By now you’ve already seen how quick and easy it is to make and share a movie using Windows Live Movie Maker. So instead of showing you how to post a video to an online service, I thought I’d discuss an alternative way of sharing your content using Movie Maker, Windows 7, and Xbox 360. With so many great web services available to stay in touch and exchange media with friends and family, it’s easy to forget that sometimes the most enjoyable form of consuming your own content is to sit down with the people you care about and flip through an album or watch a home movie on the television. But how do you get your Windows Live Movie Maker creation up on the big screen? Well, you could always hook up a PC to your TV or burn a physical DVD, but let’s try something a little more “on-demand” than that.
I’m an avid climber and I love taking photos up in the mountains, but sometimes the grandeur of the scenery is lost when I show people my photos and videos on a laptop screen or share them through a web service. Instead, I’ll put my movie together in Movie Maker and display it on the TV by streaming through my Xbox 360. This way, when I have friends and family over, we don’t all have to huddle around the computer screen – we can sit back with a snack and share the experience.
Keep in mind, this post assumes a few things;
1. You’re running Windows 7 on your PC.
2. You have an Xbox.
3. You have a home network set up.
If you’re running Windows Vista, you should be able to accomplish the same result. Click here for information on streaming using Windows Vista. With that said, here’s how I do it on Windows 7.
First, I need to make a movie. I want to put together a slideshow combining photos and short video clips I took during the climb with an awesome soundtrack. I’ll start in Windows Live Photo Gallery, where I can see all of my content. I’ll select all of the photos and videos I want to use, click on the ‘Make’ button, then select ‘Make a movie…’ to launch Windows Live Movie Maker. I’m going to use AutoMovie to quickly compile my content into a polished movie. Then, I output my movie using our 1080p profile for maximum resolution and maximum viewing experience. I save the movie to my local hard drive in a folder that is part of my Videos library. I have this library set up so that its contents can be streamed to other devices on my home network. Here’s how you can do this:
First, click the start button icon in the lower left of the toolbar. In the Windows 7 Start Menu search box, type “media streaming” as follows:
Launch ‘Media streaming options’ and you’ll see this:
Turn on media streaming, and you’ll get the following options:
Be sure to name your media library, which by default will be the name of your computer. That’s all there is to it! You can customize the settings if you like, but as is, anything in your Pictures, Videos, or Music Libraries will be visible to other media-streaming-capable machines on your network, including your Xbox 360.
Now that my movie has been saved and my media streaming options are set up, I turn on my Xbox 360. Under the ‘My Xbox’ heading, I navigate to my ‘Video Library’ and select it. At this point, I’m asked to select my source. My Xbox sees my computer as a source and lists it as an option, so I’ll scroll down and select it. Once I’ve done that, I can navigate by folder and find the movie I just created.
And that’s it, I can control playback straight through my Xbox and watch the movie with friends right in my family room. The great thing about this is that you only have to set up media streaming once. After that, anytime you save a movie on your computer, it will be visible to your Xbox so it’s ready to go whenever you want to watch it on your TV!
On a similar note, since we live in such a digitally connected world, I get my friends asking me to share my movies online so they can watch it again later. Sharing to YouTube is always a great option, but what if there’s a different online website they regularly visit? No problem – Windows Live Movie Maker shares the same online publishing platform as Windows Live Photo Gallery, which means developers can write publishing plug-ins to any website or service using our Software Developer Kit (SDK) and whatever SDK is available from that service. Check out this page for a list of plug-ins that have already been written, and for more information on how to write your own plug-in using our SDK, visit http://dev.live.com/photogallery. If you’ve written a plug-in, please tell us about it!
Thanks and happy streaming!
- Karthik Anbalagan
