If there's one bothersome side effect of getting a long Web video sent to you, it's getting to the good parts. In some cases, the part your friend wanted you to see could be a few minutes in, and you might not have the time (or patience) to sit through the rest. A service called Splicd fixes this, by letting anyone drop in a YouTube video URL, then pick the start and end point.
It's not a very pretty implementation, but it works. You've got to manually plug in the start and end times, which requires skipping around to the part you want in YouTube, then heading back to Splicd. Once it's worked it through, you get a permalinked page that you can share with friends.
What's nice about this system is that it doesn't require extra time to re-encode the video; when you've put in those changes it's instantaneous. The downside to that is that the finished product cannot be shared outside of Splicd's site.
I expect that YouTube will eventually offer such a feature in its own player. Competitor Viddler has offered it for some time now, and with that system you can control those times on embeds, too.
Here's a clip I put together from a longer one, although in this case you might want to watch the full video to understand what's going on.
[via Lifehacker via Life Rocks 2.0]
Have you ever produced a video without adding captions simply because you didn't want to bother using your video editor's clunky, built-in captioning tools? Better yet, want to add captions to someone else's video? Check out Overstream, a service that lets you add text captions to videos from a handful of hosting sites including the big two: YouTube and Google Video.
Diving right in to captioning a video is simple. Once you've given Overstream the URL, it sends you to the Flash-based editor, which at first glance may look complicated, but is about as simple as it gets. If you're used to the timeline controls of any old video player you'll feel right at home--just pick the spot of video where you want to add a caption and start typing away. Overstream will automatically add each caption as a 3-second chunk. If you need to make it shorter or longer, there are toggle controls you can dial up or down, and buttons to send it right next to the neighboring caption.
Additionally, you can see exactly where the caption will end in a color-coded bar that sits below the video's timeline, and tweaking it down to the exact half second or so requires no technical knowhow whatsoever; just drag the bar to the part of the video you want. When finished with any additions you can kick the video back out to Overstream, where it'll be hosted from its original service provider (via embed) while overlaying the captions you've created below.
While Miss South Carolina might not have made a whole lot of sense, Overstream's captioning tools do, and are easy enough that a total newbie can figure them out.
(Credit: CNET Networks)To test the service, I used the infamous video of Miss South Carolina butchering the question about map proficiency in the United States, and adding captions to the 48-second clip took a matter of minutes. Larger dialogue-heavy segments will certainly take longer, but the editor supports as many captions as you're able to fit. You can view the finished product here.
There are several other captioning services that have done this including BubblePLY, Viddler, and several that have closed up shop including Click.TV and Mojiti. More tech-savvy folks should also give JumpCut a spin, which can do captions on top of its basic video-editing tools.
[via gHacks via DownloadSquad]
(Credit:
CNET Networks)
One of the most frequent questions I get from CNET Download.com users is "What free software can I use to edit video?" If I didn't respond to you personally, it's likely because there's not an easy answer. It depends on what type of video you have, and what you want to do with it.
Let's start with the basics. If you didn't know, you likely already have Windows Movie Maker, which was included with Windows XP Service Pack 2 and recently beefed up for Windows Vista.
Windows Movie Maker offers a simple interface, but frustations may abound.
(Credit: Microsoft Corporation)The XP version of Movie Maker is adequate for putting together clips into larger videos, adding simple transitions, and making basic edits, but I can't recommend the experience. The review on CNET Download.com is overly harsh, but it encapsulates several problems you may encounter. ... Read more
- Original Signal rolls out meme tracker. The single-page aggregation service has added a new front page to their Web section. The page displays the top 10 most popular stories at any given time. The new service uses an algorithm that decides when a story is worthy of being on the front page without any additional user interaction required beyond browsing the site. Something similar was done with Spotplex, which we checked out last month.
- eJamming launches. The virtual garage for musicians to 'jam' in different geographical locations launched their AUDiiO service this morning. The app has versions for both Windows and Mac OS X, and is free during the testing period. Previous coverage here.
- Google updates mobile search. Google has simplified and optimized search results for fewer clicks while using the mobile version of the search engine. They've also added location memory, so you don't need to reenter what area you're searching in. What may be the neatest addition is a personalized version of Google's mobile homepage, which can be set up with your favorite tools or services.
