One of the simplest video editing programs, Windows Movie Maker is the number one beginner program, and its free and comes with new computers with Windows XP. Ill give brief descriptions and pictures on how to capture a clip, put it into a timeline, cut an beginning and ending off the clip, put a slide transition, and an exit effect onto the clip and save it as a .wmv file onto my computer.

Step 1. Hooking up your video device and selecting capture mode
When you get your camcorder and hook it up when its off by either USB or FireWire then turn your video device on, a window should pop up and say either "Capture with Windows Movie Maker" or "Do no Action", ill show you how to select it from when the program is open. Open windows movie maker, then select File>Capture Video.
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y241/Etnieskater/wmm1.jpg
Step 2. Capturing the video
Once you clicked capture video, it will come up with a pop up that tells you to name it and where you want to put it
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y241/Etnieskater/wmm2.jpg
Click next and it should take you to the video setting box, which you can change the quality, view details about the file size and quality, and how much disk drive it will take up and how much your computer has. I would just use the recommended, easiest and smallest way to put it onto your computer, click next
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y241/Etnieskater/wmm3.jpg
Next there will be a capture method box.If your tape is filled with all make, banger tricks click on the capture all tape, if not then please click on capture tape manually. The show preview during capture box may decrease quality by a fraction, but its worth it and has easy to do stop and pause fast forward features, click that then click next
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y241/Etnieskater/wmm4.jpg
Once clicked next, it will take you to the Capture video box. You will see the start capture and stop capture buttons on the left, and a preview box with play, pause, fast farward, and rewind functions. use the functions to rewind or fast forward to before the clip you want to capture..once at that point, click on start capture and the time below should start increasing. make sure the create clip when wizard finishes check box is checked.
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y241/Etnieskater/wmm5.jpg
once done capturing, click finish and it will save import it to the selected area of your documents or computer. In the middle section of the program it should say collections: and there will be a little box with a snapshot of your clip there, drag it into the video timeline below under video +
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y241/Etnieskater/wmm6.jpg
now in the timeline, click the edge of the little clip box and drag it inward and you will see the blue line drag into the clip with a red arrowed box. drag it and undrag it whenever you feel like the unwanted beginning of the clip is done.
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y241/Etnieskater/wmm7.jpg
once that is done you can do it to the end of the clip also if needed. After the edges of the clip are treated then right click the box and you can either click add effects, fade in, or fade out..ill select fade out.
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y241/Etnieskater/wmm8.jpg
After you added the fade out, it will automaticly be added..on the right side click the play button and preview what you have so far.
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y241/Etnieskater/wmm9.jpg
Now I will add a special effect, right click it and press add video effect above the fade in/fade out features..it will have a pop up with different effects on the left and current effects on the right, select one on the left and click add to add it to the clip
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y241/Etnieskater/wmm10.jpg
Once done that click ok and view what you have. If your happy with it, your done! Click File>Save Movie File to get the next screen on how to save it and where
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y241/Etnieskater/wmm11.jpg
click it and it will take you to a pop up screen where there will be many selections on where to save it and some descriptions. The best descision in my opinion is to save it to My Computer, where you can upload it on the internet, use it again for a video, or burn it on dvds and cds later.
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y241/Etnieskater/wmm12.jpg
Once finished, press next and then it will ask you the name and where to save it, click next. After that it will give you a description on file size and the quality of the video, you can click on more choices but I suggest sticking on the recommended one, click next. Your video will save to the destination on the computer and it should be there..

Slicing/taking pictures in a video timeline By RobbySkateboard
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h260/Robby_Skateboard/WMM.jpg



hopefully this will help a beginner use windows movie maker, In the future I will put the photos into a photoshop document to make one big .png picture with descriptions and pictures so It will fit in one file, one upload.

Wow, you've really outdone yourself. I'll sticky this when we get some more threads going here.

Wow, you've really outdone yourself. I'll sticky this when we get some more threads going here.
once you see that ive made another editing guide thread in less then the same minute, do not think I copy/pasted this from somebody elses work on a different forum :p haha its just that the other guide I posted on a snowboarding forum but this one I did today :D I might post this one on the snowboarding forum too but im not sure.

once you see that ive made another editing guide thread in less then the same minute, do not think I copy/pasted this from somebody elses work on a different forum :p haha its just that the other guide I posted on a snowboarding forum but this one I did today :D I might post this one on the snowboarding forum too but im not sure.
::cheers::
Since you made two of them, I went ahead and stickied them. :smellibub

::cheers::
Since you made two of them, I went ahead and stickied them. :smellibub
:icon_drun Thankyou for the help!

