Extracting audio from a video you have recorded – for PC

How to extract audio using Windows Movie Maker 2.6

Windows Movie Maker 2.6 is a freely downloadable Microsoft application.

There may be times when you have recorded a session using either a video camera or screen capture software but you only wish to make the audio available to students. This may be because an audio file is more portable than a full video or there may be little or no value in the students seeing you.

This technique is also handy if you have recorded the screen and audio and the visual content has not transferred
well or may be out of date but the audio is still of value.

Using a Windows PC running Windows 7, the video file that contains the audio should be opened using Windows Movie Maker 2.6i.

Click ‘Start’ and type ‘Movie Maker’ in the search box – click on ‘Movie Maker 2.6’.

When the application has opened, drag the video file into the ‘Collections’ window – this is the large blank white space in the middle of the screen

Movie Maker will then link to the file and display a representation of it in the collections window.

Drag the file onto the timeline and drop it on the ‘Audio/Music’ row. Do not place it on the video row.
This is an empty timeline.

This is a timeline with a file dragged onto the Audio/Music row.

In the ‘Movie Tasks’ window to the left of the screen click on ‘Save to my computer’

A two-step wizard will start – provide the following information:

Step 1 – give the output file a name and decide where you wish to save it

Step 2 – decide on the quality of the output file remembering that higher quality will generate a larger file

Click ‘Next’ and the file will be produced and saved in the location that you specified. You can now rename and/or move the file as desired.

Windows Movie Maker can also be used to carry out simple edits to audio – the video editing resources covers this in more depth as part of the CELT Hub.