Picture File Types Supported by Windows Movie Maker and Other Image Tips

Article by Mark Simmons - Nifter.com
Copyright © 2009 Nifter.com All Rights Reserved
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Picture File Types Supported by Windows Movie Maker
This article outlines the picture file types supported by Windows Movie Maker with information about the image types themselves and takes a quick look at optimal image sizing as it relates to Movie Maker.

Here is a list of the image types Movie Maker supports:

Image Files Supported by Movie Maker
• *.bmp - Bitmap image format
• *.dib - Device Independent Bitmap / DIB graphics format
• *.emf - Enhanced Windows Metafile
• *.gif - GIF image format / Computserve (includes both static and animated image file types)
• *.jfif - JPEG File Interchange Format - 24-bit graphics compliant with JPEG (*.jpeg) type
• *.jpe - JPEG extension / image file type
• *.jpeg - Joint Photographic Experts Group
• *.jpg - Common extension for the JPEG image format above
• *.png - Portable Network Graphics - Bitmap / Paint Shop Pro Browser
• *.tif - Tag Image File Format - Universal graphics format
• *.tiff - Tag Image File Format - As above
• *.wmf - Windows Metafile - Windows graphic image format

Advantages
- Can retain up to 16,000,000 colors (16 Million)
- Image file can be compressed to create a smaller file size. Most image editing software will have an option for setting the compression value for jpeg images. Higher compression rates mean smaller file sizes but poorer quality images. Lower compression rates equal higher quality images but larger file sizes. Setting the compression value allows you to find a compromise between file size and image quality.

Disadvantages
The primary disadvantage to the jpeg file type is quality loss. Each time you save a jpeg image there will be some loss of quality with the amount of quality, the amount being dependent on the selected compression value. The jpeg format is common on the internet because of the file size control that goes with it. If you have important pictures you want save, however, this is not the format to use.

Advantages
- Smaller file sizes
- 'Lossless' format to the extent that, no information regarding pixel intensity values is lost. However, gif images are limited to indexed-color graphics. (An indexed-color image is based on a palette of 256 colors or less which can normally be set by the user, either before-hand or when saving the gif image.)
- Image transparency can be set using this format.

Disadvantages
- Small color palette / color selection. Saving to the gif format from another image file type that uses a higher color count will mean the loss of those colors not within the range of the gif image capabilities. (Colors are normally optimized to fit within the range of the (user selected) gif format color palette. Users can usually choose the method for implementing the new color palette, for example, 'nearest color.')

Advantages
- Using the png format will preserve the alpha channels data and the full range of colors used in the image, up to 16,000,000 (16 million) colors. (Alpha channels are additional color channels used for editing and storing masks, an area or areas that are isolated and protected from the main image. An example benefit of this is that png images can be created with a transparent color, such as with gif images. (Most image manipulation software uses color channels such as CMYK: cyan, magenta, yellow and black. These channels represent information about the colors of the image. The png format offers additional channels as outlined above.)
- Png is a lossless file preservation format - no information is lost from the image / no loss of picture quality

Disadvantages
- Relatively large file size. Depending on your purpose, this may or may not be a disadvantage. With today's high speed connections and large hard drives, this disadvantage is at least somewhat diminished. The intended use is the biggest factor in determining whether a large file size is acceptable or not. For example, larger picture sizes seem insignificant when saving valued photographs on your computer. Alternatively, the bandwith, web space and additional upload / download times required for the png image file format means it may not always be the best choice for storing and providing high resolution pictures online. For smaller, high color images however, the png format is an excellent choice for internet use. It's up to you to decide what 'smaller' is.

