so I'm trying to make a little movie to put up on youtube, but need some help

[magical thyme]

totally new to this. I have 2 songs I want to add as background music. I'm not sure which format to get them in. windows seems to support WMA (which is used in the sampler that comes with it). My flip videocam movie maker allows MP3, WMA and WAV.

Amazon lists MP3. Can they be bought in WMA? Or converted to it

Not sure how to proceed....any clues as to how people are doing this (cause I see them on youtube all zee time!)

[In_The_Wind]

1. It's a great idea.

But nope. I can't help you with this.

[olddots]

2. sorry but 26 years ago i was put out to pasture in recoding world

Ask in the computer section here,the knowledge there is outstanding and someone will be able to quide you thru the complexities .

[hunter]

3. Youtube isn't at all fussy about formats.

https://support.google.com/youtube/troubleshooter/2888402?hl=en

Use whatever works best in your favorite video editing software; youtube is not likely to choke on it.

The greater problem is that youtube frequently takes down videos for copyright violations.

Youtube has automated systems to detect both copyrighted music and video, and furthermore some music companies aggressively enforce their copyrights, challenging even fair use material.

It's best to use your own music or to find music that is either public domain, Creative Commons, or otherwise unrestricted. If you do choose to use copyrighted music (not recommended), keep your original files so you can recreate your video with different music if the video gets taken down.

There are many artists who would be happy if you used their music so long as you give it proper attribution and your work isn't blatantly offensive or commercial. Many owners of copyrighted music also don't sweat the home video stuff, figuring any exposure is good exposure.

As an aside, illustrating music licensing problems, there are no commercial DVDs of WKRP in Cincinnati as it originally aired. Music licensing issues are still FUBAR.

[magical thyme]

4. thank you. I'm not concerned about youtube format, lol. I'm just not sure what I can run on my pc

the songs I was going to use (Sting) have been posted a lot by users with their own imagery, but I read amazon's rules and decided not to buy them that way. then I googled the artist and up came itunes and a couple other ways to download, each with their own sw and who knows what the format is.

I'm not planning any commercial use, or without attribution. Just for fun with Dahli and me riding to them...

[hunter]

5. Internally, your editing software will probably be using 2 channel 16 bit .wav sound...

... unless it's really high end stuff.

It's best to edit CD sound in CD quality, with a sample rate of 44.1 kHz.

Every time you change the encoding you lose quality.

If you have a very fast internet connection it's best to let google do the conversions, and simply upload your video using your editing software's default format, .avi or .wmv or whatever.

Otherwise, if you have a slower internet connection like mine, upload your video in a more compressed format like .mp4/H.264/AAC-LC which is what google recommends.

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/1722171

Handbrake will do these sorts of conversions, but it's best to let youtube do that work if it accepts whatever your video editor spits out.

https://handbrake.fr

Sorry, I'm obsessive about these things.

Most people just upload videos to youtube and if it doesn't work the first time, they try something else...

[magical thyme]

6. um, er, ok.

I can either make my movie on my flip camcorder movie maker or on my windows movie maker.

I have the video clip I want to use in both places. If I'm going to add music I need to import the music files in some format that my windows vista will recognize. I don't see anything in my PC programs that looks like MPV. I do see WMA.

Once I add the sound -- if I ever get around to doing even that much, but as the day wears on, I'm wearing out -- I will upload the whole thing to you tube if I ever figure out how to do that.

It's ok. It took me much of the morning to get the video clip from my camcorder to WMP to windows movie maker. This is an entirely new area for me and it is not intuitive. Although once I found the directions it was quite simple to drag the file where I wanted it, I've already forgotten where I found the directions and where I dragged it from

I may have to quit my job to do this full time to create my 8 minute "movie" of me and Dahli riding in circles to Sting...

[magical thyme]

7. so I tried to download it from itunes. that was a big fat fail and waste of an hour or so.

Downloaded the s/w. it failed. downloaded a 2nd time. success.

tried to get to the songs. couldn't get there. finally had to google sting and click on the itunes promo link. that brought me to the itunes songs, but not by sting. searched for the song I wanted and found it. took me 5 minutes of random searching the page and clicking to find where to buy it. (the obvious place let me "gift" it, share it twitter it, whatthefuckever it, but not buy it. what. the. fuck. who designed this?)

turned out I now needed to register at the store. tried to register at the store. it took me 5 minutes to find the place to accept the privacy terms and conditions because it opened too small and at awkward spot on page, so I had to keep manuveuring to finally find the checkbox and then manuveur some more to accept. then it wouldn't let me enter my email address. gave up after 15 minutes.

how do these people make money? their interface designs are so poorly thought out...