Turn a Windows Movie Maker project into a video
Windows Movie Maker 2011 and 2012 saved projects as .wlmp files, and the Movie Maker of Windows
XP and Vista as .MSWMM files. Microsoft stopped offering Movie Maker in 2017, and the program no
longer installs or runs on many Windows 10 and 11 PCs, so a project that was never saved as a
movie stays locked. A project file is not a video: it
lists the videos, pictures and music it uses, where each one is cut, and the transitions,
title cards and captions. Upload it here, with the files it uses, and get the finished movie as
MP4, or the edit for another editor.
What to upload
- The project (
.wlmpor.MSWMM), or a.zipof the project's folder. - The videos, pictures and music the project uses, to get the MP4. They are matched by file
name, so they can come from any folder: add them as files or put them in the
.zip. The project knows where they were when you made it; the media list in the results shows each one.
Without the media you still get the files for other editors and the captions, and a list of
the files to look for. Projects from the Windows XP and Vista Movie Maker (.MSWMM) keep a small
picture of every clip, so even on their own they give a small, soft version of the movie.
What you get
- The movie as MP4 (H.264 with AAC sound, 1080p for HD material, otherwise 720p, or 480 lines for 4:3 projects; you can choose the size): every clip cut and sped up or slowed down as in Movie Maker, pictures shown for their time with pan and zoom, title cards with their text, captions where Movie Maker placed them, transitions, the videos' sound, music and narration at their volume.
- Premiere Pro XML (also for DaVinci Resolve and Avid), Final Cut Pro XML, EDLs and an OpenTimelineIO file: the storyboard with its cuts and transitions, title cards and captions as titles, music and narration on their own tracks.
- Captions as SRT and WebVTT, for YouTube or a video player.
- A media list (which files the project needs and which were uploaded), a picture of the timeline and a report.
The result page shows the timeline and a preview of the movie's first seconds.
What comes across
- The storyboard in order: videos with their in and out points and speed, pictures with their duration and rotation, title cards with their background colour and text.
- Transitions over the end of the clip before, as in Movie Maker.
- Captions at their place and size, one at a time as Movie Maker shows them.
- Music and narration where they start, with their volume and fades, and the balance between the videos' sound and the music.
- Fade in from black, fade out to black, black and white, sepia, mirror, blur and edge
detection effects in the MP4; for
.MSWMMprojects also fades from and to white, grayscale, film age and grain, brightness, pixelate, posterize, rotate and ease in and out. .MSWMMtitles and credits in their box, font, colour and size, fading in and out; credits roll.
Things to know
- Movie Maker has transitions that no other program has; the MP4 uses the closest match (a fade, a wipe, a dip to black) and the editor files use cross dissolves.
- Fading, scrolling, flying and dropping text moves in the MP4; other text animations (spins, zooms) and the bands some theme captions have are not drawn. The editor files show text still.
- Text is drawn with open fonts that have the same letter widths as Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Times New Roman, Calibri and Courier New, and close stand-ins for other fonts.
Privacy
Results are deleted automatically after 30 minutes, or straight away with "Delete now".