On Saturday I saw a performance of Dealer’s Choice, a play about male ego, stupidity, throwing good money after bad, and not knowing when to quit. Although I can wholeheartedly recommend the play, I evidently didn’t learn anything from it, because it didn’t stop me wasting a whole load of time over the weekend trying to get a good result out of Windows Movie Maker.

Movie Maker is an "easy and fun" video editing application that ships as an embedded part of Microsoft’s recent Windows operating systems. It has a relatively poor reputation, so I should have steered well clear, but I kind of accidentally got sucked in to using it. And initially I started to feel that it wasn’t actually all that bad.

Anyway, the details of why I ended up using it are unimportant. Suffice to say that I now feel its poor reputation is deserved and I won’t be using it again. But, male ego being what it is, I didn’t know when to quit. Along the way I learned some lessons that I’d like to pass on to other unfortunate mugs like me, who are having problems with Windows Movie Maker:

1. If you’re tempted to use Windows Movie Maker, don’t.
2. If you’ve ignored step 1 and find you have a completed Movie Maker (.MSWMM) project file, you may surprise yourself and be quite pleased with the result. By which I mean it may look quite good in preview mode. However, the best bet is to give up now. Don’t be tempted to click “Save Movie File” on the File menu, to export a finished edit. It will only lead to heartache and disappointment.
3. If you’ve ignored step 2, you may find that the .WMV file created by Movie Maker exhibits a picture-size different from your source material. Movie Maker only exports in the frame sizes and bit-rates it deems suitable, so if they don’t suit you, then the best bet is to give up. You may also find that the audio on your file sucks. I mean sucks. Like you’re listening to the audio with a kazoo jammed in each ear. Give up now.
4. I’m assuming you’re pressing on. Download Microsoft’s Windows Media Encoder. Unlike Movie Maker, this is a decent program, albeit a relatively unfriendly one. Don’t be tempted to ignore its onerous system requirements: if your PC isn’t up to snuff then give up now. The software will run on a sub-spec PC but it will produce movies that look like Ray Harryhausen shot them in 1955.
5. Media Encoder will let you resize your WMV file and it will do a reasonable job of preserving visual clarity and audio fidelity. You will probably need to go back to Movie Maker and create a new WMV source file using the “High quality video (large)” setting. Then you can use Media Encoder to create a file at the exact frame size and bit rate that you wanted originally. You may be lucky enough to get a good result from this. However, if you’ve used any fragments of non-native audio in your Movie Maker file - MP3 music, say - then Movie Maker is still going to bite you. No matter what quality setting you choose, it will create a WMV file that sounds like a bee has flown into your ear. Media Encoder can’t fix this. The best course at this point is to give up.
6. If you’re still with me, you poor deluded fool, then you may have acceptable visuals with terrible sound. You’ll need to use something else to edit any sounds that you’ve added like background music. Go back to Movie Maker and make notes on the timing of your introduced sounds. Then delete them, and create a new, high-quality WMV without them. Check any remaining audio. If the native audio is still hopeless, you will need to give up. If it’s acceptable, then you can run the file through Encoder again to get the frame size and bit rate you want.
7. Take the audio fragments you wanted and, referring to your notes, use an audio editor - Audacity, say - to create a new file of the right length, with the right sounds in the right places to match your Movie Maker visuals. Take the resulting MP3 file and use Media Encoder to convert it to the Windows Media Audio (.WMA) format. Then locate Windows Media Stream Editor (it will have arrived when you installed Media Editor). This lets you combine different media streams into a single output file (confusingly called an Audience). Use it to splice your WMA audio overlay with the WMV visuals and audio.
8. You may now have a WMV file of acceptable quality. Enjoy it, but learn your lesson. Don’t go near Movie Maker again.

Update, 29 Jan 08:
A simpler alternative to steps 6-8 is to pass any MP3 files or other non-native audio through the Media Encoder to create .WMA files. These can then be readily dropped into Movie Maker's Audio/Music track and edited in-place as required. This will provide acceptable, but certainly not hi-fi, audio for your movie.