It’s gotten really easy to create videos. You can shoot them on your mobile phone, your digital camera — maybe you have one of those cool Flip cameras — but you may find that the quality of your quick videos may not be all that great.
Also you’ll find that there’s that 5 second sequence that is really cute of your dog jumping in the pool but you don’t want to watch (and share) the first two minutes of the video you shot where you beg and lure the poor animal into the water. Then there is the problem of how to share your masterpiece — don’t try and email a large video file.
Jumpcut.com is a great web-based free companion to your video camera and after testing several online video sites, Jumpcut got our attention as the best and smoothest, even though it claims to still be in beta test. After signing up for Jumpcut you can upload your videos, edit, then share them. If you don’t have videos, you can make automated slide show videos from your photographs.
If you already store your photos or short videos on Flickr you can bring automatically bring them into Jumpcut.
You can do a number of edits on your video including splicing and adding transitions, adding audio tracks (.mp3s or .wav files), adding title frames, special effects — some goofy playful, some useful. and adding more video or photographs. When you’re done you can share your video on Jumpcut or add it to a website, a blog, a social network or send it by email.
While we recommend Jumpcut because it’s free, useful, easy-to-use and powerful, there were a couple of other sites we tested that deserve mention.
Motionbox.com – Another video sharing site that allows you to combine your video and audio and then share online. Motionbox has a free limited-service but annoyingly starts trying to get you to upgrade to the paid service as soon as you sign-up. Though there are a few “for pay” services that sound like fun — the funest, in our opinion, would be convert your video into a “flip book” — one of those old-time books with a frame on each page that appear to move as you flip the pages.
Fixmymovie.com – Also interesting, Fixmymovie, will allow you to upload your movie and will attempt to enhance the quality of the video. You can then share the fixed video with a link to the website or email it to a friend or share it directly on Fixmymovie. The service is free, but if you want to download the enhanced video, they charge a fee.
