The Intergalactic Highway

Hey, guys! I'm looking for help with making a video montage. If anyone can give me any information on this, it would be GREATLY appreciated. What software do you use; the Windows Movie Maker (I think it's called)? Which is pretty much all I have because I can't afford the professional grade film editing software that I used in college. Although, I do have iMovie on my iBook. How do you grab videos with sound from shows and import them to the movie making program? I see all of these awesome music videos on YouTube and I wonder where and how they got pieces of the shows to put in their m.v. Can you add digital still photos as well? What formats or options should I use and save with if I want to put it on a CD, DVD or flash drive in order to play it through a projector of some sort?

Thank you so much!!

By the way, I'm making this as a SURPRISE for a certain someone who's turning 60 in a few weeks and I need to get it done before then. If anyone would like to contribute with a very short video of yourself maybe saying your name, what state or country you're from, and wishing him a happy birthday, I think that would be an awesome addition for this. Or even just a nice, clear sound file with that info that I can add. But please, please, please keep this a secret. If you want any more details, please PM me or message me on FB. Any other thoughts or suggestions would be "prime." Thank you!

Hey O.O.P. I have used two pieces of software to throw these things together in the past. The first was a video editing software called Adobe Premiere. The original version I had was great, efficient and easy to use. I then obtained a copy of a later version and as is the way of Adobe products it went overly complicated (i.e. "to import a file simply click "File", then go down to "import", then spin around in a circle, unclick everything, change your desktop, reformat your hard disk, throw your keyboard out the window, do a funny dance and then... you'll be exactly where you started ). I will stand by windows movie maker as it is a surprisingly decent piece of software (I was annoyed that Win 7 did not come with it). Simple to use and a couple of nice transitions so moviemaker for the win

I think your friend is coming down to visit us in the merry old land of Oz later on in the year, but we will discuss this upcoming phenomena soon. Will see if I can dust off the webcam and deliver a rambly, waffly happy b'day message

Thank you so much, Silver! I haven't really played with WMM, so I'm going into this as a trial and error kind of thing. I used Final Cut Pro in college, which was such an awesome program for editing video. I truly miss it. But it's professional grade software, so it's pricy. I don't think I ever used Premiere but I've heard of it.

I think your friend is coming down to visit us in the merry old land of Oz later on in the year, but we will discuss this upcoming phenomena soon. Will see if I can dust off the webcam and deliver a rambly, waffly happy b'day message

Yes, he is! In August, I think? He has tons of conventions lined up for this year and there may be more. He should be announced for a very big and popular one pretty soon, which I am also attending. *shfity eyes*

If no one knows who we're talking about, look at my sig. Also, I still need suggestions for grabbing video with or without sound off of DVD's or YouTube or Hulu. I want to get a bunch of clips from various shows and cartoons he has been on, and in between those have quick birthday wishes from some of his fans (which I should think includes some of you guys on here, no?). This is not something that will go on YouTube; this is a personal gift to him from his fans. You can message me on Facebook under Candice N. Santora, send me an IM on Skype at candi.santora (that I'll find eventually), or e-mail me anything to ca_oop@hotmail.com to contribute.

The only thing I can think of is a Dazzle for recording off the DVD or TV. It depends on your type of TV. I had one but it broke. XD

Awww that's very nice of you. I wish I could video myself and wish him a happy birthday but I don't have the equipment and my microphone is broke.

Thank you, una! Never heard of a Dazzel. Hm. And that sounds like a bunch of silly excuses to avoid a really cool opportunity. I'm kidding!

Guys, even if you haven't met Garry, you are more than welcome to get in on this; I highly encourage it. He loves his fans, and I know he wishes he could meet all of them from around the world. Just a quick introduction of yourself and maybe your favorite role of his and a birthday wish. For those of you who have met him, share the time and place you did and I'm sure he'll remember. I really want to make this memorable and a huge surprise for him.

Unfortunately I haven't seen Garry in anything aside from his role as Primal, let alone met him in person. So that is who he'll always be to me.

Though oddly, for someone who is far from an as eager bw fan as most people here, I probably have more to be thankful to the bw show for than most. Without a common interest in the beast wars show, I would never have gotten to know my husband, fallen in love with him, moved across the atlantic to be with him, gotten married and had children by him.. really odd when I think about it.

Unfortunately I haven't seen Garry in anything aside from his role as Primal, let alone met him in person. So that is who he'll always be to me.

Same here, OOP do tell him that some crazed BW fan, named Darkshadow says Happy Birthday. He will always be Primal to me, since that's all I have really seen, well heard him in.

Though oddly, for someone who is far from an as eager bw fan as most people here, I probably have more to be thankful to the bw show for than most. Without a common interest in the beast wars show, I would never have gotten to know my husband, fallen in love with him, moved across the atlantic to be with him, gotten married and had children by him.. really odd when I think about it.

That's pretty cool though Phoenix, pretty unique.

Ok this may be wrong but to be certain I didn't just lie when I said I'd never seen him in anything aside from his role as Primal, I checked out the wikipedia article about him. The wikipedia article states he was born February 17, 1953, which would mean he turns 59 in a couple of weeks and not 60 for another year? Is the article wrong?

On another note seems he also did the voices of Optimus Prime on TF Armada, Energon, and Cybertron. I didn't especially like any of these shows so I only saw bits and pieces here and there, but guess I have heard him in other roles than Primal then. He's had guest appearances in some shows I would watch but none of the major characters so chances are if I did see him, I never noticed the character.

