of Microsoft behind it. I am certain that the next release of Movie Maker will accompany the next release of Microsoft Windows Vista, expected in 2006. One of the criteria Bill Gates has outlined for Longhorn is better video support for solutions needed in the home. As a nation, we're taking to digital video (and controlling digital video) like ducks to water. Movie Maker must support this need or Microsoft will find that they have dropped the ball.
Become the Budding Director You Were Born to Be
Windows Movie Maker is certainly easy to use. You'll find that you can create a movie, and distribute it, within a couple of hours, without having to take complex training courses. The fact the Movie Maker is free to Windows XP users is an obvious plus. I am hopeful that future releases will remain free.
The take-away message for both of these products is not how they one-up each other, but that there is healthy competition in this market. Both products deliver broadcast quality solutions at DVD or higher quality. It was only a three or four years ago that you would have had to pay thousands for the same software.
So the tools are out there and you have no more excuses. What you need to do is look inward and find the budding film director you always wanted to be. With podcasting as an easy mechanism for distributing your content, you may be surprised how many people want to share your film vision. Just remember to credit the tool that got you there.