[UPDATE: I added the linky things at the bottom. Took me a while - I feel a little burned-out. That happens when I spend night and say for several weeks just working on content. Nowadays, I write and/or edit video stuff from about 10:00 PM until 6-9:00 AM (depending on whether or not I notice the sun come up and decide that I should probably get to bed). Still, linky things are here all the same, and though they're late, they'll still count toward your Technorati rating, or your google whatever.]

This one's for you, Clint.

Clint wrote to me a couple days ago to:

1. Tell me that Windows Movie Maker sucks.
2. Ax me what's better than Windows Movie Maker.

My immediate and superficial thoughts:

1. Yes. It does.
2. Windows Paint is better than Windows Movie Maker. Forget the raw footage for your video - instead, redraw everything in Paint, print it out, and make a flip-book.

I feel that should be enough, but Clint can be very demanding, so I'll get into a little more depth here.

I don't know what I'm talking about. I forgot to mention that at the beginning of the post. There; I said it.

Windows Movie Maker is Cyber Doody

When I first arrived at Channel 9, Windows Movie Maker was the standard editing tool. Given 9's we-don't-edit style, it seemed like Movie Maker would be all right, but I realized a couple things after using it for a few days.

Specifically, I hated it. I think that was the big one.

Even for those Channel 9 street-cred videos, it was a pain in the ass. It's more powerful than it first appears, provided you couple it to something like the Windows Media converter thing, but that's not very helpful if you've been editing for eighty-five hours straight and have been compressing your videos by hand in notebook, shifting binary around with your mouse.

Yeah, compression's already there, but to get anything useful done, you have to go out and get this other tool that doesn't automatically ship with Vista (at least it didn't at the time - this may have changed) just to be able to take your videos and make them smallerisher.

There's a billion other things that aren't so hot. This isn't a post about all those things. If you've used it for anything beyond a simple video with a touch of trimming at the start and finish, then you probably already know it sucks.

Oh, and it crashes. That's right. Forgot.

It was ruining my life and my marriage. That's a lie because I wasn't married, and I had already ruined my life all by myself. But it would have ruined my life and my marriage had I had either.

I ran for an alternative.

Windows Compatible Alternative - Adobe Premier Elements

If you're doing simple editing - like the 9 stuff I mentioned earlier - then all you need is Adobe Premier Elements.

In fact, if you're in this position, and Clint is since he's doing 9 type videos, you're much better off with Premier Elements rather than the full blown Adobe Premier Pro that ships with CS3 or CS9000 or whateverthehell it is.

There are two significant differences between Premier and Premier Elements for the charlatan - the dabbler - the phony - the wannabe - you 'n me:

1. Several hundred dollars.
2. Features you will never, ever, in your puny and pathetically short life, ever understand.

With Elements, you have access to all the awful features you'll probably want to use as a fake when trying to wow your audience:

1. Profoundly retarded transitions.
2. That effect that makes it look like Picasso painted your video.
3. Chromakey. If you do Chromakey than you can put the fekking Millennium Falcon in your video if you want to be that stupid and embarrass yourself in front of thousands of people.

The full version of Premier will just confuse you. You can still spread your cheesy transitions and effects like a video-borne strain of herpes over the web and the world in a way that should earn you a trial in the Hague, but the extra crap is... well, I don't know. I don't know what it does. You pretty much have to be Stephen Hawking to understand it, but even he would be all, "WTF? I just want to make a video of my niece's math competition where she won by conjuring a black hole that swallowed up all the other contenders. I don't need this bullcrap thing where I correct colors pixel by pixel. You'd have to be Isaac fekking Newton to get this shit."

Premier Elements is something like $199, and $99 for the upgrades. I don't know if those prices are real. I just remember that it's cheap for what it is. I bought a copy for my work at 9, and I didn't even bother expensing it. That's how cheap it is.

I find Elements intuitive. If you know what you want to do, it's easy to click your way to great success.

Remember Braveheart?

Edited in Premier Elements. No kidding.

Well, maybe a bit of lying. But I'm not kidding. I'm really not.

Just lying.

Mel Gibson edited it himself in one day with Premier Elements.

