You can organize the source material you capture into collections and clips for use in future projects. A collection serves as a container for clips, which you can organize in many ways. For example, you might organize your collections by an event category.
You can change how your clips are displayed in the Contents pane to see varying amounts of detail about the individual clips within a collection. In the Thumbnails view, you can view the title and a bitmap image of each clip. In the Details view, you can view all the properties of each clip.
In Windows Movie Maker, you can choose to arrange your clip according to different clip properties. This lets you choose how you want to display your clips in the Contents pane so you can quickly find the specific clip you are looking for. For example, if you were looking for a picture that began with an A, you could choose to arrange the clips by name so that file would appear at the top of the Contents pane. The properties you can choose to arrange clips by depend on the selected folder in the tree pane.
The following list identifies how the different file types can be arranged.
Video clips and pictures - Clips can be arranged by name, duration, start time, end time, dimensions, or source.
Audio - Clips can be arranged by name, duration, start time, end time, or source.
Video transitions and video effects - Clips can be arranged by name.
After you make changes to your collections, such as adding, deleting, moving, copying, or renaming clips, it is a good idea to back up your collections file. The collections file, which has a .dat file name extension, is a database that stores information about the organization of your collections and the clips within your collections.
In case you accidentally remove a clip or collection, or the collections file becomes corrupted, you can use your backup file to restore the appropriate information.
The collections file is located on your hard disk in the following folder:
\Documents and Settings\UserAccountName\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Movie Maker.
For example, if Windows is installed on drive C, and your account name is John, your collections file would be located in
C:\Documents and Settings\John\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Movie Maker.
A collections file is created for each user.
Backing up the collection file does not back up the source files that you import into your collections. If the source file is deleted, renamed, or moved from the location from where it was imported, you cannot use the source file unless you locate the source file or import it again. Consider backing up the location or folder that contains the source files as well.
