Exporting to tape in Windows Movie Maker

You can export to tape from Windows Movie Maker, but I really don’t recommend it if you have another option. Even if you use Movie Maker’s very highest-quality capture option, your video is still compressed by Windows Movie Maker when it’s first captured into your computer. This means that the quality of the source footage stored on your computer is somewhat reduced right from the start. If you don’t have any other choice but to use Windows Movie Maker, here’s how to do it: First connect your digital camcorder to the computer’s FireWire port. I also strongly recommend that you use Movie Maker’s titling tool to create a blank title with no words and a black background. Place this title at the beginning of your project and make it 30 seconds long. Copy the title and place it at the end of the project as well. When you’re ready to send your movie to tape, click Send to DV Camera under the Finish Movie step in Movie Maker (remember, I recommend using Windows Movie Maker version 2 or later; see Appendix E for information on downloading the latest version). Put a blank tape in your camcorder and follow the instructions on-screen to export your movie to tape.

Exporting to tape in Apple iMovie

Like most software from Apple, iMovie is entirely functional and to-the-point. And at no time is this more evident than when you want to export your movie to tape. iMovie doesn’t have the ability to export directly to an analog capture card, but it definitely can export video at full quality to your digital camcorder.
To export your finished movie to tape, follow these steps:

1. Connect your digital camcorder to the FireWire port on your computer, and turn the camera on to VTR or Player mode.
Make sure that you have a new, blank videotape cued up and ready in the camcorder.

2. In iMovie, choose File➪Export.

3. Choose To Camera from the Export menu.

4. Adjust the Wait field if you want.
The Wait field controls how long iMovie waits for the camera to get ready before it begins export. I recommend leaving the Wait field set at five seconds unless you’re exporting to a video converter (such as the Dazzle Hollywood DV Bridge) connected to your FireWire port. In that case, you may want to increase the wait to about ten seconds or so to ensure that you have enough time to press the Record button manually on your VCR.
Whatever you do, don’t reduce the Wait field to less than five seconds. Virtually all camcorders need some time to bring their tape-drive mechanisms up to the proper speed, and the Wait gives the camcorder time to get ready.

5. Adjust the two Add fields to determine the amount of black video that will be recorded at the beginning and end of the tape.
I recommend putting at least 30 seconds of black video at the beginning and end of the movie.

6. Click Export.
iMovie will automatically export your movie to the tape in your camcorder. If you’re exporting directly to a digital camcorder, iMovie will automatically control the camera for you; there’s no need to press the Record button on the camcorder. But if you are exporting through a video converter, you’ll need to manually press Record on your analog VCR.

Exporting Movie

After your hardware is set up properly and you’re sure that your movie will look good on a regular TV, you’re ready to export the movie. Regardless of what software you are using, keep in mind that — like video capture — video export uses a lot of memory and computer resources. To make sure that your system is ready for export:

• Turn off unnecessary programs. If you’re like me, you probably feel like you can’t live without your e-mail program, Internet messaging program, Web browser, and music jukebox all running at once. Maybe you can’t live without these things, but your video-editing software will get along just fine without them. In fact, the export process will work much better if these things are closed, and you’re less likely to have dropped frames or other quality problems during export.
• Disable power-management settings. If you’re exporting a movie that’s 30 minutes long, and your hard disk is set to go into power-saving mode after 15 minutes, you could have a problem during export because the computer will mistakenly decide that exporting a movie is the same thing as inactivity. Power management is usually a good thing, but if your hard disk or other system components go into sleep mode during export, the video export will fail. Pay special attention to this if you’re working on a laptop, which probably has pretty aggressive powermanagement settings right now.
• On a Mac, use the Energy Saver icon in System Preferences to adjust power settings. Crank all the sliders in the Energy Saver window up to Never before you export your movie.
• • In Windows, open the Control Panel, click the Performance and Maintenance category if you see it, and then open the Power Options icon. Set all of the pull-down menus to Never before exporting your movie.
• Disable screen savers. Screen savers aren’t quite as likely to ruin a movie export as power-management settings, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.

