Animoto.com is a free web application that automatically generates professionally choreographed videos using their own patent-pending technology and high-end motion design. Each video is a fully customized orchestration of user-selected images and music. The finished video is produced on a widescreen format and has the visual energy of a music video and the emotional impact of a movie trailer.
With Animoto.com, you can create 2 types of photo videos:
Animoto Shorts (Free, but only 30 seconds long)
Full-length videos ($3 each)
Animoto Shorts are 30-seconds long and perfect for 10 to 15 photos depending on the beat of your music. The free Animoto Short is my preference. 30 seconds seem short, but have you noticed how short people's attention span is these days?
Here's an example of an Animoto Short video that I created using photos from a birthday party:
Transferring your VHS to DVD is not for you if you plan to edit your raw video footage.
Families are becoming more aware that magnetic media (that's your VHS tapes, Super-8, Hi-8, Betamax) doesn't last forever. They have a shelf life of 10 years or fewer. Some would even say they start degrading after 5 years. If you can't make out the little baby's face (that was you) in the your parents' VHS tapes, don't blame their video shooting skills. Blame it on Time and the tape degradation that comes with time. As a result, families are rushing to transfer their VHS tapes to DVD.
However, when you convert a VHS tape to DVD, the video format is stored as MPEG2 format which is a compressed format. 5 minutes of uncompressed video format is 1 Gig. A DVD can only store up to 4 Gig of data but somehow it has managed to compressed up to 2 hours of video. Which is fine if you are happy popping it into a player, but not if you plan to cut out scenes, add special effects and transitions.
For that, you want to convert your video into uncompressed video format, which is the AVI format. Since the AVI format is uncompressed, it is large (5 minutes = 1 Gig), so you will need to transfer it to a hard drive.
I feel compelled to inform our readers about this because too many families get a false sense of security that once they transfer their video tapes or film reels to DVDs, their memories are preserved. Then when they try to splice out sections and edit it to show at a daughter's wedding reception, the video quality is not what they expected.
You know a product has turned mainstream when you start seeing all kinds of options, sizes, extra features, colors, flavors – not unlike how Cornflakes now appears in 101 variations. Such is the case with Digital Picture frames. The other day, I saw one that even reports on the weather real time. And a few lets you crop, lighten, and add effects to your photos right on it (I prefer to edit the source photos on my PC before transporting my photos to a picture frame, ipod, flicker, etc).
Picture Frame designs - you will find one that will match any living room, from simple clear frames to this handsome, wood, fashion-statement designs like the Philips 6.5-Inch Digital Picture Frame.
Want your digital pictures to come alive and greet you when you return from the office? Read more
Technorati Tags: [tag-tec]flip-video-camcorder[/tag-tec], [tag-tec]flip-video-editing[/tag-tec] The super-easy flip video camcorder plugs directly into your laptop or PC USB port so you can transfer the video without any fancy cables or firewire ports.
While that makes it very easy to upload your videos on internet to share with your friends and family, you may want to take an extra step and edit it first. Watching unedited raw footage is like watching grass grow.
To turn your flip video clip into an entertaining movie with nifty transitions, special effects, titles and music, you need a video editing software. The movie-editing software that I highly recommend for busy and time-pressed folks like us is Read more
If you are a Costco member, there's a new service you may want to look into: Costco Video Transfer and Costco Film Transfer.
This service fills an important role, because it’s estimated that 700 million home movies are stashed away in closets and basements, many of them degrading away because of the limited life span of film and video. If you don’t believe me, here’s a video my father took over thirty years ago – I can’t even make out my mother’s face anymore. Do you have your wedding video stashed 'safely' in a closet in your bedroom? Don’t end up like this faceless bride video.
Costco charges $20 for a video transfer and takes about three weeks. You drop them off at the same place you drop your photos, but unlike their photos Read more
My friend John just gave me a bunch of his father's 16-mm and Super-8 film reels to digitize. His summer project is to edit the video into a DVD for a family reunion. I made a comment about how his siblings must appreciate the work and love that go into a project like this and he laughed. "We've gone on a cruise together, vacationed in Africa, Europe, and I've made some beautiful DVDs for all of us but no one watches them except my wife and I".
His comment reminded me of my own similar experience in the past. My parents are abroad and I made beautiful videos of the children to send them. After many cross-atlantic calls to get them to watch it, they finally did and my dad fell asleep in the middle of it. How insulting. Don't they love their grandchildren enough to watch to the end of the video?
Why don't friends and family watch your videos? I have a few ideas, and it's got nothing to do with whether they love you or not.
