Magisto - Automated Video Editing from Raw Footage

I came across Magisto's new 'Magical video editing in a Click' site via Mashable's article,
Automated Video Editing Site Makes Movie Magic Out of Raw Footage.

If the above two link titles don't give you a clue about what this new start up site does then I'll elaborate. The purpose of the site is to take a bunch of raw camera footage (i.e. unedited, direct from your camera footage) and, using the sites built in subject recognition algorithms, produce a finished, professionally edited, short video with an audio music track that you can share with your family, friends and other people in your online social networks.

The site is not targeted at the the video professional and is definitely not designed for long format video. Rather it's for the average person filming short grabs of live video such as clips of the family, places traveled to, family pets etc. who wouldn't normally take the time to edit that kind of footage together. Thus often posting lengthy unedited clips to social sites like Facebook and Youtube.

For me it was an interesting proposition. Even though I do know how to edit video with a semi professional film makers eye I do capture a lot of footage with my mobile phone and camera, mostly of our pet dog, Oscar, and cat, Casper, that I usually can't be bothered editing. Thus it sits on my hard drive unseen or, I post the occasional unedited clip to Facebook.

So this morning I went on my usual walk to the park with Oscar and filmed some clips. I tried to film at Oscar's level (though this can be a little tricky with such a small dog) as much as possible but beyond that I kept my clips as spontaneous as possible. Below is the resulting clip, which Magisto allows you to upload directly to Youtube.

The two opening shots are earlier videos that were on my camera whilst all the footage of Oscar wearing his walking harness I filmed for this test.

To create the video, I uploaded 12 clips of footage, direct from my camera, each between 20-40 seconds long. Magisto has a limit of 16 clips or 600mb. My footage was all HD footage and totaled roughly 486MB all up.

Next I entered a title - 'Oscar'.

Finally I chose a music track. There are plenty of contemporary tracks, classic tunes and older hits to choose from, which I liked.

Once you've chosen your music, you just sit back and wait for your clips to finish uploading then wait for an email saying your video is ready (the time this takes varies depending on your clip length).

From there it's a simple case of clicking on the links for Facebook, Youtube, twitter or email to share your video.

Overall I thought the site does it's job rather well. It's a little hit and miss and quite ruthless with how much it leaves out - my raw footage totaled about 6 minutes in length and was reduced to just over a minute - but the end result is still very satisfactory.

If you can't be bothered editing and you film a lot of random family moments or experiences then this just might be the tool that turns your footage into something far more watchable for your family and friends.

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