Using Audio Wave Patterns - PapaJohn's Newsletter Archive

Movie Maker doesn't include sophisticated audio editing features. You can mute a clip, fade into or out of it, adjust the volume of a selected clip or the relative volume between the project's video and music/audio tracks... and look at the wave patterns displayed in the timeline.

In Photo Story 3 you can't do that much, so we'll limit the discussion to Movie Maker.

I use the wave patterns a lot when editing a project, often as a quick confirmation that things are going well, as the guide to exactly where to make the and later to make final alignment adjustments of the clips on the timeline.

Let's start with the audio of a DV-AVI file captured from a mini-DV camcorder, a common starting point, and one that has integrated visual and audio tracks where synching is often critical.

Movie Maker can rip audio from video files into compressed WMA files, which are great for use as audio source files in movie projects. But to get an uncompressed WAV file to edit in Audacity, you need something else.

I use TMPGEnc 2.5 to rip the audio from a DV-AVI or WMV file (including PS3 stories) to uncompressed WAV files (File > Output to file > WAVE file).

TMPGEnc says the audio stream of the DV-AVI file is PCM, 48.000 kHz, 16 Bit, Stereo, which aligns with what Movie Maker reports.... note that I changed my Sony TRV-80 camcorder setting from the default 12-bit audio to the higher quality 16-bit.

When I finished getting the WAV sample, I realized I'd done one or two extra rendering steps... but I had all my pictures for the newsletter by then, and going from one DV-AVI file to another shouldn't change the uncompressed audio... so I left the files and screen shots as is.

Here's the pattern of the WAV file imported into Movie Maker 2. We have visual wave pattern alignment between the captured video file and the ripped WAV file. This next image is a link to the ripped WAV file. Being uncompressed, it's a 6 MB file for 30 seconds of audio.

Vista Corner... the test Renaissance Wedding DVDs I made with Vista were cute and played well, but had a menu issue that made them unusable. The 2nd and 3rd of the 4 menu screens were totally black when played... even though the menu buttons on the pages worked fine if you groped around in the dark to find them.

I completed the DVD project for the Renaissance Wedding with Roxio's MyDVD Premier 8. It was kind of slow going, like when a timeline is getting pretty full in Movie Maker and things hit a big slow-down point. There were also some minor error messages or other issues along the way, but it ended up fine.

I rendered the DVD project to an iso image file on the hard drive, and then used MyDVD to burn the discs from the iso file. The iso file is 4.4 GB in size, and the DVD plays for 67+ minutes.

It took a few hours to render the MPEG-2 files and build the iso image, but it's now only about 10 minutes per disc to burn them from the image. The most important thing is the discs burn cleanly and play well.

There's just one remaining step, printing the labels directly on the discs with an Epson R200 printer. I have some printable white discs but need to get some printable silver ones (personal preference).

My first for-sale video on Google Video... submitted on May 3... still has the status of "Video is verified; stay tuned - it will be live shortly"... that's now over 2 months in the queue to be online.

I'm taking bets as to whether or not it ever gets to the next step of 'being live'.

The MaximumPC issue with the Photo Story 3 tutorial is in distribution to go on the bookstore shelves July 18th.

Here's the first view of the WAV file in Audacity... which shows the left and right channels individually, compared to the wave pattern of the same WAV file in Movie Maker which shows the combined channels of the stereo track. The pattern is smoothed a bit for the thumbnail depiction by Movie Maker.

You can see how the visual pictures compare, and how easily it is to pick alignment points.

Let's zoom into a 2 second segment around the 15 second point. The picture at the right shows the tallest most zoomed in view I could get in Movie Maker. I won't show the closest view in Audacity as it really doesn't have a limit for such zooming... it can be both a magnifying glass and a high powered microscope when it comes to looking at wave patterns.
MM2 Tightest View

Movie Maker's view is sufficient for syncing clips... Audacity can help you do microscopic audio editing.

