Publish your Video

Windows Movie Maker comes equipped with
a ‘Send in e-mail’ option. But you shouldn’t
even think about clicking it unless you don’t
mind angering your friends. Why not make
everyone happy instead by using YouTube to
share your home videos? The site accepts
a wide range of video fi le formats, including
.wmv, .avi, .mov, and .mpg, and handles the
format and resolution changes itself.
From Windows Movie Maker, you have to
output the video in a YouTube-friendly format
before you can upload it. Click Save to
my computer under ‘Finish Movie’ in XP, or
click This computer under ‘Publish to’ in
Vista. Follow the re -
sulting wizard, saving
the fi le to a convenient
location, and
selecting Best quality
for playback on my
computer. In response, Movie Maker will
output a .wmv fi le that YouTube can accept.
You must be a YouTube member to up -
load fi les, but signing up for a membership
is free. Once you’re in, click the yellow Upload
button and follow the prompts.
Wait a few minutes after the movie has
fi nished uploading; then click My Videos , se –
lect the video, and watch it. (If the video is
not there yet, wait a bit longer.)
You can click the Share icon to tell your
friends about it, or you can copy the URL
and paste it into an e-mail. And if you’d rather
not share your movie with the world, set
Broadcast Options to Private and name the
contacts you want to share it with.