Video Sharing Software - Pixorial and FlipShare

I agreed to review the services of Pixorial quite a long time ago. It was such a sweet offer: send us a bunch of your old home videos, we'll digitize them, upload them to a website, and you can edit and create movies with them. Bam! Considering that most of our home video footage is on mini DV and (cough cough) VHS-C, I loved this opportunity.

I have no way to digitize VHS-C footage, so I appreciate Pixorial's mission. They'll take VHS, VHS-C, MiniDV, Hi8 cassette, 8mm cassette and (GASP) Betamax, all for different prices. Shipping is secure, as far as I have experienced, and you receive your media back once the digitizing is done.

Of course, then it took me almost six months to get my act together. I've had media sitting on their servers for quite a while. Tonight I finally played around with it, and here is one result:



The editing tools are rudimentary and clumsy, and there doesn't seem to be an option to add a music track. But if you want to take a long video tape and break it into shorter clips that you can then email to friends and family, this service is fantastic.

I was inspired to finally play around with Pixorial because today I got my Flip Video camcorder in the mail from Amazon (yes I actually paid for it). It was SO EASY to get it up and running. It even came with 2 AA batteries! Pop them in, turn the camera on, and you're off. Here's my test video:



Videos are loaded to your computer with the FlipShare software that comes in the camera. This, too, has rudimentary editing tools. Very rudimentary. The trim tool is not very intuitive and you have to open separate windows for each file to trim it, then if you want to edit clips together you drag them into another window blah blah blah and then 100 years later you have a movie. At least you get to add music, but after all that, why bother? It is easy, however, to upload videos to the internet. Just click on youtube and it loads right to your account.

The convenience of this pocket-sized camera (well, a large pocket) and the quality of the video is worth the splurge, I say. I used my birthday money towards the purchase. Happy birthday to me! For editing purposes, I will look elsewhere.