Lying again. I'm enjoying this.

Back to the troof - if you want to move to a tool that is so much better than Windows Movie Maker that it should be illegal, pick up Premier Elements.

But don't pick it up for your Intel Mac if that's what you're using. Adobe is stupid. I was totally set to be their customer and fork over the tens of dollars they demand for their product, but it's only available for PowerPC based systems. Intel users have to wait until 2008. If anybody from Adobe's reading this, I want you to know that I hope a corrupt, insane, runaway, out of control doctor bursts into your offices in the middle of the day and aggressively checks your prostates - without lube.

If you absolutely can't wait, the twelve-million dollar full version of Premier works on Intel Macs. Don't expect to figure out how to use it. Your satisfaction will mostly be in your discovery that double-clicking on its icon in the Applications folder loads it up, presenting to you after a ten minute load time, the same controls astronauts use to pilot the space shuttle. Also, you can get around the double-clicking thing by putting Premier's icon in your dock. I recommend doing this if you get really attached to waiting long periods of time for a complete mystery to smear itself across your screen.

Bottom line:

• I give Premier Elements 1,000 Awesome Points.
• I give Premier Expensive 90,000,0000,000,00000,0,00,0,0,000,0,0,0,00000 WTF is Going On? Points.

For the Apple Dorks - Apple Final Cut Express

I'm not going to talk much about this.

There's Final Cut Express and Final Cut Pro. It's almost the same story as Premier the Complicated versus Premier Elements. You don't need the features Final Cut Pro is going to getchoo. I know a guy who can get you a dozen hookers for the money you'll save going with Final Cut Express. And, since Final Cut Express is fathomable, you can easily use it to make a home movie of your time with the call girls. Put it on YouTube so I can watch it. I'm lonely.

In my this-is-the-video-equivalent-of-finger-painting productions, I found Premier Elements much more intuitive than Final Cut Express. Final Cut Express is so complicated that I had to read some of the documentation. If you don't have anywhere from ten minutes to TWO HOURS to learn about this piece of software, then you're better off either grabbing Premier Elements for your Windows system or waiting for Premier Elements to hit Intel Macs in 2008.

Final Cut Express feels like it's more flexible in some ways, but it's in the details. If you like to twiddle knobs, Final Cut Express will satisfy that craving. Flexibility and "power" typically come at the expense of simplicity. If your IQ is above 80, though, then the worst that can happen is you'll accidentally get tangled up in the mouse cord and asphyxiate yourself by ignoring it and trying to keep on editing the footage you captured of your cousin/wife falling off of a roof on July 4th when you were all drinking too much and "shingle sledding" (a quick and dirty IQ test to see if you're above 80 and below 100 is, when you're watching Wheel of Fortune, you don't get any of the answers right, but you can at the very least read them).

Other than that difference, they're about the same. To avoid disappointment, just make sure, again, that your IQ is above 80. To get the most out of the software, it helps to be above average. I don't know if that's listed as a requirement on the box, but it's my own homemade tip. I made it for you.

I forget how much Final Cut Express costs. I think I paid, like, $80.22 or $107 or $200 for it. I don't remember. I paid with a single bill, but I don't remember which denomination.

This computer software extravaganza is your best bet if you like to finger a Mac keyboard all day.

I know I do.

For Anybody Uploading their Stupid, Stupid, Lame, Stupid, Offensively Boring Videos to YouTube

I've searched the web for settings to produce the best results when compressing your idiotic wedding video that only you care about (and this is a stretch - in all probability, you'll be as excited to watch it as people you don't know, people who hate you, or even the bride and groom are - you're an asshole).

The quality of advice has been about as good as the quality of videos, which is to say that you'll hate your life a little more for having found it.

If you check out my Rory Versus the Spider Monster trailer, check out the detail in the first spider shot - the spider as well as the floor are coming through awesomely:

This trailer is short, and given YouTube's size and length (hey! I sound like Chinese wiener-enbiggiment spam!), you have some good options for short stuff. Also, by keeping your videos short, you won't make the world a better place, but you might not make it much worse.

