Bare-bones video-editing tool leaves much to be desired.

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Among the many enhancements in Windows XP, digital media gets the most attention. Microsoft is gambling that consumers flush with digital media are aching to use their PCs as home base for everything from home-shot movies to music.

Windows Movie Maker (WMM), Windows XP's basic video-editing program, is designed primarily for PC owners with little experience creating home movies. In Windows Me, WMM was located in the Accessories menu, but in XP, Microsoft has brought it to the forefront in the Start menu, next to other Microsoft apps such as Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player.

WMM lets users do very simple video editing and then play the results on the Windows Media Player (MPXP). WMM works with both analog and digital video cameras and supports uncompressed AVI movies, so you can record in high resolutions. The software is appropriate for editing simple videos to be shared with family and friends.

A test drive

The software is simple to use and has an elementary feel. Intermediate users are most likely too skilled for this software. You download files to the My Video folder, which you then import to the program. These files can be short snatches of raw footage (three to four seconds) or much longer scenes. You can preview scenes by dragging and dropping them into the viewing screen. You also have the option to import directly from your digital video camera in a variety of file formats, including AVI, MPEG, and JPEG. Creating a short movie based on several short clips is easy. Larger files are more difficult to manage due to the program's clunky timeline feature.

Other controls include a simple editing tool for the timeline, a microphone icon to record narration, and an option to show full clips in full screen, though the clips are likely to look somewhat blocky and grainy.

Lacks key features

Because it lacks key editing tools, WMM isn't nearly robust enough to compete with shrink-wrapped video-editing packages. For instance, if you cut video from your timeline, you won't be able to undo the cut. You'll have to rearrange the frames by dragging and dropping them. And WMM doesn't include special effects such as fading, improving color, or rotating images.

Windows only

Another downside is that edited files are saved in a Windows-only format. Other players, such as MusicMatch 6.0, might not encode these files well enough for acceptable viewing.

Edited clips or videos can be sent out via email or posted to a website. A drop-down menu makes this easy to do. There are similar consumer-friendly features for digital still cameras, too. You can download pictures to your hard drive, upload them to a website, or just delete them from the camera's memory. All in all, Windows Movie Maker will suit those looking only for a bare-bones editing package.

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