- Museum takes a cue from Flickr. Web services such as Flickr and Gmail have pioneered the use of tagging, making it easier to sort through large collections of pictures and words. Taking a cue from this movement, museums are beginning to add tags to pieces of art with description-based words. Steve, a collaborative research project, offers free open-source software for them to get started. The goal is to make collections easier to sort through for people who can't remember the name or creator of a work of art. (CNET News.com)
- Adobe Remix goes live. Adobe's free Web-based video-editing tool is now available to all Photobucket users. The tool, which we covered last month, lets Photobucket users string together and edit video clips taken from their digital cameras. Since our hands-on, Photobucket teamed up with PumpAudio to provide more music tracks to add to videos. The company also redesigned their front door earlier in the month, placing more emphasis on user photos.
Note: This post has been updated from it's original publishing. It now contains a hands-on video overview of Remix.
Adobe's Remix is a new Web-based video editing tool that will be provided free to all Photobucket members in the coming weeks. Remix allows you to string together and edit short video clips. We covered the announcement of the online video editor last week, but got our hands on it this morning.
Remix is essentially a stripped-down version of Adobe Premiere Elements. You get a timeline with clips and transitions, along with a source bin containing all the media from your Photobucket account. Adding clips to your movie is as simple as dragging and dropping. There's also a handy clipping tool if you feel like cutting out the boring bits. There are only three transitions to choose from, and they're all fades. This might seem like a letdown, but honestly if you've ever edited video before, you know some of the flashier transitions aren't necessarily better than the fundamentals.
To put the finishing touches on your movie you can add titles and all sorts of cheesy digital overlays, like a police hat or gingerbread people (both genders are provided). You also can add thought or chat bubbles with customizable text. What really feels off about adding all these effects is that you can only add one to each clip. There is a way to get around this--by cutting your clips into pieces to make them separate--but it would be nice to have a separate timeline for overlays, as the majority of video editing apps provide.
You also can add music to your film, though not your own. The library of music clips is fairly large, although you've probably never heard the tracks. There's no way to add voice narration.
When you're done with your masterpiece, there are the standard URL and embed links, but no way to locally save or export your video to other formats. No doubt Adobe wants you to buy one of its video editing programs for this. This also means there's no way to archive your videos--you've got to rely on Photobucket to keep running.
I like Adobe Remix for the casual stringing together of clips. It's really easy to use and quite fast. The Photobucket integration is spot-on, but don't be surprised if you see Remix popping up in other sites, since the partnership isn't exclusive. It will be interesting to see where it shows up next.
Vandalism is a primal urge for some, and even little things like tearing up junk mail can unleash the inner vandal in all of us. Vidavee wants you to run with that feeling, with its new service Vidavee Graffiti. Essentially, Vidavee Graffiti lets you drop in a number of Flash animations that run on top of hosted Flash videos (like YouTube). The entire interface runs in your Web browser, so there's nothing to download and no rendering is required. The point is to have fun, and likely at the video's expense.
There are 21 preset animations at your disposal, and it's handled through a simple drag-and-drop manager. For each effect you get some basic timeline control, to set how long it will be on the screen and at what point it appears in the clip. In my test video I managed to add over 20 effects to a three-minute clip, and the interface didn't even hiccup. Most of the effects right now are fairly kitschy, including a giant baby chicken that will envelop the screen and peck your content. There are also space aliens and fake explosions. Kids are going to love this.
(Credit:
CNET Networks)
When you're all done, you've got two simple sharing options--a link to your creation, and an embedded code for blogs and social networking profiles. There's not really an option to save it locally or re-upload it to a video hosting service, which is kind of a shame. I bet people would have a lot of fun inserting the giant baby chicken into videos, or making their own horror movie using Vidavee for cheesy special effects. I had my way with a Diet Coke and Mentos clip from YouTube--you can watch my Vidavee Graffiti clip here.
Eventually, Vidavee wants you to be able to add your own effects to videos and create your own set of effect presets. I can easily see this turning into a small social network of its own. In the meantime it's an eclectic time-waster with potential for mayhem.
[Found on Mashable]
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