The stuff I'm presenting here was all done with Final Cut Express, but you can output something close with Premier Elements. I don't recall if Elements has an MPEG4 codec, but I'm sure you can get one.

The settings I used for this guy:

• MPEG4
• 320x240 - if your camera is all 16:9 in the aspect ratio, remember to output with the bars to make it 4:3 so it's compatible with YouTube's big dumb square format.
• Bit rate of 2056kbps. You can up this if you want, taking it as high as you can before hitting YouTube's 10:00 minute limit. I didn't do that because I'm sloppy and I don't care. Also, 2056 looked plenty good enough.
• AAC audio - 32,000Hz - 64kpbs - Mono - If you have a choice of several encoding quality settings, then choose "Best" (or its equivalent for your software). But don't do this if your computer is from 1987. It'll take all day.

I'd suggest leaving other settings at their default values.

I've read in more than a few form postings that you ought to set the resolution to 640x480. I have no idea what these people are thinking. YouTube is going to convert your video to 320x240 if you haven't already, so you can either rely on your own software to do a good job, or you can put your video in the hands of YouTube's massive processing plant that cares much more about churning your video out quickly than it does about quality.

If anyone can explain to me why outputting to 640x480 is better, I'd love to hear about it, but only if what you say is intelligent. If your answer is stupid, then keep it to yourself. However, if it is stupid, then to be fair, you're probably stupid, too, and unfit to determine the stupidity of your answer. I'll cut you some slack in that case. If you think you're on the cusp between stupidity and sentience, then use the Wheel of Fortune IQ Test I outlined above.

For longer, videos, things are different. My Thanksgiving video series ran about 10:00 minutes per episode, so compression was a bigger issue:

In the case of these videos, I determined the best settings by doing the following (I don't know what I'm talking about, but when it comes to compression, settings are typically going to change depending on how much repetition of data is present in the file - more colors and movement should result in a bigger file - I don't know this for sure, but it makes sense to me, and I'm The Smartest Man in the World):

1. Isolate the first minute of the video - if you've read the manual, then you'll find that it's easiest to set In and Out points to define the range you'd like to export, but you can also do some cutting/pasting sloptastic editing to get that minute of video - whatever turns your crank.
2. Use the settings I posted above, but change the bit rate to 1280kpbs. Leave everything else the same.
3. Export the video.
4. How big is the exported video? 5MB? 7MB? Take note.
5. If your entire video (not just the exported bit) is going to be, say, 10:00 minutes, then the goal is to try and get each minute as close to 10MB as possible. If you've forgotten why this is, YouTube's file size limit is 100MB.
6. If your video is just below 10MB, then you're fine. Skip to the next section.
7. If your video is significantly below 10MB - say, 7MB or smaller - then up the bit rate again. Change it to 1280kbps. Re-export your one minute segment.
8. Check the size again. If it's still 7MB or less, then bump up the bit rate. Because computers like to work in powers of 2, you're safe upping the bit rate by 256kbps each time. It'll result in a size that'll make your computer happy.
9. Once you've got that one minute slice to just below 10MB (8 or 9MB is plenty good), head to the next section.
10. If your one minute slice is larger than 10MB, work through the above process, but this time lower the bit rate by 256kbps until your exported minute is just below 10MB (again, 8 or 9MB is good).

Getting that one minute slice down to something above 7MB and below 10MB is a safe way to find the right settings for outputting your 10:00 minute video at the highest quality possible.

If you haven't figured it out yet, this is because, say, 7MB x 10 (10 being the number of minutes in your video) is 70MB. That's good enough while being safely below YouTube's limit.

The reason you do this instead of exporting the entire segment using "safe" settings you've used for other videos is that, if you're willing to spend the time to fine-tune, you can get the most quality out of your video. Using the same settings for every video is either going to result in something of too low a quality, or a file size too large for YouTube's limit.

It seems like a lot of work, but exporting that one minute segment until you've got it just right is a fast, fairly reliable way to determine what's going to suck the least.

