Using the Windows Movie Maker to Add Sound to Your Video
With modern technology, the amateur video maker can try his hand at video editing, and use techniques that are seen in professional movies. There are many video editors on the market, and many video editors come free as part of a larger computer package. For example, the Windows Movie Maker comes with most Windows software packages.
The Movie Maker uses a special digital program to sense scene breaks in raw video footage, so when you load raw video clips to the editor it will automatically break them up into smaller manageable clips. One you have downloaded the clips, you can open them and display them on your editing board. The board can be arranged as a story board editor which consists of alternating boxes and transition areas, or as a time line. In either case, you begin editing by dragging individual clips to the box or area of the time line where you want them to appear.
Once you have assigned your clips to the editing board, you can add transitions, add special effects or add narration and sound. In this article I will describe how the Windows Movie Maker allows you to add sound to video clips.
Sound clips can be downloaded to the Movie Maker much like video clips. While Windows claims it is compatible with MP3 clips , in fact, it has been reported that downloading MP3 clips causes the Movie Maker to crash. Therefore you may have to convert your sound file to another format, such as wma.
Once the clips are downloaded, you may be prompted to open up the time line, if you haven’t already done so. Follow the prompt, and then drag the audio file to the area of the time line where you want it to appear. You now have additional options which allow you to synchronize your audio and video file. The audio file will be displayed on a special audio time line underneath the video time line. You can click on the audio file and drag it to a different part of the time line. You can click on either end of the file and then snip the file by dragging the box with the double arrows, which will appear. This way the audio segment will end when the video clip ends. You can right click on the audio file and you will open up a menu of editing prompts. These will allow you to mute the audio, give it a fade in or fade in effect or adjust its volume.
While the video editor only allows you to add one audio track at a time, you can use a little trick to add more than one audio file to a track. First add the first sound file, then save the project and then reopen it and add the second file. This trick works because the Movie Maker has two audio tracks, one for the audio already attached to the video, and one for adding new material. After you save a project, the new audio becomes part of the video and will pay on the first track upon reopening. This will allow you to add additional material to the second track.
The Windows Movie Maker audio editing set up is designed for video editors with little or no editing experience. It makes adding sound easy and fun. Good luck.
This report has been brought to you by Winmax Video of California. Winmax is a producer of professional and and other forms of business and corporate videos. As you progress in your personal editing capabilities you will soon see how complex video editing can be. If you have a professional video editing project to do, for your business or company, consider hiring a professional video company with years of training and experience.
