Animoto

Animoto is overflowing with marketing spin and designed to appeal to the most non-technical of users, but they actually have good algorithms for music video generation, unlike many competing programs (even Adobe Premiere Elements, and, to an extent, Pinnacle Studio 16 and Stupeflix. magisto is another possibility but has few options), so it enjoys much popularity.

But muvee Reveal X has algorithms that seem at least as good, and, in some areas, better. (Although its impossible to make an objective comparison because Animoto offers zero documentation of how theirs work.) It has the same automatic editing for action parts of clips, position matching of elements from clip to clip (including a small amount of zooming to create better matches), and cutting and re-timing to synchronize visual movements with music beats and loudness. The difference is:

1. very little wait for rendering.
2. no waste of internet bandwidth or time uploading.
3. more ability to customize. Mix and match parts of different styles with open-source code. There's documentation in their forum on how to customize styles. The short, trite sample videos they use for marketing are a poor representation of how powerful their system is and don't explain all the program can do.

But it too lacks:

1. speed transitions. There's only slow or fast motion of the same speed throughout each clip.
2. the ability to just give thumbs down to a clip that doesn't work well and have another random one ready to go in its place. You can auto-randomize, but it always generates a whole new video and the timings of the parts that were good are re-randomized too, with no way to lock them down. You can stitch together the good parts of many randomizations in a NLE, but they don't fit exactly, so you waste a bunch of time trying to find clips to put in the gaps.

This is a key feature I haven't been able to find a program or plug-in for, even in high-end NLEs. If anyone knows of one, please add it.

After a couple of days Animoto refunded me my money because - get this - when you make a video it is automatically cut down to the length of the music, or the number of pictures, which ever is shorter. So, if you have a 3 minute song and you want to show only 10 pictures, but you want the 3 minute song to play all the way through, and the pictures to repeat until the music is over, you CAN'T! So stupid. Animoto finally gave me my money back for such a horrible product. I found an open source product that did nearly the same thing.

I paid for full length videos and I got them. Several times. It works. And very well indeed.

Animoto sucks for several reasons. Don't be fooled by their pretty website. The user interface and user experience is so over simplified that it's impossible to figure out how to do things that should be easy. They free service makes crappy 30 second videos has a horrible bit rate. Their customer service is non-existent.

And worst of all. They steal a lot of peoples money. They stole money from me in fact. I paid for full length videos and never got them. That's money down the drain. Use Animoto at your own risk.

Animoto is just fantastic and amazing. See for your self! :)

It's possible to create a free account and make your videos. But, believes me, you will want the paid account, because it's just amazing.

5 stars.