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Windows, throughout the years has released plenty of new versions of their infamous Movie Maker. Their Apple competition such as iMovie and Final Cut Pro has taken the lead when it comes to producing and editing high quality video. Microsoft is now trying to take a lash back at Apple with it’s newest installment of Movie Maker by changing the design, user interface, and the overall experience.

When the original movie maker first made it’s entrance into the industry people were excited as they believed that it would revolutionize the way people create, edit, and use media. They’ve since fallen behind, now playing catch up to their competition. As you’ll see in my review today, I don’t believe that they’ll succeed in their conquest to collapsing Apple’s media editing empire.

If you already have a copy of Windows 7, the operating system will probably prompt you into downloading and installing the new Movie Maker as a BETA tester. I’ve searched throughout the internet and have not found any additional ways in legally getting it though.

Initial Thoughts

My “pre downloading” thoughts of the new Movie Maker were that it was going to be a rusty, same old software that we expect to see from Windows. I assumed they were going to add maybe a few extra visual effects, but didn’t expect them to completely revamp the overall design of the product.

When you first open Movie Maker for the first time you’ll be pleasantly surprised with the brand new design Microsoft has implemented. With the “ribbon theme” now being used it’s now much easier to access and edit your visual effects, audio, and video. They’ve also cleaned up the amount of options you have when creating a movie and have simplified the ability to add and mix different variations of media.

Features

The actual features of the new Movie Maker haven’t changed majorly, however new abilities such as Microsoft now allowing you to drag videos and photos into a special section on the right side of the window so that you can quickly drag and drop your media into your timeline.

They also have given users easy access to different controls such as the volume of video versus audio. This option is now listed, as an icon, on the top navigation bar of Movie Maker.

Now something I’m really excited about with this newest Media installments is the fact that Microsoft has added the ability to install plugins. This can particularly be useful with their additional new feature that allows you to publish videos directly to websites such as Youtube, Smugmug, Flickr, Picaza, and much more. This is a smart move by Windows as they’re now allowing users easy opportunities to publish content to the web and potentially get more exposure.

The visual effects haven’t changed much other than the fact that they’ve organized it differently. You still get the regular old visual and transitional effects that you’d expect from Windows with a minimal amount of new ones.

They’re editing feature has changed considerably. Now by clicking the “edit” button you’re able to trim the beginning and end of each video separately. They also now allow you to create and drag texts around within the video itself. This is a large improvement to previous versions that limited where you could add text to your video. This new feature is similar to what programs such as Powerpoint and other Windows creation software uses.

Conclusion

In essence, the new Windows Movie Maker Beta is a much more scaled down and simplified version of previous installments. The overall features are similar except for the text and additional publishing options. However, I do recommend the upgrade, especially if you have troubles understanding current versions of the products. It’s definitely a marginable improvement but I don’t believe it will pose any substantial threat to iMovie or Final Cut Pro from Apple.