The important thing here is simply to note how consistent the views of the wave patterns in a captured DV-AVI file and a ripped uncompressed WAV file are. The ripped file can be edited in audio apps and a 'fixed' segment returned to Movie Maker and used in a project with easy-to-align wave patterns.

We've been looking at uncompressed audio files. Let's explore the patterns of the same 30 second sample in compressed WMA and MP3 formats.

When you have audio-only in a project timeline, and save the movie... Movie Maker knows you want to render it to an audio WMA file.

Here are the choices of audio profiles. The first 8 come with Movie Maker. The other two are custom profiles I use to save the audio as a CD quality mono file, and to rip higher than the high quality stereo audio from DV-AVI files.

I rendered the 30 second sample to each of the profiles... to see how the wave patterns compare, and to make files you can listen to.

I annotated the pictures with the file sizes. All 10 of them combined are about 2/3 the size of the single uncompressed WAV file. Compression makes a big difference.

Audacity can save the WAV file as an MP3.... the figure at the right shows the wave patterns of the MP3 file in MM2... and they look similar.

I played the WAV file in Audacity and captured it as a narration in Movie Maker 2 as it played, using the stereo mix option for the source. It worked fine. I'm not showing the wave patterns of the captured file, as they looked just like all the others on this page.

The bit rate property of the captured WMA file was 142 kbps, which places it up there with the high quality choices in MM2. It's become my standard way to get audio into WMA format if it doesn't import into Movie Maker.

I'm quickly running out of ways to process the audio clip to show how the wave patterns for the same clip can look different... so I'll conclude by saying they don't differ significantly... they look the same.

The wave patterns for a selected clip look similar... it could be the audio track of a DV-AVI file, a ripped WAV file, a WMA file ripped from a video or captured as a narration, or an MP3...

The full range of quality choices in Movie Maker have little to no effect on the patterns. Differences in what you hear are more significant.

No matter how you process the audio, it's pretty easy to sync an audio clip with its original DV-AVI or WMV file. What I mean by that is, if you have a clip that needs some sort of audio 'fixing' in Audacity, ripping the audio to a WAV file with TMPGEnc, adjusting it in Audacity, and then capturing it back into Movie Maker as a narration file... it's easy to re-sync.

I make lots of editing decisions about where to split or trim a clip based on the audio track. When I do it, I zoom all the way into the timeline and make the split based on what I hear and the wave patterns. The visual part is usually more forgiving in moving the split point a few frames or more.

I look forward to comments and discussion about this and other newsletters on the forums at:

I'm involved in many things that support users of Movie Maker and Photo Story, and adding more regularly. Some are free and others reasonably priced.

TheDVShow is the only weekly Podcast having more useful information about desktop video editing and production than anywhere else on the Web. Digital video editing, nonlinear editing, streaming media, software releases, tutorials, business tips, technical help, download of the day and news on the latest products to make everything easier. It's where professional and consumer desktop video users go to stay on the cutting edge.

Call the phone mail machine to get your technical question answered on the air... call (206)-203-3516

The radio broadcast is from Boston, and the website has downloadable podcast files. The June 19th 2005 podcast was the first 'bi-weekly' show with a segment about Movie Maker 2.

Movie Maker 2 - Do Amazing Things (with its online companion on www.papajohn.org), published by Microsoft Press...

Movie Maker 2 - Zero to Hero - with support on the publisher's forum - Friends of Ed

MaximumPC's winter 2005 quarterly special... had a 7 page tutorial 'Make a Killer Home Movie with Maker 2'. The special edition of the video made for it is now on my website as a file download.

The November 2005 edition of Maximum PC had a well done reworked 6 page reprint of the same article, starting on page 42 after the Happy 20th Birthday article for Windows.

My new 5 page tutorial about Photo Story 3 will be in the Summer Special edition of Maximum PC, on newsstands July 18th.... the sample story will be included on the magazine's disc.

Learning VirtualDub - published by Packt Publishing in April 2005, is the first book about VirtualDub software. I wrote the introductory chapter about downloading and setting up the software: VirtualDub, VDubMod and AVISynth.

