First try with Windows 10

Hello everyone.

I've been using Microsoft Movie Maker the last few years on Windows 7 to create the videos posted on this blog.  I've been very happy with its features, grew very comfortable using it, and have been pleased with the results, especially after some practice.   Adding movies with real train sounds to represent the action on the Kings Port Division is a fun and creative activity for me that I greatly enjoy.  Unfortunately Windows 7 will no longer be supported after January which motivated me to purchase a new computer loaded with Windows 10.

Alas, "Movie Maker" is not included in Windows 10.  Would-be movie directors like myself need to use the Photo app and some related applications to create movies now.   The tools involved are not exactly self-explanatory so I've done a lot of reading online to learn how to create a video.  I learned, for example, that my computer has a video compression app that is needed to reduce the size of videos for successful upload to this blog.  Its called Microsoft "Video compressor and Trimmer".  I didn't know I had it until I attempted to obtain it from the Microsoft store after my first attempts at uploading were met by a prompt that the video exceeded 100 MB.  I got a prompt that said "You already have this app".   After that I checked the start up icons and saw that the app had been added.  OK!

At the risk of eliciting a jeering chorus of "OK Boomer!" I'll say that I liked the way things worked with Windows 7 Movie Maker much better compared to what I need to do in Windows 10 to post the same kind of videos.   I'll admit to not being the most IT savvy person in the world but I'm making headway.

Here is my first attempt of a short roll-by with a recently numbered Penn Central GP7 #5688.

I was not impressed by the sound quality.  I'm using the same microphone I've always used for train videos but for some reason its not turning out as well as before.   This was especially true of a video I made like the one posted above with just train sounds in the background played from a YouTube video.  I've had a lot of success doing this in the past but the sound quality was awful with my new computer.  After some research into computer microphones I decided to buy one intended for group conferences that is good at picking up background noises and not just the voice of the person talking directly into the mike.  This way I'm hoping to get decent quality recording of the train sounds in the background while I narrate.

We'll see how that works out in my next post after the microphone arrives!

Anyway, I'm motivated to learn how to create videos of the same or better quality as those I've posted on my blog in the past...it just might take a me bit of time to figure it all out!

By the way:  in railroad lingo a "Boomer" is a person who drifts from one railroad job to anther, often moving on after a short time.