1. In Windows, right-click a blank area of the Windows desktop and choose Properties. Click the Screen Saver tab of the Display Properties dialog box, and choose the None screen saver. (That’s my favorite one, personally.)
2. On your Mac, open the Screen Saver icon in System Preferences and choose Never on the Activation tab of the Screen Saver dialog box.

Whenever you export a movie to tape, I always recommend that you place some black video at the beginning and end of the movie. Black video at the beginning of the tape gives your audience some time to sit down and relax between the time they push Play and the movie actually starts. Black video at the end of the movie also gives your viewers some time to press Stop before that loud, bright static comes on and puts out someone’s eye. Some editing programs — like Apple iMovie — have tools that allow you to automatically insert black video during the export process. I’ll show you how to insert black video using iMovie in the next section. But if you’re using some other software that doesn’t have this feature — like Pinnacle Studio or Windows Movie Maker — you’ll need to add a clip of black video to the beginning and end of the project’s timeline. You can usually do this by creating a blank full-screen title, and I’ll show you how later in this chapter. The most common failures encountered on VHS tapes are mangling or breakage at the very beginning of the tapes. Employees at video rental stores are quite skilled in the art of VHS tape repair, and they often repair beginning-oftape problems by cutting off the damaged tape, and then re-attaching the remaining good tape to the reel. If you put 30 seconds of black video at the beginning of your VHS tapes, about three feet of tape can be cut off before any of your movie is trimmed away. And if you ever need such a repair performed, head down to your local video store. You should be able to find someone there who will do the job for a couple of dollars.

Setting Up Your Hardware

Getting your hardware ready for exporting a movie to tape isn’t so difficult, really. The easiest thing to do is connect your digital camcorder to your FireWire port and turn on your camcorder to VTR or Player mode. (Oh yeah, and insert a blank tape into the camcorder.) After your movie is recorded onto the tape in your camcorder, you can connect the camcorder to a regular VCR and dub your movie onto a regular VHS tape if you want. I strongly urge you to use a fresh tape that has black video recorded on its entire length. This will prevent errors in communication between your digital camcorder and your computer.
If your master plan is to eventually record your movie on a VHS tape, you may want to skip the middleman — that would be your digital camcorder —and record straight from your computer to a regular VCR. To do so, you have three basic options:

• Use an analog video-capture card. Analog capture cards (such as the Pinnacle AV/DV board) can usually export to an analog source as well as import from one. When you export video using an analog card, I strongly recommend you use the software that came with that card. Most analog capture cards come with special utilities to help you import and export video. The Pinnacle AV/DV board uses Pinnacle Studio to capture and export video. To get Studio ready for analog export, follow these steps

1. Connect the analog outputs for the card to the video inputs on your VCR.
2. Make sure the software that came with the capture card is set to export to the correct ports. The Pinnacle AV/DV, for example, uses the Pinnacle Studio software. In Studio, choose Setup ➪ Make Tape. The Pinnacle Studio Setup Options dialog box appears. On the Make Tape tab, choose Studio AV/DV analog in the Video dropdown list.
3. Make sure that the right analog output ports are selected. The Pinnacle AV/DV board has both composite and S-Video outputs, so choose the one to which you have connected your VCR.

• Use a video converter.
• Use your digital camcorder as a converter.

I know, I know, I said I was going to show you how to avoid using your camcorder as the middleman when you export to VHS tape. But if you don’t have an analog-capture card or a video converter, you might be able to connect your digital camcorder to your FireWire port, and then connect a VCR to the camcorder’s analog outputs. If nothing else, this arrangement reduces wear and tear on your camcorder’s expensive tape-drive mechanism. Some digital camcorders won’t allow you to make this connection, because some models can’t send video out the analog ports at the same time they’re taking video in through the FireWire cable. Experiment with your own camcorder and VCR and see whether this arrangement will work for you. If you are exporting to a VCR, make sure that a new, blank tape is inserted and ready to use, and make sure the VCR is set to the right channel. (Many VCRs have to be set to a special “AV” channel to accept video from composite video cables.) As a last step before you begin your export, preview your movie on a TV connected to the VCR to make sure that the VCR is picking up the signal.

