Continuing from the Part one, where we reviewed Slideshare, we have saved even a better product for you in the Second part. Its Animoto - A auto video generation website, that allows user to choose images and music of his/her choice and create a video.
Animoto uses a patent pending Cinematic Artificial Intelligence ™ technology, that thinks like an actual director and editor. It analyzes and combines user-selected images and music with the same sophisticated post-production skills & techniques that are used in television and film, besides high motion designs ensuring no two videos are same ever (Even when identical images, music and order is used). Have a look on the sample video.
The main page starts with a demo and the user feels comfortable with the new product, thanks to some thought put by the creators for user experience. Creating a video is rather straight forward.
- Choose a video type. You can have a 30 sec short video (free version - for 10 to 12 images (approx.)) or a bigger Full length video (Paid version - unlimited number of images and music upto 10 MB).
- Upload the image(s), either from your computer or retrieve them using one of the sharing website (Flickr, Facebook, Smugmug, Picase and photobucket are supported by Animoto)
- Upload the music, from your computer or from Animoto's collection. (Yes, they have a decent collection of music in 3 different genre - Indie Rock, Electronica and Hip Hop and you can obviously hear the sample before selecting it)
- Provide some information about the Video, such as Name and description (for end-of-video credits) . If you think you need to make some changes, in the process, you can always go back. (before creating the video that is).
Click the Create Video button, sit back and relax. Watch your video being created or wander to some distractions provided in terms of youtube videos. Watching these videos do not interrupt (or even affect, I suppose) the video creation process.
Wait a couple of minutes and Voila!! your own, brand new, unique video is ready. you will be intimated about this on your email too, so you need not keep waiting on the website for long.
The feature that strike me the most is the simplicity of the process . Video creation is a breeze and extremely easy. User interface is pretty decent too.
The 3 month old website (well, 2.5 to be more precise) is doing pretty good with the video creations, but the speed of video is not very fast. Also more added features are welcome too. Sadly, I dint get the embed code for the sample video for my free account (or may be I simply missed where it was(!?))
The Tech Mag Rating - 7.0/10
PS - The company intent to acquire Google next year!
Edit - Thanks to Nate for providing the embed code of the sample video.
Disclaimer - The Tech Mag and the author are not affiliated with either the product being showcased or the company. The Tech Mag and the author do not claim authority or ownership to any Videos/Slides/Photos/MP3 or data in other format, not hosted on The Tech Mag or the Associate Websites.
6 Responses to Product Review - Part 2 (Animoto)
Thanks for the great review of Animoto. I wanted to point you to the post online button below the video player page within Animoto. You can grab the embed code there so you can post to your blog.
Nate, One of the Animoto Guys
Ok, I will see an make the changes (Also add the video)
ANIMOTO SUCKS ASS - ONE PROJECT FROZE AND I CAN'T EDIT ANY OTHER PROJECTS IN MY ACCOUNT AFTRER PAYING FOR PROFESSIONAL ACCESS
ANIMOTO SUCKS ASS!
since you fail to reply to my repeated emails:
I was working on a single project that hung during rendering.
totally unrelated projects had previously been created, so i went to edit one or ANY OF THEM - and am always brought back to the failed project.
I have deleted the failed projects from my account, and am still brough to edit that project when I click editing remix.
Your careless reply was to just create another project from scratch, which doesn't help at all because I can't even find out where I set the music to begin.
I PAID YOU IN FULL UP FRONT FOR PROFESSIONAL LEVEL ACCESS.
QUIT BLOCKING EVERY PROJECT IN MY ACCOUNT BECAUSE ONE FAILS ON YOUR END AND YOU DON'T CARE ENOUGH TO FIX IT EVEN THOUGH IT'S BEEN 4 DAYS THAT I HAVE BEEN REQUESTING SUPPORT!
IF YOU WON'T FIX IT, GIVE ME ANOTHER ACCOUNT SO I CAN CREATE THEM FROM SCRATCH ALL OVER AGAIN AND GET THESE CLIENT PROJECTS FINISHED!!!!
Hi,
I'm Rebecca and work at ANIMOTO. In reference to the blog poster who said we sucked you know what, we did indeed answer his e-mails, and eventually worked out his issue. Once in a while a video gets stuck in our system. We troubleshoot the issue and he successfully made a video. If you ever have issues using ANIMOTO, write to theguys@animoto.com for assistance.
Take care,
Rebecca
The software is very easy to use and basic but no level of control and a very clumsy picture selection/display is frustrating. Only 1/2 speed, normal speed, and 2x speed options for control are also quite limiting. Some more options and this would be the "end of slideshows" but the huge difference of control in slide show software and this simply makes it a "flashy alternative to slideshows".
WHY can't u allow more than 25 characters for title and 30 for body. For my school project book report we are forced to use animoto. I can't get my point across with only 55 characters total to work off of. Windows movie maker is 10000000000000000000000000000000000x better. again.... WHY bring about such inconvenience!
Something to say?