Editing videos in Windows

Sometimes you may need to edit a video to remove a long pause or an outtake. In Windows, you can use the Windows Movie Maker software included with XP and Vista installations. The tutorial below was made on a Vista computer, so the XP method may differ slightly.

The steps to edit a video consist of:

• Importing your video
• Editing your video
• Publishing your video

I. Importing your video

1. Start Windows Movie Maker
2. 
   Click the "Videos" link under 'Import'
3. 
   Your clip should appear in the import bin.

II. Editing your video

1. 
   At the bottom-left of the movie-maker window, click the drop-down menu named "Storyboard" and change it to "Timeline".
2. Drag the clip from the import bin onto the timeline's Video track.
3. 
   Click the zoom in button so the video fills the entire track. This will give you greater control over the editing process.
4. 
   To remove a snippet from the video, click the "Imported media" link under 'Edit'
5. 
   Drag the slider under the video to the beginning of the portion that you want to remove.
6. Click the "Split" button.
7. 
   As illustrated above, your clip should appear as two separate ones on the timeline.
8. Repeat steps 5&6, except this time splitting the video at the end of the portion that you want to remove.
9. You should now see 3 distinct clips on the Video timeline.
10. 
    Right click the middle clip (the snippet that you want to remove) and select "Remove".
11. Repeat the above steps as many times as desired.

III. Publishing your video

1. Make sure that your current project is saved.
2. 
   Under the 'Publish to' heading, click the link for "This computer"
3. 
   Specify the file name and destination folder of the rendered video. Since this video will be going online, avoid using spaces or any other special characters (such as apostrophes, quotes and ampersands) in the file name.
4. Click the "Next" button.
5. 
   Click the radio button next to "More settings" and select "Windows Media Low Bandwidth" from the drop down menu.
6. Click the "Publish" button.

Your edited video is ready to be uploaded!

Email advanced@jhu.edu with any questions or problems.

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