1. Home videos are usually long and boring. To the parents, 10 minutes video footage of watching baby eat his peas is darling, to others it's like watching grass grow, death by boredom. Suggestion: Make your videos short and sweet, 3 minutes maximum. Even your 7-day European tour, check out my post on keeping your finished movies 3 minutes or less.
2. Got no humor. Have you noticed that the successful TV commercials are the ones with humor? Same thing with YouTube videos that get millions of views, they are very funny. Like this video on How To Hug a Baby (a Guide for Ambitious Dogs). Suggestion: Turn on your funny bone. Got not funny bone? Find humor videos on the web, watch how they do it.
3. No documentaries please. We play reporter with the video camera, capturing every blow, every turn our marathoner makes, every step up Heartbreak Hill (Boston Marathon), all the way until he disappears into the shower stall. Is this video for the archives or for entertainment? Suggestion: If it's to share with friends and families, I suggest it's more entertaining to capture more details about a specific incident than a long stretch of the event. That's why the Charlie Bit Me video got virally passed around to millions of viewers. Long generalities makes a good historical archive, detailed video clip of an emotion, an incident, an experience makes a good story.
4. It's not on their errand path. How many harried families take a breather, sit down and pop in their old home movies to reminisce? The DVD is much easier to pop into a player but it still takes tearing away from your normal routine to sit down for a home movie. It's not the natural errand path of busy families. Suggestion: Send it by email. I don't mean the actual large video file (or you'll lose even more friends and family), I mean the link to the video that you post on the web. That's just one option, there are many ways to share your video today, be versatile if you want your families and friends to watch your video.
Happy video editing. Remember, keep it short, keep it funny, keep it tight, make it easy for them to watch, and you'll have friends and families raving and asking for more. To do all that, you will need to know how to do simple video editing. If you've been intimidated with that in the past, don't. Today's software, such as Windows Movie Maker (free), and camcorders such as the Flip Video, for example, make the process a lot simpler and quicker. Also many video tutorials out there to guide you every step of the way.
The simplest video editing is when you take out the editing completely. It's rare, but on occassion, you shoot a short snippet that's so perfect you want to share it as is. Like this video of Charlie biting big brother's finger.
This short video about a toothy baby, Charlie, who bites his big brother, has been viewed on YouTube over 12 million times. The video made us chuckle, but if you were Charlie's parents, would you be concerned that the whole world knows about your 2 children by face?
I'll admit that I put my kids, nieces, nephews on YouTube all the time. And I'm not worried. Why? Because, according to Wikipedia, there are over 77 million videos available for viewing on YouTube. I figure the chances that my baby son's music video is going to become another Charlie, or even be viewed by my friends or family, is pretty slim.
There are precaution available to you if you are still concerned about sharing your videos on YouTube. When you first upload your file to YouTube, you will be asked to select from Broadcast Options - Public or Private. By choosing Private you will restrict your video so that it can only be viewed by you and up to 25 other people).
But then your son won't get to be as famous as Charlie…
Electronic greeting cards are getting too corny. Do you even open the ones you get? A typed-up Valentine's Day message just does not feel quite personal. For this Valentine's Day, try sending your sweetheart a message with Sketchcast.com. Sketchcast is an internet drawing application that lets you get creative and romantic with a pen and an eraser. Best of all, it's in your hand-writing. Now, that's personal. And therefore romantic.
Here are 3 Valentine's Day sketchcast to start off your creative juices flowing.
This first one, is just a simple I love You. But I dare say your sweetheart has not seen it expressed this way. Read more
This flip video is so simple to use folks are leaving their fancy camcorders at home and taking this one in their pockets instead. It even comes with a bicycle attachment so you can record your biking tour vistas.
The flip video went from a no-name to beat Sony's camcorder. It's not just it's simplicity to record (press red button to start, press again to stop), it's the simplicity of uploading to your PC. Confession time, how many of us have shoe boxes of video cassettes or mini-DVs in our closets, because we haven't figured out yet how to upload them to our PC to edit and share it with friends and family? With the flip video, you, errrh, flip the USB cable and plug it into your USB slot on your PC. Just like that. Play the video below to see demo.
Prices of these Flip Videos (now in designer colors) have dropped again at least $20 at Amazon.
Watch the video below to see a review by USA Today.
I never buy a gadget without checking out what users say about it. Click here to check out what Flip Video users sayabout this really simple gadget.
I recorded this scene at my work place. It was a weekend afternoon and I had to go into work for something I don't even remember anymore. Anyway, I brought my two kids in and they played some fooz ball while I worked. Then I gave them each a dollar bill to choose whatever they wanted from the vending machine. She wanted Twizzlers. I happened to have my video camcorder.
This video should be required classroom material for any college psychology class. How about you? Did you get the Twizzlers of your life or did someone talk you into having something else instead?
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