The last part of the process is very simple:

1. Reset your In and Out points so that they include your entire video. Or, if you did your weird cutting and pasting thing, just put things right again. I can't tell you how to do this on your own because I'm on this side of the screen, and you're on that side. I have no idea what you're doing over there You could be (and probably are) smoking crack for all I know. Figure it out yourself.
2. When you're ready to export your whole video, just do so with the settings you've been fiddling into existence. If, for example, you found that 1280kbps was the rate that got your one minute segment to an appropriate size, then leave the setting at 1280kbps. Export the whole damn thing.
3. Check the exported video when it's done being tinkered with by your software. If its below 100MB, then you're good to go. Upload your stupid check-out-this-chipmunk-drinking-batter-acid video. If your video's over 100MB, but your one minute segment was 10MB or less, then you probably won't have to tweak much to get it right - just lower the bit rate by 256kbps. You should be fine. If not, then make sure you did everything right. Also check to see if you're being strangled by your mouse cord and being asphyxiated as discussed many paragraphs back in this post.

I'm sure there are better ways. I've only been messing with this for a couple weeks.

I tried the methods I found online - including YouTube's own recommendations - and my system has worked the best for me. I think the Thanksgiving videos and my spider movie trailer look a hell of a lot nicer - and sound better - than most other videos on YouTube. Not the ones put out by the "real" studios that pay their way to special treatment on YouTube, but certainly better than your average idiot's my-infant-caught-on-fire-and-instead-of-helping-I-screamed-and-kept-on-filming-and-now-I'm-sad-but-there-was-nothing-I-could-do-because-I-was-holding-a-Handycam video.

If you have any questions, then I invite you to keep them for yourself. There comes a time when every man must fend for himself in the world. Your time has come.

If you want to thank me and compliment me up and down the white trash trailer park that the internet's turned into, then feel free.

If you have something bad to say, then I suggest you suck it.

There you go, Clint. More info than you probably wanted.

But I'm your friend, and you're worth it, you bad boy of propagandist corporate video.

Rory Blyth signing off.

I'm awesome.

[Gratuitous Links to my Homies - Not Part of the Post Above] [Learn More]

- Cindy Chiuchiolo (Celes on Neopoleon) - Cindy is one of the womens who've been hitting the internet with their Online Recipe Invasion Force. However, Cindy claims to have been using computers since the early 90s. If this is true, then she was probably scouting ahead for rest of womankind. Among other things, she says that she created a web page in 1995. This makes her a sort of George Eliot of the web. I'm not ready to accept this genderal-transgression. Someday, perhaps, but not today; not yet. Despite my feelings on the matter, I believe that Cindy might be able to change my mind. Until then, I consider the internet a land under siege.

- Betsy Aoki - Betsy always has something nice to say. She's that person who sends you a few "Buck up, little camper," emails when you're not feeling so well. She's recognized among the geeks who've met her to be one of the nicest people on Earth. I think I had a twenty minute conversation once with Scott Hanselman that was entirely about what a sweetie Betsy is. Not exaggerating. I feel like you could walk into her office, douse her desk with gasoline, torch it, and she'd find the goodness in your actions. She might call the police, but she'd say "Thank you for stopping by," as they carted you away.

There's two - that's two (2) - count 'em, TWO - more womens who have found their way onto the internet despite men having put a strong password on it. I don't know which man leaked the password, or delivered it disguised as an interoffice memo, but we're going to find you - we know you're out there. There are ways of tracing recipes back to their authors - ingredients that pinpoint a specific store where your favorite brands can be found in large quantities; regional dishes that make use of locally produced food parts; the exact number of women in your recipe-trading group; checking to see what time you post about the most recent episode of Oprah (if you post earlier than we do on the west coast, we'll assume you're east of here).

Once we've established a perimeter around your most likely whereabouts, we'll retask one of our satellites to do a scan for testosterone (not that you have much) and knitting needles.

Before you know it, we'll dispatch one of our female operatives (that's right - we have spies, too) to break into your home, "neutralize" you, and then set everything up so that it looks like you were involved in a terrible accident caused by the irresponsible combination of refining a recipe at the stove and trying to knit a scarf at the same time.

There's nothing you can do to stop us.

This isn't a warning.

This is justice.