Tuesday, June 22, 2010

New YouTube Video Editor

So youtube has finally added a video editing capability. It's actually pretty snazzy, though its not likely to revolutionize video editing in general, but it does give you some added creative possibilities with your online videos.

Up till now, all you could do was upload to YouTube whatever video you've got, whether its something taken with a point and shoot in a dark bar or your film school magnum opus, and that's that. Hopefully you'd remember to actually title it something. In that case you were way ahead of the game compared to most.

Now, you have the added capability of taking pieces of your uploaded videos and combining them into whatever new videos you'd like to create. Kind of like a DJ mash up, a VJ mash up if you will. (Bonus points to anyone who remembers where the term VJ actually originated from). You can take cuts from a single video multiple times and just keep repeating their placements in the timeline to create a shorter, condensed, and better edited version of the video, and also combine other video footage with it. It's actually pretty cool.

Audio is a bit tricky, unless you want to replace the sound entirely from Youtube's built in library. That'll put some banner advertisements on your page, but music is definitely an added plus considering there really isn't any special audio editing you can do. So unless you like abrupt sound cuts and audio spikes, I suggest rethinking your opinion on montages. They maybe cliche, but they always work in a pinch.

Some of you maybe thinking you can now create a completely new video from scratch using this new YouTube feature as an "online video editor", but that's really not the case. In theory you could try, but it would be a pretty painstaking process, especially if you've got a lot of footage to parse and edit. But if you have only a few clips of video you'd like to string together, this new YouTube editor will do just that.

Overall, a much needed and appreciated extra perk from the folks at YouTube.