By trimming clips, you can edit the starting and ending point—and therefore the length—of any video or audio clips that you have added to your project on the timeline. When trimming, you can set the start and end trim points. The start trim point determines when the clip will begin to play, and the end trim point determines when the clip will stop playing in your project.
By trimming clips, you can hide unwanted parts of an audio or video clip or file. When you trim a clip, the information is not removed; it is hidden from your audience, so unwanted parts do not appear in your project and final saved movie. You can drag the trim handles, which are shown in the following illustration, to trim the unwanted parts of the clip.
If you trim an audio or video clip too much or too little, you can adjust or clear the established trim points in Windows Movie Maker.
To trim a clip
- On the View menu, click Timeline.
- In the Collections pane, click the collection that contains the clip you want to add, and then click the clip you want to trim in the Contents pane.
- On the Clip menu, click Add to Timeline.
- On the timeline, select the clip you want to trim.
- On the timeline, click the playback indicator and drag it to the point where you want to trim the clip or Use the playback controls on the monitor to go to the point where you want to trim the clip.
- Do the following:
When the playback indicator is at the point where you want the selected video or audio clip to start playing back, on the Clip menu, click Set Start Trim Point.
When the playback indicator is at the point where you want the selected video or audio clip to stop playing back, on the Clip menu, click Set End Trim Point.
Creating clips
Creating clips lets you separate your video clips into smaller, more manageable pieces.
Clips can be created when you originally import a video file into Windows Movie Maker if you have selected the Create clips for video files check box. However, if this check box is not selected when you import a video file, the file is imported as a single clip rather smaller multiple clips. You can then use clip detection later to divide a video file into smaller clips.
Clips are created in a variety of ways, depending on the video file and video source.
Video from a DV camera. If you capture video from a DV camera that is connected to an IEEE 1394 port, clips are created based on the time stamp inserted in the video by the DV camera. If no time stamp or other markers are present, the resulting video file is divided into clips based on each significant frame change in the video.
If you import an existing DV-AVI file into Windows Movie Maker and time stamp markers appear in the AVI video file, the file is also separated into smaller clips according to time stamp information.
Capturing video from an analog video camera or Web camera. If you capture video from an analog camera or Web camera, a clip is created when there is a substantial change in one frame of the video compared to the next frame. This method is used for both live and existing content from an analog source.
The size and duration of the clips is based on the duration of the entire video file. Therefore, video files that are longer in length will have clips that are longer in duration compared to the clips created when a shorter video file is clip detected.
Windows Media files. If you import a Windows Media file with an .asf or .wmv file name extension that has file markers inserted, a clip is created for each marker. The markers help to divide the file into manageable sizes.
If the source Windows Media file contains no markers or only one marker, a clip is created when there is a substantial change in one frame of the video compared to the next frame.
The time it takes to detect clips in a video file increases as the length of the video file increases. If you click Cancel while clip detection is occurring, clip detection stops at the current point in the video file, the clips that have been detected appear, and the last clip contains the portion of the video file that remained when clip detection was cancelled. You can later click the last clip and then create new clips starting from the last clip at which clip creation was originally cancelled.
