Sure something has gotten into Microsoft when they developed Windows Live Movie Maker Beta. Now a part of Windows Live essentials, this version of Windows Movie Maker is just next to crap. At least it seems so. Yesterday I had some videos to decorate and so I merrily opened Windows Live Movie Maker for the first time after installation and to my surprise, this was all I could see:

The interface is no doubt clean, but it is really missing some core components which were available in the previous versions. Most of the options are just not there. You cannot insert title/ending credits, no representation in the form of frames, cutting multiple parts of a video is tiresome, very less transitions and effects options are some of the glitches. Before going ahead, see another screenshot:

Did you see that? That’s all we have. Just 3-4 transitions and 7-8 effects options. That’s it. You cannot change the timing for how long a particular effect should last. Here’s one another screenshot of the ‘Edit’ menu:

Now if you want a captioned video with some text, then you use that ‘Textbox’ to place some text on your video. But hey wait…! There is no option for how long! It will put the text on the entire length of the video. That’s very annoying. Not to mention you cant create any credits for your video because there are no such options available.

Now when you have hardly managed to make a nice video in the Windows Live Movie Maker Beta, the moment you click ‘Save’, you realize that you can save your video in just one format (.WMV) and that too in just two resolutions. What if I want to save it as a .MPG or .AVI file? If Microsoft can offer native support for DivX and XviD formats in Windows 7, then why they compromise when it comes to saving a video file in multiple formats. And why just two resolutions? Well, as I said, this is just a Beta. Hope things get better by the time the final version is out.