Movie Maker 2 and Photo Story 3 - www.papajohn.org - the site's 3 goals are: Doing Amazing Things, a detailed tutorial for PhotoStory 3, and helping you solve Movie Maker 2 problems.

Forums are open to all for viewing, but require registration of those who want to post. Moderators actively participate to ensure the forum discussions move forward and stay on track.

Newsgroups are wide open for all to view and post... moderation is collective by the participants.

Movie Maker 2/Photo Story newsletter. The subscription is $20 for 52 issues, and the link to subscribe is on the main page of my Movie Maker website at:

#112 - July 15 - open

#113 - July 22 - open

#113 - July 29 - open

I'm planning on not issuing newsletters when we're on vacation from August 24th through the week that includes September 20th...

Newsletters issued more than 6 weeks ago are posted by Rob Morris to an Archive Site on his Windows Movie Makers' website. Links from my website pages to specific newsletters make it easier for viewers to see the content of both while browsing a topic.

Drop an email to suggest a newsletter topic... I can use more requests rather than fewer.

Transition Maker 2 (TM2) is a utility for the ultimate in making your own personal and custom transitions for Movie Maker 2. It's a joint product from Patrick Leabo, the programmer, and myself.

I've beta tested some of the Pixelan packages and think very highly of their people and products.

ProDAD's Adorage packages for Movie Maker 2 are additional sources of very professionally developed transitions and effects. And here are the links

My personal database has been an ongoing project over many years, and is now available to others. A tutorial about using it is on the Managing > Personal Database page of my site, and more info is in the database package itself.

It's free for the asking to regular newsletter subscribers... send an email request and I'll return it with the zipped file, which is less than 1 MB.

To others it's $10. To order, use the button on the top of the Managing > Personal Database page.

An online gallery that fully aligns with the main priority of the website is the 'PapaJohn Expert Zone' at neptune.

Check it at Neptune and the Distributing > Neptune page of the website, where there's a developing tutorial about how to use the service.

In conjunction with the Portage, Michigan library, I offer two free training sessions about Movie Maker and Photo Story, an intro session and a workshop. Scheduled sessions are:

The classroom has a large screen overhead projection system... and individual laptops for each attendee to use. You learn by doing, with a little guidance from me.

If you can't save a movie because your project has become too complex, e-mail a copy and I'll divide it into manageable sub-projects, and provide detailed instructions about how to render the parts and assemble them into your final movie. $49.95 (no cost if it's not the right solution or doesn't work) - for details, see the sidebar on the Problem Solving > Can't Save a Movie page of www.papajohn.org

Movie Maker 2/Photo Story training and support services start at $75 per hour - send an email - PapaJohn@CharterMi.net and I'll help you determine your needs, and work with you to plan and implement them.

Wedding combo website/video packages - check the bottom branch of the Movie Maker 2 website for a sample of what you can expect for the online portion of the package.

About John 'PapaJohn' Buechler from Microsoft.com

John "PapaJohn" Buechler, of Kalamazoo, Mich., goes by PapaJohn online. An avid user of Movie Maker since its first release, and a regular supporter of the community of Movie Maker users, John received a 2003 MVP award from Microsoft for that support. In March 2003, he started a comprehensive website about Movie Maker 2 at www.PapaJohn.org. He maintains the website, writes books and articles, teaches, and provides support services - all for the community of Movie Maker 2 users. An engineer by formal education, John is a computer database and multimedia expert by business and personal experience. He co-authored the first book about Movie Maker 2 and is actively working on a second one. You can find his advice in the Windows XP Movie Maker newsgroup and in the Windows Movie Makers Forums.

This newsletter is republished with permission of John "PapaJohn" Buechler.
Please note that this is an archive of newsletters and some information may become outdated. PapaJohn, and the webmaster of this site, provides this information "AS IS" with no warranties.

Visit - PapaJohn's Movie Maker 2 and Photo Story 2 Newsletter Index

[Lights, Camera, Movie Maker]

Windows Movie Maker tips, tutorials, forums and more...

Audio Wave Patterns