Wow! That was a lot of info..Thank you...

Just be careful about apturing something if it is serious. WMM captures it straight to WMV format. When it does this it stays interlaced and is hard to remove the overly blended frames from. I would suggest finding a program to capture your footy in mpg or avi format before using WMM to edit it. lol Don't take this to seriously if you are just having fun and messing around, but if you are per say giving footy to a sponsor, then find another way for better quality. WMM is simple, but also lacks some important features for video editing.

Just be careful about apturing something if it is serious. WMM captures it straight to WMV format. When it does this it stays interlaced and is hard to remove the overly blended frames from. I would suggest finding a program to capture your footy in mpg or avi format before using WMM to edit it. lol Don't take this to seriously if you are just having fun and messing around, but if you are per say giving footy to a sponsor, then find another way for better quality. WMM is simple, but also lacks some important features for video editing.
I know, its the most basic editing program in my mind, I just wanted to make a guide for people who just got there stuff and are confused on what to do and how to do it.

I use zwei stein, zs4, or virtual dub to capture sometimes..depends if im at my dads, moms, or school.

nice guide!! this will def. help a lot of people out..

So, is that sorta like a screencam? or is my stupid little brain just thinking that?

So, is that sorta like a screencam? or is my stupid little brain just thinking that?
i dont get what your saying here

Like a hypercam. It records things on the screen of the computer?

also, for some bonus editing tips, I'm going to add to this because I only have WMM and have figured out how to make it less obvious that you are using a crap editor, lol:

First of all, I don't know how to take screen pics, so bare with me until I learn how to and can fix this post. But right below were your video plays in that screen, in the bottom right of that are two buttons, one with 2 frames being separated by a dashed line and one that looks like a camera.

The frame and dash button allows someone to split a clip into two clips at a certain point, what I generally use it for is I split a clip into three, I split it right as I croutch down before I do a trick, and then I split it again right after I land, this way there is three scenes, before the trick, the trick, after the trick. This is convienent for many things, you can add certain effects to just your trick and it will still flow without a mistake, I generally like to use slow down half there for a slomo. It's also nice for lines, you can cut it again and have riding trick riding trick riding trick riding trick etc. and you can speed up double the riding and play the tricks at normal speed or slowmo or another effect, either way, this tool is very handy.

If you like how a certain part of a video alot, like maybe your doing a 360flip and you want to pause it right in the middle or something to show your flick, or when you catch to show how high you caught it or something, you would use the camera button, this button takes a picture of a certain frame and lets you save that frame alone to your pictures, then you can also add it to the video.

I like to combine these two once and a while and cut a video into 2 one leading up to the picture, and one following the picture so it goes like this, lead up pause at a picture, resume. or you can cut into 4 and do this: ride up, effect before the trick, pause, resume with an effect, and resume normal, of course you can use an effect on any part of the video, but why use an effect before the trick unless it's speed up?

Here is a video I made using WMM with some effects such as pausing and slowing, I actually made this video for a kickflip contest I was late for but just wanted judged: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlGtQA6Ltok

Just noticed that the video doesn't have any split frames, but this one does: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89sZIys53mw

http://img384.imageshack.us/img384/7411/wmmjh6.th.png (http://img384.imageshack.us/my.php?image=wmmjh6.png), there is a picture

I never knew that button was for splitting scenes up! Thanks a lot. And to answer both of your questions...I pressed the Print Screenbutton/SysRq and then you open up a program and paste (Ctrl V) and it pastes it into the document. The button is at top rigth of keyboard along with Scroll Lock and Pause/Break

oh, cool, I'll try that out.

Edit: There, done, here it is again if you are too lazy to scroll up two posts: http://img384.imageshack.us/img384/7411/wmmjh6.th.png (http://img384.imageshack.us/my.php?image=wmmjh6.png)
Now I'm going to go have fun with the print screen thing, hehe.

thanks for that :D +rep. And I don't know about imageshack but photobucket it makes the images the right size, no thumbnails like imageshack.

I'll use that from now on, thanks

EDIT: Let's try this: http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h260/Robby_Skateboard/WMM.jpg

Looks great! Do you mind if I just add that picture into the first post?

I'd be honored.

Added, thanks :D