Prepping Your Movie for TV Playback

This means that the video that looks just peachy in the preview window of your editing software may not look all that great when it’s viewed on a regular TV. Computer monitors and TVs differ in three important ways:

• Color: Computer monitors and television screens generate colors differently. This means that colors that look fine on your computer may not look so hot when viewed on a TV.
• Pixel shape: Video images are made up of a grid of tiny little blocks called pixels. Pixels on computer monitors are square, but the pixels in TV images are slightly rectangular. This usually isn’t a problem for video captured from your camcorder, but still images and graphics generated on your computer could be a problem.
• Interlacing: TV video images are usually interlaced, whereas computer monitors draw images by using progressive scanning. The main problems you encounter when you export a project to tape is that the very thin lines that show up on the screen may flicker or appear to crawl. Pay special attention to titles, where thin lines are likely to appear in some letters.

If you use the LCD display on your camcorder to preview your movie, keep in mind that the LCD panel probably isn’t interlaced. However, the camcorder’s viewfinder probably is interlaced. This means that flickering thin lines (for example) may show up in the viewfinder but not on the LCD panel. Preview the movie using both the LCD display and the viewfinder before you actually export it.

Finding an online home for your movies (Youtube Alternatives)

If you want other people to be able to download and watch your movies, you’ll need to put the movie files on a Web server. Your Internet service provider (ISP) might actually provide some free Web server space with your Internet account. This free space is usually limited to about 5 to 15MB, but the exact amount varies greatly. You can use your Web server space to publish pictures, movies, and Web pages that anyone on the Internet can see. Check with your ISP to find out whether you have some available Web server space — and, if you do, get instructions for uploading your files to their Web server.
If your ISP doesn’t provide Web server space, or if it isn’t enough space to hold all of your movie files, don’t worry. Plenty of other resources are available. Several companies specialize in selling server space that you can use to store your movies. These are Youtube alternatives:

• .Mac (www.mac.com): This service from Apple includes e-mail tools, an address book, antivirus service, and most importantly, 100 MB of storage space on their Web server. Uploading movie files to .Mac is just as easy as copying files to different disks on your computer. The .Mac service costs approximately $100 per year, and provides many more features than I can list here.
• HugeHost.com (www.hugehost.com): As the name implies, HugeHost.com lets you put huge files online. The service is quite affordable, as well. For example, 1000MB (yes, one thousand) is just $5 per month, or $55 per year. See their Web site for other pricing plans.
• Neptune Mediashare (www.neptune.com): This service is partnered with Microsoft so you can easily access the Neptune Web site directly from within Windows Movie Maker. When you export a movie for the Web from Movie Maker, you are given the opportunity to log on to your Neptune Mediashare account and upload files instantly. The Mediashare Pro service provides 100MB of storage space for $39 per year. Whatever you use as a Web server for your movie files, make sure you get specific instructions for uploading. You’ll also need to know what the Web address is for the files that you upload. You can then send that address to other people so that they can find and download your movie.

Using the Windows Media format

Although Microsoft was late to the online multimedia game, Windows Media is quickly becoming one of the most popular video formats on the Web. Pinnacle Studio can export directly to Windows Media format. To do so, choose View ➪ Make Movie, and then choose Stream on the left side of the Make Movie window. Click the Windows Media radio button that appears. I strongly recommend that you review export settings before making a Windows Media file, and you can review those settings by clicking the (surprise!) Settings button in the Make Movie window. The Make Windows Media tab of the Pinnacle Studio Setup Options dialog box appears.
When you adjust settings for Windows Media export, check the following:

• Title: Enter a plain English title for your movie here. This title will appear at the bottom of the Windows Media Player window when your movie is played.
• Author: They can’t give out awards if they don’t know who made the movie! Enter your name here to give yourself proper credit.
• Copyright: Enter a year, and month and day if you like.
• Description: Type a brief description of your movie. This description will scroll across the bottom of the Windows Media Player window as the movie plays.
• Rating: Give your movie a rating if you want.
• Markers: If you include Markers in your Windows Media movie, viewers can jump from clip to clip by pressing the Next and Previous buttons in their Windows Media Player programs. manually named while you were editing your project will have markers.
• Playback Quality: Choose the Low, Medium, or High presets in the menu on the left. If you choose Custom, a second menu appears to the right, displaying a wider selection of presets. A summary of movie settings for each preset is shown under the Playback Quality menus.