Image slideshows have been around for a while. We are used to wading through the monotone pace of image slidheshows from our albums in computer or photo services such as Flickr, Picasa, etc.

Animoto aims to put an end to image slideshows as we know it.

Animoto is a web application that takes your images and a song of your choice and creates a short video with incredible image transitions that sync with the rise & fall of vocals, rhythm, etc in the song.

Before diving into the details lets see how quickly I can create an Animoto video.

How to Create a Video in Animoto?

• Sign up for a free account
• Choose to do a short 30-sec video or a full length video
• Choose to upload images from your computer
• Or pick one of the following services: Flickr, Facebook, Picasa, Photobucket, etc.
• I chose Flickr & chose a set from my Flickr account after authorizing Animoto to access Flickr
• Then wait a few mins when Animoto gets your images and processes them
• Once it grabs your images you can choose to keep them all or delete the ones you don’t want
• Then choose a song from their collection or upload your own.
• Then finalize your video with a title and description and let Animoto works it’s magic.
• Email the video, download it or even embed in a webpage to share in with others. (like I have done here)

If you had more than 15 images Animoto will warn you that you some images might get cut off or you can choose the full length version.

Here’s my Animoto creation

It took a good 10 minutes for the video to be created but looking at the output it was well worth the coffee break I took while waiting for it. (Feed readers may not show this, so click over to see the sample video)

Mind you I didn’t spend hours doing this, probably less than a min in selecting pics and a song.

Story behind Animoto

Animoto was created by folks who wroked in the video industry and this was born out of their desire to bring the professional film like effects we see on TV and films to everyone.

Animoto works by analyzing and combining user-selected images and music with the same sophistication that goes into post-production techniques used in films and television.

The technology takes into account every nuance of a song - the genre, song structure, energy, rhythm, vocals, etc.

And guess what? No 2 videos are ever alike. Ever. Even with the same set of images. That’s the beauty of Animoto.

So, would you be giving this a try?

Update: 12/03/08

Animoto has added some Holiday cheer by making it easy to create a holiday greeting! Check it out.

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