Advantages
- Bitmaps works well with Windows or OS/2 applications.
- Bitmaps can used in DOS applications. (Not significant to most modern day Windows® users.)
- A 1 bit to 24 bit depth rate can be chosen for bitmap images. If the picture is saved in a 4 or 8 bit format you can also choose an option called Run-Length Encoding (RLE) compression which is a lossless standard (no information is lost from the image.) Non-RLE compressed images may lose considerable information. The amount of memory a BMP file will take up depends on whether it is saved as a 4, 8, 16 or 24 bit image, which will save the file in 16, 256, 65,536 or 16,000,000 colors respectively. Set to maximum potential as a 16,000,000 24 bit image, the fila size is rather large.

Disadvantages
- Quality loss and cross-platform incompatibility. The bitmap format is strictly for Windows® and DOS systems. It can be a good choice provided you take advantage of the lossless potential and have a compatible purpose for doing so which doesn't require cross-platform compatibility.
- Quality loss, always an issue, needs to be minimized wherever possible depending on your intended use and expectations.

Aspect Ratios and Movie Maker
A little about image aspect ratios as they relate to Windows Movie Maker should be touched on here. This subject can get a little technical so we're going to keep it as broad-based and brief as possible.

We'll use an example of a video being outputted to a NTSC 720 x 480 resolution, 4:3 aspect ratio. (The same applies to PAL outputs, which for this example would be a 720 x 576 resolution. If you're rendering to PAL, just replace the '480' with '576' for the purposes of this article.) So, if creating an image to use in that video you simply size it to 720 x 480, right? That's the obvious assumption most people have, but it doesn't work exactly that way. You can certainly do that if you wish and Movie Maker will display it, but it probably won't come out the way you think it's going to.

Here's the problem: You are most likely aware that images are made up of square pixels; however, an NTSC 720 x 480 video contains frames created with pixels that are not square. Movie Maker automatically assumes the image you are adding is made of square pixels and therefore sees a 720 x 480 image as having a 3:2 aspect ratio. Since you are outputting to a 4:3 format, Movie Maker needs to add black bars at the top and bottom of the video in order to retain the images original aspect ratio. So what can you do about it? There are a few things that can help, and as you might expect, the best one is not the easiest one.

Since we're rendering to a 4:3 output we want to add Movie Maker images with the same aspect ratio. If we do the calculation we come up with 640 x 480 or 720 x 540 as being the best options. The aspect ratio (4:3) is consistent in both these sizes and Movie Maker will only need to resize one of the axis as the other one matches the target output. This is a pretty good solution most of the time, but sometimes things like text on an image doesn't resize the way we'd like it to. If you want to take it a step further there is another method you can use: converting the image to a video file.

Movie Maker doesn't look at image and video files the same way. If you convert an image to a video file the software no longer assumes it is made of square pixels and 'letterboxing' of the frames will not be applied. The next question is, how can I convert a picture to a video? Thankfully the answer is, quite easily. All you need is Microsoft Windows Media Encoder. It may already be installed on your computer, but if not, you can download it from here.  (Windows Media Encoder 9 Series) Once installed, run the encoder and convert the image(s) to WMV video files.

Admittedly, coverting images to WMV video files may seem a little extreme to many users, but if the time ever comes when you find you could really use a method that will keep an image's properties in check, you'll be glad the option is available.

Summary - Image File Types Supported by Windows Movie Maker
We've all heard the phrase, "garbage in, garbage out" and in many respects it applies here. If you're starting out with a low quality image it's only going to get worse after Movie Maker renders the video. If you're like many people, you prefer your videos, home movies or what have you to look as clean and professional as possible; starting out with high quality pictures is one step in the right direction towards that end goal.

Keep in mind, if you're using pictures from the internet (and many other sources) they are probably jpeg's and will suffer quality loss every time you edit and save them. One way around this is to convert / save the picture in a lossless format like PNG or TIFF before starting to edit it and whenever it needs to be saved again. You can't change a low quality image to high quality simply by saving it in a different format, but you can prevent any further loss of quality. Any improvements that can be made to a low quality picture will have to be done manually using tools provided with your image editing software and your own skill at editing images. Using the tips provided above you can also minimize the aspect ratio issue and put together a video you'll be proud to display to the world.

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