JumpCut - Promo Video and Mash-ups Made Easy

Posted by Rene LeMerle in October 9th, 2007

JumpCut - is Yahoo!’s relatively new online video/photo community and mash-up service. After giving it a whirl this week, i was impressed by the ease in which a novice can whip up professional looking videos and image slideshows.

As they state on the website - it’s an easy way to upload, edit (mash-up) and share videos online for free. There’s no shortage of photo and video sharing communities and services online, but it’s JumpCut’s editing tools and collaborative functionality that caught my attention.

They’ve taken the often daunting task (for the non video savvy) of editing image slideshows and videos and made it extremely simple and the outputs are impressive.

All you need to do is upload your various forms of media (photos, video, audio), and using a simple AJAX-ified video timeline, and easy drop in effects, transitions and titles - voila - you have a quasi professional looking production (i don’t think Steven Spielberg is worried just yet).

One of the best parts of JumpCut is the community remixing collaboration. If you’re feeling like getting creative, you can actually mash-up and re-edit other members videos and images - adding your flair to their work.

Here’s a couple of slideshows i created the other day for PodCamp Perth and ineedhits. Both took no more than a couple of hours each (i get easily distracted with bells and whistles).

As you can see, they are fairly decent looking and engaging productions (no thanks to my creative abilities).The one function i’d love to see added is the ability to download videos/slideshows in a video friendly format (mpeg, avi etc) for sharing outside of JumpCut. That said, it does provide the ability to share your efforts with various social networks and new media distribution channels (blogs, social bookmarking services et al.) as well as the usual embed function for websites.

JumpCut is definitely an online video service worth exploring, whether your looking for a fun video/photo editing service or a way to make professional promo videos and slideshows.