WINDOWS MOVIE MAKER TUTORIALS - FILE TYPE SUPPORT

In this series the second tutorial explains the file types supported by - Windows Movie Maker

Windows Movie Maker is decent video editing software from Microsoft. If you are a newbie I highly recommend it. Version 2.0 has more options than its predecessor.

Windows Movie Maker can give you a bad start if you are unaware of the file types it supports. At the top of the list is Windows Media Video ( .wmv ) and Audio Video Interleaved ( .avi ). Both these standards / file types are created by Microsoft.

There are other important file types supported by Movie Maker, like MPEG ( Moving Pictures Experts Group ). The down side of this file type is it cannot output in the same format. This is a big drawback since burning on DVD requires MPEG format. So, while you can import MPEG in Movie Maker you have to save the same in some native/supported format or use third party software to create and burn DVD.

The other lesser known file type partially supported is the Active Streaming Format ( .asf ). The same rules apply here too. You can import but the output has to be in some other native / supported format.

The best bet while using Windows Movie Maker is either .avi format which is space hungry OR the native .wmv format. If you are not averse to using some third party software then ofcourse your choice of output formats increases.

Incidently, Movie Maker does not support Quick Times file format.