Is Windows Movie Maker really this useless?!?

My daughter is putting together a movie for school (from about 25 640x480 .avi files she shot on camera, plus 10 pictures sprinkled about), but cannot save the movie. MovieMaker complains that either there's not enough space, or that some files might be missing.

The files are DEFINITELY not missing, and we're doing everything on the c:\ drive, which has a little over 60 GB free. It plays the preview just fine, but we just cannot seem to save it to a movie file.

Computer has 3GB of ram, winxp-pro, t7300 cpu.

If I try to save it at max bit-rate, it tells me the file will be 400+ MB (just before it fails). I can save it at min bit-rate, but it looks horrible then.

Any suggestions?

 

Have you tried movie maker 2 ?
Hope it can help your problem.

 

Help/About tells me I'm running:

Windows Movie Maker Version 2.1.4026.0

My backup plan is to use MovieMaker to create a bunch of seperate sub-pieces (there'll be about 6 different "acts" for lack of a better word), and then use my dvd-recording software to join those files... Dunno if that'll work or not, but hopefully.

 

I've used XP's MM extensively, and it's far from useless. In fact, I've used most of the well-known consumer-based video editing software on the market, and I find myself returning to MM most of the time due to its power yet simplicity. It's usually the quickest way to get anything done. Sure, it's a bit bare-bones in places (no DVD mastering, single audio track, limited title editing), but for the majority of amateur video transfer and editing, it's perfectly fine.

I've edited and exported numerous multi-gigabyte video files. I always capture and export in raw AVI (best quality for DVD mastering input), so the files are huge. Perhaps the compression codec you're trying to use is choking on the file, but I'd be surprised -- I remember playing around with WMA exporting and don't recall having the problem that you mention. I'd say something with your codecs or Windows install are hosed.

 

if it says the files are missing they might have been moved. sometimes when i make a movie i drag the file to my desktop start making the movie but then later move the file to a diffrent folder. make sure all the files are in the exact same spot as when you began.if there not just change the location. i know you said there deffinatly not, but 1 missing picture or audio file will do that. as for saying theres not enough room im not sure, try changing the format it saves in

 

No, the files really are all in one folder. Breaking things up into seperate smaller movies is working okay so far...

 

On every single movie editor I've worked with, including WMM, I've always found it hard to join many movie files at a time.

The best advice I can give you is to join them by pieces. Like join 2 or 3 to begin with, make a movie file out of it, and then join that new file to another one, and so on until you end up joining all files.

 

That is what I ended up doing, and can confirm that it worked fine.