Windows Live Movie Maker 2011 makes
it easy to create photo slideshows and home movies in seconds.
Your SkyDrive makes it easy to publish and share your movies. Friends,
family and anyone else who has permission to view your SkyDrive will be able to view, play and share your Windows Live Movie Maker 2011 movies directly from their web browsers. In this tutorial, I’ll show how to upload a Windows Live Movie Maker 2011 video and share it with your contacts.
Uploading to Your Windows Live SkyDrive
Open a Windows Live Movie Maker 2011 project or create a new one. Next, click the Home tab and locate the Share section. Click the SkyDrive button found in this section.
Next, you’ll see a prompt asking you to choose a resolution for your movie. This is becauseSkyDrive imposes
a strict file size limit of 100 MB. If your movie file is larger than
100 MB, it will be rejected. To avoid this, choose one of the suggested
resolutions. You can see the estimated file size below the resolutions.
Choose the highest resolution without exceeding an estimated file size
of 100 MB. In this example, the recommended setting of 640 x 480 is
best.
If you aren’t already, you’ll be asked to sign in to your Windows Live/Microsoft account. If you don’t have one, get one here.
In the next window, you’ll need to choose an album in your SkyDrive where
you’ll upload your movie. If you haven’t created any albums yet, you’ll
have the opportunity to create a new one. To do so, click "New album title."
Type
in a name for your album and then choose your sharing preferences in
the drop-down menu below. You can change these later. Choose from:
- Everyone (public)
- My friends and their friends
- Friends
- Some friends
- Me
These are all pretty self-explanatory, except for the last two. "Some friends" makes
the folder available to all of your Windows Live contacts, except for
the ones you’ve designated for limited access. For more information on
limited access in Windows Live, see this blog post from the Windows Live
team. The "Me" setting is
equivalent to private--only those with a link can view it (more on this
later). For all these settings, other than the Everyone (public), users will have to be logged in to your Windows Live account in order to view your files.
After your choose your album, click Publish. Windows Live Movie Maker 2011 will upload your file.
When it’s done, you’ll have the option to view it online. Click "Watch Online" to open the video in your default web browser.
In this screen, you can see the contents of the folder we just created.
Click on your video’s thumbnail to view it in an embedded player.
To return to your SkyDrive later, visit http://skydrive.live.com.
Sharing Your Video
There are two ways to share a video from your SkyDrive folder. You can embed it, or you can send someone a link. You can get the code and/or link by viewing the video in your SkyDrive and copying and pasting it from the section in the bottom-right.
To share the link, copy and paste the entire URL contained in the Web address field.
The
second line of code is an embed code. You can copy and paste this into
the source of your blog or web page to display the video in an embedded
player. In order for the embed code to appear, the permissions level
must be set at Everyone (public).
Editing SkyDrive Access Permissions
Your
uploaded videos inherit the permissions settings from the folder that
contains them. As I mentioned above, you can change these permissions at
any time. To do so, log in to your SkyDriveand
navigate to the folder where you’d like to edit the permissions. If you
are looking at a video, you’ll have to go up one level (see
screenshot).
When viewing a SkyDrive folder, you’ll see a line that reads "Shared with" followed by your current permissions settings. In this example, it reads Everyone (public).
Click this link to change the permissions for the folder.
In the next window, you’ll see an explanation of your current permissions settings. To change them, click ’Edit permissions’.
Move
the slider to change the permissions settings. You can also share the
folder with people who are not in your Windows Live contacts by entering
their email addresses in the field at the bottom. Click "Save" when you are done.
Conclusion
SkyDrive doubles as a place to store your Windows Live Movie Maker 2011 videos
and a platform for sharing your work. You’ll get the most mileage if
you have a lot of Windows Live contacts, but you can still use your SkyDrive to share with those who don’t have Live IDs. Personally, I feel thatSkyDrive gives you a bit more control than sites like YouTube. Microsoft seems to have less privacy issues than Google has had in the past, for what it’s worth. For more information onWindows Live Movie Maker 2011,
