Bluezy's Computer Movie Making 101

If you are online, many of you are pretty much computer literate.  Our computers are great tools.  We can contact friends and family from great distances and use our web cams with our messenger programs to have a literal video phone.   We can sync out devices and store our information.  The computer IS a household appliance that has become more affordable to all social classes.

I just downloaded a converter to change Apple Quicktime video format (.mp4) to Windows movie format (.wmv).  I wanted to blog this to anyone who might be interested. 

I took video of my grand daughter's birth, but the camera I used saved the file in .mp4 format.  I wanted to edit it, but unless you purchase or get a hacked copy of Quicktime Pro, you can't. 



Microsoft Windows comes with a program called Windows Movie Maker.

The program is very user friendly.  You click "New Project" then click "Import Video".  It loads the video in fragments and you just drag the pieces you want on to a strip below in the order you want.  It is in fragments so you can easily edit it.

I had alot of upsidedown, sideways and floor shots.  There are options to flip your video, shorten it, and even add text within the video or just title and ending screens. 


You can also "Import audio or music" and then drag the file icon down to the bottom where it goes.  You can control what you hear by adjusting the the volume slide bar to video sound or music sound, thus omitting the voice and just having a cool rock and roll tune playing throughout.  Warning if you want to use music, the laws are now gettting tight on music usage. 

Even though you own a song, it is deemed illegal to upload content to Facebook, Youtube or other sharing sites.  Seriously, lately they have been cracking down.  Those free playlist websites are gettting hit to buy licensing and the price has cost one of my favorite sites. According to a geek site news place I link to playlist.com are going bankrupt. Hell, how the fuck do they get any money anyways?  So who reads those side ads or even pays these places?  I logged on to playlist as I typed and I guess the geeks were wrong!  Here is a song sample from there:

CLICK HERE (if you dare) to listen to one of my 1990's attitude songs on playlist.com

 (update edit December) 

I found a better conversion program and a way to rip music off the internet and YouTube.
I use my Firefox YouTube Downloader add on.
[click here to download] to capture the video.   The downloader captures in .flv format.  Miraculously the downloader will also capture in seconds flash (and I mean a flash) any song I select on playlist.com! The songs on playlist are saved in mpeg format (not to be confused with mp3).

So with all this new stuff I get, I need to make it compatible with my Windows Movie Maker (WMM) and  my MP3 player!  I have one of those Kenwood stereos in my "OJ Simpson escape model Bronco" that has a cord that plugs right into my Mp3 player.  WMM needs to read it in wmv or avi format. WMM will not accept .mpeg format either.
How to fix that?

CONVERTER PROGRAMS!

I got this free program online called DVD Video Soft Free Studio [link here to download].  It has all the conversion programs you would ever need.

They have a catch, though. TOOLBAR
don't have to install it just uncheck the offer menu, but---->"When installing DVDVideoSoft programs, you are prompted to install Optional Toolbar which ensures income for our company and allows us to offer you free software.

You can choose not to install this Optional Toolbar. However, every time after using any DVDVideoSoft program you will be asked to install it again.

If the pop-up Toolbar Offer is annoying for you, delete the following folder from your PC:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\DVDVideoSoft\TB."

It's not JUST a toolbar, but a polite request to take over option.  Take over means:

• It commandeers your homepage with it's own version of Google
• It stamps a big ol' gadgety toolbar right below your navigation bar.

 That is not so bad.  You can uninstall the toolbar, but the search engine is a different thing. The toolbar installs a cookie that must be removed.  Problem solved.  The cookie is from conduit.com and if you have a block list on your popup blocker add that name to your block list.  I found out that it was from conduit.com by right clicking my mouse on their logo on my new google browser look and clicked view image info. I found out the image was coming from conduit.com and I copied and pasted that on my search bar. A series of bad shit came up about it and told me to just clear my cookies.  Coolchaser is like that, too.  Other places that tweak your shit can be analyzed that way and you can find the source you can cut it off!!

Google Adsense has a way to let you make money every time someone searches on the internet by letting you install their search the web widget or like these guys are doing somehow making it their own google search.  It is the same as google but less garbage on the sidebars.  The only thing is that I was used to all that garbage and to have them take my google away, it is a bit invasive.

But with LimeWire and Torrent site shut downs it is really irrelevant they even exist.  This capture tech has been out there a while.  REALPLAYER (been around 4-evah) lets you do it as well and they have a clip editor so you can actually ringtone design your download or if you get it off a continual stream you can edit the song out.  It is just a computerized version of recording on KZAP and editing out the DJ.  It should be allowed....
I will be uploading video clips from my grand daughter's birth to Facebook thanks to this program.

VLC is the only multmedia player I use.  And it is also "open source"
(Software that can be used, redistributed or rewritten free of charge; it's usually created by volunteers).  Wiki definition