Windows Movie Maker for XP - HD Problem

Okay! A major... MAJOR... disaster was just averted.

I used to edit movies with Adobe Premiere, but after losing my last computer and all my softwares; I was pretty much left with nothing.

After three years without making any movies, I didn't replace my editing software. Until I recently decided to try to make movies again.

Enter the good old Windows Movie Maker for Windows XP!

The only problem is that the settings to save your movies in are pretty outdated.

I wanted to be able to save my Sims 3 Machinima in an HD setting (1280 x 720) with a bitrate of around 6 Mbps.

Well, with the old WMM, it was impossible. After some research, I found out that you could download a software from Microsoft called Windows Media Encoder.

I found an extremely useful article explaining how to create custom movie settings with Windows Movie Maker.

So my problem was solved. I can now filmed Sims 3 movies in HD and edited them to come out in the perfect setting as well.

Crisis averted. I won't need to buy Adobe Premiere anytime soon, unless Windows Movie Maker limited capabilities finally wears me down.

P.S: You can't filmed any Sims 3 movie in HD without changing the video capture settings. Pyronium, another machinima director, has a great blog post on the subject.