I edit video clips (.avi from my digicam) in MovieMaker - clips usually 2-3 minutes long. Exported .wmv quality is never very good but is particularly bad if some of the "heavier" transitions are USED; pixelation etc. The sequences become very jumpy and pixelation seems very high for FILE sizes of around 15Mb.
I'm running XP and the individual .avi clips are very good quality, i.e. nothing to do with my camera.
Is it just that MovieMaker is poor? I don't want to spend money on software because this is just a sideline hobby; the clips are POSTED on YouTube.
Are there better, ideally free, alternatives? Or is there something I can do to improve output quality?
PS: To see an example, if you find user Fuquit69 and look for a "BriSCA F1 Semi-Final 2007" file (easy - I've got about 5 clips in total!) you'll see what I mean about the quality.Have you tried to use a different quality setting when saving the finished MOVIE? On the page after you SELECT a name for your movie and where to save it, there is a blue link called "show me more choices..." under a radio button with the text "Best quality for playback..."
Try different options and see what gives the best result.