I tried WMM2 on a friend's PC and here are my thoughts in comparison to iMovie 3...
* There are "Wizard" like guides that walk the user through many steps. The first time or so this can be fine, however, once you know what you are doing they really get in the way and slow you down. It's a long multi-step process just to change the color of text in a title.
* There are a few nice transitions in the application such as a very cool one that looks like glass shattering. However, you can't change ANY of the properties of how they act. Basically, you're stuck with the "canned" transitions and that's it. The same goes for video effects.
* Microsoft seems to have not understood what a transition is and what an effect is. They have fade-in and fade-out in the effects section. These are transitions, NOT effects. This can be confusing after a person learns more about video editing and begins to wonder why WMM has different names for things.
* Switching between the timeline and story-board view is jarring to say the least. The bottom section jumps around a bit when going between the different views and it's difficult to zoom in or out.
* You can not import QuickTime movies or MPEG 4 files. Nor can you save your finished product to any other format besides Windows Media. This means no DVD authoring from within the application. The only decent way to export your movie would be to a camera for VHS dubs.
* You can import still pictures and create a nice slide show. However, you can only zoom in or out of those photos. There is no panning and zooming "Ken Burns Effect" as in iMovie 3.
* There is only one track for audio. The second track is reserved for the sound from your video footage. You would not be able to do narration on video unless you want to do it over a silent backdrop. One audio track is a severe limitation in my opinion.
* And finally, when I exported my 28 second clip to a finished Windows Media File it took almost 90 seconds to complete the export. Not very impressive.
So there's my take on Windows Movie Maker. It's not terrible, it's just not as easy as iMovie, has far fewer features, takes longer to accomplish the same tasks, is very limiting in what you can do, and has a confusing interface during some processes (titles for example). Take a look at what the new iMovie 3 has to offer and it's very sad to see Windows Movie Maker. iMovie looks like a high end film studio compared to this latest attempt from Microsoft.
* There are "Wizard" like guides that walk the user through many steps. The first time or so this can be fine, however, once you know what you are doing they really get in the way and slow you down. It's a long multi-step process just to change the color of text in a title.
* There are a few nice transitions in the application such as a very cool one that looks like glass shattering. However, you can't change ANY of the properties of how they act. Basically, you're stuck with the "canned" transitions and that's it. The same goes for video effects.
* Microsoft seems to have not understood what a transition is and what an effect is. They have fade-in and fade-out in the effects section. These are transitions, NOT effects. This can be confusing after a person learns more about video editing and begins to wonder why WMM has different names for things.
* Switching between the timeline and story-board view is jarring to say the least. The bottom section jumps around a bit when going between the different views and it's difficult to zoom in or out.
* You can not import QuickTime movies or MPEG 4 files. Nor can you save your finished product to any other format besides Windows Media. This means no DVD authoring from within the application. The only decent way to export your movie would be to a camera for VHS dubs.
* You can import still pictures and create a nice slide show. However, you can only zoom in or out of those photos. There is no panning and zooming "Ken Burns Effect" as in iMovie 3.
* There is only one track for audio. The second track is reserved for the sound from your video footage. You would not be able to do narration on video unless you want to do it over a silent backdrop. One audio track is a severe limitation in my opinion.
* And finally, when I exported my 28 second clip to a finished Windows Media File it took almost 90 seconds to complete the export. Not very impressive.
So there's my take on Windows Movie Maker. It's not terrible, it's just not as easy as iMovie, has far fewer features, takes longer to accomplish the same tasks, is very limiting in what you can do, and has a confusing interface during some processes (titles for example). Take a look at what the new iMovie 3 has to offer and it's very sad to see Windows Movie Maker. iMovie looks like a high end film studio compared to this latest attempt from Microsoft.