I think everyone knew who you were referring to OOP! lol.

Anyway, I've used Windows Movie Maker fairly regularly and also got a fairly expensive program from my mom called Movie Edit Pro or something like that. In the end, I ended up preferring Movie Maker. Most of the things I've done on it were videos from my video camera and photos that I arranged together and put to mssic. I did several videos of this sort to advertise for the fencing club at my college. I'm very familiar with this program so if you need me to help you figure it out, let me know!

I'm not 100% sure about the video part. I know there are software programs you can download that you can record whatever is on your computer. That's how people make those youtube tutorials. They press the record button and record themselves playing with adobe photoshop or bender or whatever it is they're teaching you how to use. I know I downloaded a program like this, but I don't remember what it was called. I will have to look for it on my other computer and let you know.

As far as a video for Garry is concerned.....I don't plan to do it by myself, but maybe my brother, boyfriend and I can do one together. I'd be too shy to do it alone! How would it sound if we were all wearing our DECEPTICON t-shirts?! I don't have any autobot t-shirts or Maximal t-shirts. But I can wear my Predacon t-shirt!! I got it for xmas!

For whatever DVDs you have, I hear Magic DVD ripper is a good program. Though you might have to pay for it. Maybe you can work with using the free trial.

It's been my experience that free trials will generally put a logo or something on your video and the only way to get rid of the logo/watermark type thing is to purchase the program.

If anyone wants to submit a photo of yourself holding a sign wishing him a happy birthday, that'll work, too. You know, if you don't have a mic or camera.

The wikipedia article states he was born February 17, 1953, which would mean he turns 59 in a couple of weeks and not 60 for another year? Is the article wrong?

It's wrong, Phoenix. Trust me. He was born in 1952. You know, I've already fixed that Wikipedia once when it used to say November something. IMDb used to have the same wrong birthday until I fixed that as well. Even Garry had made a comment about that in an interview. He had no idea where the November birthday was coming from but it was wrong. Anyway, he turns 60 this year.

Though oddly, for someone who is far from an as eager bw fan as most people here, I probably have more to be thankful to the bw show for than most. Without a common interest in the beast wars show, I would never have gotten to know my husband, fallen in love with him, moved across the atlantic to be with him, gotten married and had children by him.. really odd when I think about it.

That's pretty cool though Phoenix, pretty unique.

Couldn't agree more with Ds. If I remember, Ds, I'll tell him you said so, but I'm not going to use handles.

I think everyone knew who you were referring to OOP! lol.

Well, I wasn't sure, Blackrosefence. No one was commenting. I thought this was a pretty awesome idea for people to be a part of. Especially people on this board who happen to be Beast Wars fans.

Anyway, I've used Windows Movie Maker fairly regularly and also got a fairly expensive program from my mom called Movie Edit Pro or something like that. In the end, I ended up preferring Movie Maker. Most of the things I've done on it were videos from my video camera and photos that I arranged together and put to mssic. I did several videos of this sort to advertise for the fencing club at my college. I'm very familiar with this program so if you need me to help you figure it out, let me know!

Thank you so much! I just might need to take you up on that offer, but let me check it out when I have more time this weekend and see what I can figure out. I have to get rolling on this now.

I'm not 100% sure about the video part. I know there are software programs you can download that you can record whatever is on your computer. That's how people make those youtube tutorials. They press the record button and record themselves playing with adobe photoshop or bender or whatever it is they're teaching you how to use. I know I downloaded a program like this, but I don't remember what it was called. I will have to look for it on my other computer and let you know.

Hm. Okee dokee! I have one called CaptureWiz that I think I paid for. It's how I get all of my screen shots. I don't know how well it does with capturing video, and maybe the video doesn't even include sound. If not, I guess I could use my audio recording software to record sounds on a seperate file and then match it with its video on WMM.

As far as a video for Garry is concerned.....I don't plan to do it by myself, but maybe my brother, boyfriend and I can do one together. I'd be too shy to do it alone! How would it sound if we were all wearing our DECEPTICON t-shirts?! I don't have any autobot t-shirts or Maximal t-shirts. But I can wear my Predacon t-shirt!! I got it for xmas!

LoL That would be great, Blackrosefencer!

For whatever DVDs you have, I hear Magic DVD ripper is a good program. Though you might have to pay for it. Maybe you can work with using the free trial.

Thank you, Blazemane! I'll look into that.

If anyone wishes to contribute anything, I'll need it within the next week; next weekend at the LATEST. Okay? Thank you for all of your help!!

Aaaand I've already run into problems. I tried importing an audio file and a video and it told me it doesn't support either of them because they're .mp4 and .m4a. It seems to support everything BUT those. My kind of luck! Grrrrrr.

EDIT:
Me thinks I'll try some improvising with this issue. I'm good at that.

I've run into that problem too. Yu'll need to convert the file to wmv or whatever. Download a cheap file converter software. That is the biggest pain of working with movie maker. It's never just start working on a movie and finish it, you always find there's some sort of file that's not supported by the program or some other snafu. But once it's downloaded, you'll have it for the next time you want to do a video. The first time I used it I had an analog video recorder so I couldn't plug it right into the computer. I had something jerry-rigged together so I could record it off the TV. The audio got so messed up. But it's an easy program to use aside from the file restrictions.