This is about the older Windows movie maker, that comes with Windows XP. The newer movie maker that comes with Windows 7 is different.

O.K. then. So you think your ready to edit your videos and upload them to Youtube?

This is what you do:

1: Download the "Prism video converter":
http://www.nchsoftware.com/prism/index.html
It's a free trial version. When it runs out, just download it again. I've been doing that for over a year. Hundreds of videos... When it asks you to buy it, you can go to the "control panel" (in your PC) and to the "add or remove programs". Find Prism in there and click on "Change / remove". That will let you downgrade it to the free version, which has less functions, but it's free forever. I use it to convert the Xfire videos to wmv all the time.

That site might offer free downloads of picture and sound file converters too. They work the same way.

2: Convert all your videos to wmv's. That way you can edit them in the Windows movie maker.

3: This is what you do next: Open the movie maker (not full-screen, about half is better) and use your mouse to put a video into that white empty space in the middle. Then put it into the blue line below.

You can do this with several videos and MP3's (you may need that music file converter ;) ).

4: If you need to cut something out, use those magnifying glasses in the left lower corner to zoom in and then use the "Cut" button, which is that round button on the right lower corner of the video display / player. If you didn't cut at the right spot, then not to worry, you cut as many times as it takes. You can then delete each cut clip one at a time. Just use the right mouse button and click "delete".

5: You can also add picture files (not all types, so you may need that picture converter ;) ).

6: Use your mouse to drag the beginnings and endings of the different clips, on that bug blue horizontal video bar on the bottom, to adjust how long they'll last, or how long you want your pictures to be displayed.

7: You may notice that there's a "2. Edit Movie" on the left edge of the movie maker. You can use that to add some cheap effects. Learn those by experimenting.

You don't need to pay any attention to the "1. Capture Video", ignore it.

8: When the movie is done, go to the "3. Finish Movie" (on the left edge of the movie maker) and click on "Save to my computer". Make sure that you'll make it save the video to your desktop. That's the most convenient place.

9: Keep experimenting and you'll learn the rest of the stuff that I didn't explain.

10: Youtube. Log in to your account and use that upload button on the right upper corner on the screen.

Youtube might glitch sometimes rarely and tell you that your video could not be uploaded. Try again. And if you upload a video with some famous music, then add (with the movie maker) a picture file to the end of the video. That picture should have a sentence on it, saying the name of the music and that you don't own the music, or claim to have any rights to it. Otherwise they might deactivate the sound for copyright reasons. But note that they don't really watch the video before removing the sound. That's done automatically.

11: After uploading, Youtube will "process" it for a while. You can log-off for a while. Later, go log-on again and look at the video. You'll notice that Youtube has an "Annotations Editor" at the top right corner of the video. You can use that to add some text (and links) to the video. You can remove those later if you want.

12: One more thing. Some versions of windows media player can sometimes glitch while your watching your longer edited videos. The picture will "freeze", but the sound will be fine.

Relax. That's the media players fault. The video file if safe. Youtube can sometimes have similar glitches.

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