Barely a few weeks ago, I reviewed Movie Maker 8.1, feeling that it had matured nicely, yet it seems that the pace of development hasn't slowed at all. Today's update sees the addition of titling, transitions between clips and the all important Ken Burns (pan and zoom) effect on stills. If you're on Windows Phone 8.1 then you owe it to yourself to try Movie Maker 8.1, though do see the performance caveats below.

The changelog for this new version 1.1.5.0, over and above the v1.1.4.4 that I reviewed, is:

• Titles: font type/color/size, background color/picture/video frame
• Transitions: Fade In/Out/Cross, Slide, Stripe, Twist3D, Fold3D
• Kenburns effect on images!
• Open your projects from your pc on Microsoft Movie Maker for Windows, thanks to Acquariusoft and the app 'Remote Device Manager'
• New tools: cut, merge (by popular demand)
• New: "tick" noise removal for Lumia1020
• Fix: share, lock screen, other minor issues.

That's some changelog, so I took it for a spin:

The 'Add' tool now also offers 'Title' in this circular pop-up system; (right) after the chance to enter the title text, a settings pane (e.g. 'Duration') for it appears and then immediately disappears (surely a bug!), followed by the title being in place....

Transitions appear on the main function menu and take effect before the selected clip; (right) after picking a transition, there's a wait of around a minute while the clips are processed to reflect the new end/start sections.

Playing back the section shows the new 'striped' (in this case) transition is in place; (right) the new Ken Burns effect for stills is on the 'Duration' pane - after accepting the dialog, there's the same minute (or so)'s wait while the effect is encoded.

The waits while transitions and stills effects are rendered are jarring, to be honest. Most video editors on other platforms err on the side of a low res simulation of the effects while editing and then at final render time everything's recoded as needed, since the user knows that they'll be leaving the computer/device alone for a while anyway.

You can grab Movie Maker 8.1 here in the Store - ignore the old version shown in our listing, that'll be refreshed shortly. Just grab via the QR code and you're good to go.