Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Edit Your Videos Online

It is said, the movie is made on the editing table. So how true is that? To start off with, a movie is a combination of talents like cinematography, acting, direction. But all of it comes together as a film on the editing table. So yes, it is true and editors are responsible for making or breaking the film. A fast paced action movie has to have some sharp editing. If the editing was weak in a movie like Bourne Ultimatum, we would wonder, “why are we watching Good Will Hunting again?” Though Good Will hunting was a well edited movie for its genre, Bourne Ultimatum was action packed and fast moving with gritty scenes, which required some experienced and talented hands on the editing board. Hence, editing highlights the movie and makes it watchable and gives it the required feel.

But this is professional editing. Today, with great break throughs in cameras and computers, consumers can shell out some money and purchase a user friendly editing tool for themselves. It’s a hobby for most, to shoot videos of a wedding, birthday party or an outing with friends, come home and give it a lasting look and feel. With the use of certain editing tools, these aspiring editors give transition effects, lighting effects and various other cuts and crops to give the video, a better look. Video editing is not a walk in the park as it may seem. Depending on the tools used, editing gets easier.

So what does a person do when he doesn’t have or doesn’t want to spend money to purchase an editing tool for his personal computer? Windows already has an integratedvideo editing tool called the ‘Windows Movie Maker’. But at times it leaves you asking for more. So ‘Hallelujah’ to the web-based video editing sites.

Jay Cut

A beta application, Jay Cut has a nice User Interface. For starters, you can view all the mixes done by other users here. Now like I said,video editing is not so easy, even to understand the video editing tools usually takes time. But these site-based tools make the work easier. Jay Cut has an introductory video which quickly explains the tools to you. Within three minutes you can get the hang of this editing tool and start to edit your videos.

Whats good: The UI looks like a professional editing tool as a mixer (filmstrip) has predefined layers for Video A, Transition, Video B, Music and effects. Good transition effects.

Whats bad: Only a handful of effects and no option to crop/cut videos.

Motion box

Ever come a time where you shoot a single video from your phone or digital camera and just want to keep a part of it (for remembrance)or remove a part (maybe cause some lunatic came up and threw gang signs at you while shooting). Motion box is a simple tool. It has a very user friendly interface to trim videos, where any amateur can go ahead and edit the video in no time.

Whats good: The ease at which the video can be trimmed, very much like a professional editing tool.

Whats bad: Motion box is ONLY meant to trim videos. It has no transition and effects (though there is an option to rotate but we’re sure not all users will make use of that option).

Onetruemedia

Onetruemedia is truly a one stop site for editing videos. Targeted for casual users, Oneturemedia has options to edit and change the sequence of a particular video, apply a montage style and add text and music. The apply montage is an amazing option which gives you some amazing preset effects. From presets such as fright night, to sportscast, users can let their creativity go wild and create unique 3 minute videos. The montage styles were so amazing, they had us shoot some small videos with our phone and try out the various styles.

Whats good: Amazing video montage styles, option to create a text slide and apply music.

Whats bad: The edit and sequence option is not that great.

Rifftrax (cuts)

Somehow, this was the most fulfilling site we found for video editing. Well, it’s not a site actually meant for video editing, but we had to include it. The site has various preloaded videos of movies, which can be used to test what this site is all about. Cuts basically has various sound effects which you can add to the video and change the entire feel of it. Funfilled and innovative, Cuts had to make it to this list.


Whats good: Mind blowing fun, to add famous movie quotes and sound effects and change the feel of the overall video.

Whats bad: Uploading a video is a pain.

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