Choosing a video setting
This page of the Video Capture Wizard lets you choose what settings you want to use when capturing video and audio. The video setting you choose determines the quality and file size of the captured video file. Video display size and video bit rate increase with higher video settings, and so does the file size. Consider file size along with the main purpose for your captured video when choosing the video setting.
For more information about issues to consider when capturing video and audio, see Understanding video settings.
The following is a listing of the options displayed on this page of the Video Capture Wizard.
Best quality for playback on my computer (recommended)
Specifies that you want to capture video at the recommended video setting. This video setting encodes the captured video at a higher quality setting. The specific capture profile that is detected and used by Windows Movie Maker for this video setting depends on the selected capture device and the audio and video it can output to the computer, as well as the processor speed of your computer.
This setting is well-suited for a majority of the video you capture in Windows Movie Maker and plan to edit in Windows Movie Maker, and then plan to save to your computer, to a recordable CD, as an attachment to an e-mail message, or to the Web using the Save Movie Wizard.
Show more choices
Click to see additional video settings. Therefore, if you do not choose to use the Best quality for playback on my computer (recommended) video setting, you can choose from a listing of other capture options.
Digital device format (DV-AVI)
Specifies that your captured video will be saved as DV-AVI file with an .avi file name extension. This capture option is only available if you are capturing from a DV device, such as a DV camera or DV VCR. This video setting is designed to be used if you want to edit the captured video on your computer and then later save it back to a tape in a DV camera or VCR using the Save Movie Wizard. The quality of the original video is retained when you choose this setting, so the movies you record retain their original video quality when recorded back to DV tape.
However, video files saved with this setting can be quite large. For example, each minute of video saved at this setting can consume as much as 178 MB of disk space. Therefore, verify that there is enough available disk space on your hard disk to accommodate the amount of video you want to capture.
Other settings
Provides a list of additional video settings you can choose to capture for your captured video. When choosing a setting from this list, consider how you plan to ultimately use and share the video in your final saved movies. This list ranges from settings suited for video on a Pocket PC to video for local playback.
Setting details
Displays additional information about the video captured at the current setting. The following details are provided:
File type. The type of file the captured video is saved as on your computer. Possible file types include Windows Media Video (WMV) or Audio-Video Interleaved (AVI).
Bit rate. The total bit rate of the captured video and audio. Typically, a higher bit rate will result in higher-quality video with smoother motion. However, as the bit rate increases, so does the size of the captured video file.
Display size. The dimensions of the captured video picture, in pixels. The first number indicates the width of the video, while the second number indicates the height of the video.
Frames per second. The number of frames that are displayed per second in the captured video. Typically, a higher number or frames per second will make the motion of objects or persons in your video appear smoother.
Video format. The video standard for the saved movie file. The two possible formats are NTSC and PAL. The specific video format depends on the selected video capture device and the video format it uses. This value is displayed when capturing video as a DV-AVI video file.
Video file size
Provides the estimated file size of the saved movie and disk space available to store the captured video file. The estimated amount of disk space consumed by one minute of video is displayed in this area for many video settings. For other video settings that are based on the quality of the captured video and audio, such as the recommended setting, a file size estimate is not available.
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