Automatic video editor Magisto is now open to the public. A public which is taking more video footage than ever thanks to smartphones, but which has less time than ever to edit them before posting to the Web. These guys could be onto something.
Magisto Begins
How often have you shot hours of video and promised yourself that one day soon you’ll find the time to edit it down to the bare essentials, deleting all the parts that don’t matter, that you didn’t look right, that won’t need keeping for your grandkids to look at?
Magisto is hoping that lots of you out there answered with a resounding chorus of, “I do it all the time!” Because anyone that did is a potential customer for the Web application which automatically (perhaps automagically is more fitting) edits your videos.
Magisto Booms
Magisto is an Israeli startup previously funded by Magma Venture Partners. Magma has now reinvested alongside Horizons Ventures, the investment firm of Li Ka-Shing, currently the 11th richest person in the world. Total Series B funding has come in at $5.5 million.
The company has been in closed beta since April, with 20,000 users creating 40,000. Magisto is now open to the public and employing a freemium business plan which adds extra features such as HD video and removing the Magisto branding.
Automatic Video Editing
Magisto effectively takes the video or multiple video clips you upload to its servers, analyzes the content using all manner of different techniques that are beyond the understanding of us mere mortals, and edits the footage down into short movies.
The only user input is to choose a title and a piece of music to act as the soundtrack. The finished film will have a range of effects, including transitions, wipes, and split-screens, as can be seen in the example video embedded below.
Conclusions
There are existing alternatives already out there – MuVee, Animoto, WeVideo – but Magisto appears to have simplified things beyond all recognition of what any other company has achieved.
This may mean not all the clips automatically edited by the software come out as predicted, but most people will likely be happy with the results.
[Via CNET]
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