When it comes to basic video editing solutions, you need not look at expensive high end software. They usually come up with their own bag of problems such as a massive learning curve that most people simply do not have the time for, and a heavy price tag.
For basic needs such as adding subtitles, layering, transitions, splitting WMV files and even video stabilization, among others, you can look towards Microsoft’s Windows Movie Maker (WMM). With that said, one of the common problems people experience is working with different file formats on WMM. For instance, the .mov format. This post discusses how to work with it.
The MOV File Format
The problem is that most digital cameras do not give their users the option to choose from a variety of formats for recording their footage. Hence, their videos end up with the dreaded MOV extension. MOV is an MPEG-4 video container file format developed by Apple to work in both Windows and Mac operating systems. Now why should Apple care if their media formats are incompatible with Windows Movie Maker? That is your hassle.
As a result, users end up with their favorite video footage sitting idly on their hard disks, because they obviously cannot be bothered with learning expensive video editing software that do support the MOV file format.
How to Work With MOV Format in WMM?
One of the best formats that Windows Movie Maker works with is the Windows Media Video (WMV) extension. So, the obvious solution to your problem is converting the MOV extension into the WMV extension. There are thousands of free and easy to use software to choose from, however, some of these software have extremely clunky user interface or hidden malware that can infect your computer.
After extensive research on the internet, we ended up choosing Movavi Video Convertor, it has a beautiful UI dashboard and there is zero loss in video/audio quality after converting the video files.
Here’s how you can convert your MOV file format with Movavi Video Convertor:
Step 1
Click on the Add Media button, following it up with a click on Add Video. You will then be required to browse to the location of the MOV video file and select it.
Step 2
Hover over to Video, then select WMV. You will be prompted to select from various preconfigured resolutions, choose the one that is best compatible with your video.
Step 3
The final step is to start the conversion process. Just click on the tempting Convert button
The conversion time can range from a couple of minutes to a few hours depending on the number of files you have chosen and their size.
Now that you have overcome the biggest bottleneck to using Windows Movie Maker. You can begin editing your videos. Load your videos by clicking on the Home tab, using the Add group and selecting Add videos and photos. Once there, navigate to your video’s location and then select Open.
Using Trimming and Splitting
Trimming and splitting are two of the most frequently used tools in Windows Movie Maker.
Trimming
This is used to remove unwanted footage from your videos, perhaps you ended up with a few extra black frames. So, get rid of them by simply going to the Video Tools on the Edit tab. Under the Editing group, set up a new start point for your video by moving the slider to the point where the video should start, then choose Set start point.
Likewise, for choosing a new end-point, move the slider to the point where the video should stop, then choose Set end point.
Splitting
If your video end up being too big, or over the time limit, simply drag the playback indicator to the point where you want to split the video.