TV Ratings in Windows Movie Maker

Are you using Windows Movie Maker to edit your home videos? Have you ever wanted to add the TV Ratings to the top of your home videos? I created a set of custom titles that can be used in Windows Movie Maker to add the various TV Ratings (Y, Y7, G, PG, 14, MA) to the top left corner of your video.

Note: This package of titles has been updated to work both with Windows XP and Windows Vista versions of Movie Maker.

Click on the rating logo above which will download the custom titles for TV Ratings. Run the installer (CustomTVRatings) and it will install the custom XML code and the image files you'll need.

To use the new titles, go to 'Tools' > 'Titles and Credits' > 'Title on the selected clip' > 'change the title animation'. Under your list of one line titles should be 6 new ones called:

TV Rating (Y)

TV Rating (Y7)

TV Rating (G)

TV Rating (PG)

TV Rating (14)

TV Rating (MA)

If you want an additional subtitle, type it into the text fields, otherwise just type a single space. Click 'Done'.

HD Camcorders - let the price drops begin!

I've been waiting anxiously for a reasonably priced HD (high-definition) camcorder. While the Sanyo Xacti VPC-HD1 camcorder isn't due until March 2006, the price of $799 USD bodes well for more HD Camcorders and similar pricing in the near future. Although the recording time on a 1GB memory card is rather mediocre at 21 minutes (double that for a 2GB encoded in MPEG-4 format), I can only hope that this foretells the arrival of more tape-based and hard-disk-based HD camcorders, hopefully at a similar price point. I say, if you build it, I will buy! Maybe 2006 will be the start of the year of HDTVs and HD camcorders! At least I can hope...

Edit: Despite my hopes, the Sanyo model is garnering disastrous reviews for its supposed HD video. Oh well...