This is an excellent and simple way to make basic edits to a video if you don't have a video editor on your computer. The best part is, it doesn't require a download and runs using the Flash plugin, which is installed on approximately 99% of all computers1. Create an account: The first step is to visit http://pixorial.com and create an account. Alternatively, you can log in with your Facebook account and connect your Pixorial videos to your Facebook account. Creating an account is free, as it editing videos. According to the pricing page, you get 10 GB of storage space with a free account which should be more than sufficient for your needs. By comparison, a typical full length movie is 700 MB. Upload video: Once you have an account, you have to upload your video files up to the Pixorial website. According to their terms of use, "you grant to Pixorial a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to use, publish, copy modify, transmit, display and distribute your submissions for the sole purpose of delivering our service to you," which means that Pixorial has the right to distribute and store your video for you, but only for the purpose of allowing you to use the website. This seems to suggest that the copyright for whatever videos you create remains your own. To get started, click on the Upload button, shown below in the screen shot of the landing page once you log in.  Clicking on Upload leads to a new screen, where Pixorial lists some options on what you are allowed to upload.  The restrictions on the files you can upload to Pixorial are that it must be a standard video file (you might have difficulty with files filmed on a cell phone for example). If your video file is not in this format, head over to our page on converting between video formats for some instructions. Alternatively, if your video is an older format, such as on a video cassette tape, you can mail the video to Pixorial, and for a fee they will convert it to digital format (for a fee) and add it to your account so that you can edit it.  If you choose to upload your file, you'll use the form to select a file, and then find it on your computer and upload it. If you have done that correctly, you should see the form change, as in the picture above. Once your files have been uploaded, it may be a couple of minutes until Pixorial converts them to a format that you can edit online. This doesn't generally take very long. When your videos are ready to be edited, they will show up on the same screen where you originally uploaded them, much like my videos above appear. Now that you have some video stored on the Pixorial site, the next step is to click on videos. You may have to wait here for a bit for the video to be converted, but in a test I just did a 20MB movie was almost nearly immediately converted. Your file, once it is converted, will show up in the Masters section of the Video tab of the Pixorial website. Editing video: Once your video shows up, select it by clicking on it once, then find and click on the "Create Stuff" link at the bottom. You'll be directed first to a page where you can edit your video, and eventually to a page where you can find out how to retrieve the video from the website. If you want to include multiple different videos into one larger video, select more than one clip at a time and then click on "Create Stuff."   When you move videos into the storyboard, you essentially create a copy of the video clip. You can then shorten the clip by double clicking on it, which opens up the video clip editing feature. Notice that I can use the right and left trimmers, and by dragging them I can shorten the video clip. This only shortens the copy that I added to the storyboard. I could drag another copy of the video from the video bin, and edit it differently. This is how you can take a single clip, and remove material from in the middle of the clip. One recommendation is that every time you make any substantive changes, you should save your clip. This allows you to keep your changes, should your web browser crash, or you become disconnected from the internet, or there is a power outage, etc... Video Transitions: Now that you can edit the lengths of your clips, move them around, all you need to learn how to do is add video transitions and titles. In order to add transitions between video clips, or between a title screen and a video clip, you click on the Transitions tab at the top of the video editor, and choose one of the transitions to drag into wherever you like in your video clip. To edit the length of a transition, you double click on the transition in the storyboard, and then select "Edit Transition" at the top of the video. All you can do at this point is edit the length of the transition, but perhaps in the future more complicated editing will be possible. Titles: The process for adding a title is very similar to adding a transition, except of course you select the "Title" tab, drag your chosen title into the storyboard, and then double click on the title in the storyboard, and an option to "Edit Title" comes up. You can play with both the transitions and the titles. There are a few options for both. One thing you cannot do in the Pixorial editor is modify or edit the soundtrack, which is unfortunate, however this feature may come in the future. Sharing your video: Once you have edited your video to your satisfaction, make sure it is saved, then click on continue. At this stage, you have a number of choices you can make. For a fee, you can have a DVD of your video sent to any address you like, or you can pay to download a high resolution copy of the video. You can also share it directly through the Pixorial site, with a number of options of from where to redirect people to the show, which seems to be a free option. Viewing a low resolution copy of your video for free is also possible, and you can send a link to the video, which is hosted on Pixorial to anyone you like. Here is a very simple sample which opens in a new tab/window. References: Flash Player Version Penetration. Retrieved March 13th, 2010 from http://www.adobe.com/products/player_census/flashplayer/version_penetration.html. Pixorial tutorial. Retrieved April 7th, 2010 from http://www.pixorial.com/help. |
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