Like most of us, you probably have a bunch of photographs sitting around on your computer, collecting cyber-dust. Instead of letting them go to waste, why not create an awesome video slideshow with them?
Animoto is a free website that makes it easy to make professional-looking music videos from your photos. The app is highly rated and has great reviews.
Whether for personal or professional use, the videos you create using Animoto can be shared on social networks like Facebook and Twitter, or embedded onto websites. The program is free to use, although you will have to pay extra for more advanced features.
What Does Animoto Do?
When you’re looking to make a video, there are many considerations you need to make to have your video stand out:
- Do you want to use a pre-existing song or audio, or are you going to make your own?
- Do you want to add in your own photos, or use video clips?
- Do you want to add any effects or transitions?
Animoto simplifies the video-making process by streamlining the different steps. It provides a place to edit, upload and share your final video.
The service is a breeze to use and the results look very polished. You’ll even find some special effects you won’t find in other video-creation programs.
Is Animoto Any Good? Why?
Animoto is a great solution for video creation. This is because everyone deserves top-notch tools when they want to make video content, not just the professionals.
Animoto also makes it fun to create videos using pictures, video clips and original music. The easy to use controls makes it possible for nearly anyone to quickly and easily learn how to use it.
Animoto Main Features
Since the advent of the smartphone, mobile photo applications have quickly progressed. You can use them to create a short video clip that you can share to just about anywhere.
Animoto’s applications lets users quickly share their experiences with friends and family. Some have even found a real business in creating these clips to share with their customers. (For example, a restaurant might want to share a video of their dishes on their website.)
Drag and Drop
Create a video for free? Check. That looks like it took a lot of effort? Check. That’s the promise of Animoto. The online video creation service lets you upload photos, music, and video clips easily. Thanks to the drag and drop feature of the app, no video experience necessary.
Animoto Pre-Built Templates
Say you want a holiday card or a full-blown music video. You can easily craft a personalized video — complete with soundtracks, effects, and transitions — in minutes. If you’re not satisfied with the automatic results, you can edit the video in more detail.
The new pre-built templates in the latest version of the app are a great way to get started.
Pre-built templates are like a cheat sheet for creating awesome videos. Think of them as a bunch of ideas that are already put together for you.
So all you have to do is choose the one that suits you best. You can make videos in a montage format, with an artsy photo slideshow or even a time-lapse. However you want it, there’s a pre-built template for you.
Easy To Share on Social Networks
People use sites like Animoto to primarily share something. Sharing is especially useful for showing something that’s meant to be viewed by a large audience.
Sharing beats adding a link to your video and hoping that your viewers will take the time to share it themselves.
With Animoto, you can give them a pre-made post and let them share your video from their own accounts. You can actually personalize and add your own music. You can also share your video directly to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and more.
Animoto Stock Library
With the Animoto Stock Library, you get access to nearly 100,000 beautiful videos to use in your Animoto projects. When you select a video, you can preview it, add it to a project, and export it.
You can also download your video to use in other projects. Because these videos are free to use, you’ll want to make sure that you follow the Animoto Terms of Use before using them.
This guide is available at the Animoto site.
Animoto Music Library
Each of the 14 million tracks in the Animoto Music Library is an original recording, not a cover of a cover. This is because Animoto owns all the music in their library and has full control over the use of the music.
Animoto’s makers also created a number of custom music arrangements for their videos: the “Ballad” and “Pop Rock” themes were created by Grammy-nominated composer and arranger Tom Holkenborg. He did the film score for the movie Inception.
The “Latin” and “Pop” themes were created by Grammy-nominated producer Konrad OldMoney. Some of these arrangements are based on the original recordings, while others were “translated” from a different genre or era.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Animoto Safe?
Animoto is a cloud-based video production service that allows users to create beautiful, animated videos and share them over social networks. That being said, the service is considered to be as safe as any web-based online service.
The site’s security certificate is valid, which means that payment transactions will be safe and encrypted.
With the use of a proper username and password supplied by you, there should be no problems. The service also is easily checked out with security software such as Norton Safeweb, which found the site to be totally secure.
Is Animoto Easy To Use?
Is Animoto easy to use? Absolutely. Tools like drag and drop and helpful online instructions make it a breeze to use Animoto. The service has plenty of documentation available that allows you to quickly put together video slideshows.
Your photos or video clips can be shared instantly on Facebook or email. One of the features that makes Animoto so unique is the ability to add captions and titles to your videos, thus adding a creative element to your finished piece.
More than just “slideshows”, Animoto makes it easy to create professional-looking videos that you can share on social media, email, or post on your own website.
Pros and Cons
While Animoto is very good software, it’s not perfect. But it’s a great tool for a lot of people who easily want to make videos and share them. Let’s check out the pros and cons below.
Pros
Easy to Use
- The software is pretty easy to use. It comes with very handy documentation to get you started in no time flat.
Mobile App
- Animoto’s mobile app is fun and easy to use, yet powerful at the same time. The intuitive interface lets you easily create and share your videos or promotions on-the-fly.
Quality
- There are a huge amount of features, but the huge template galleries stand out. The pre-built templates are a huge plus. They let you quickly complete your project. The music selection is fantastic.
Social Networks
- Sharing your creations to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and of course, YouTube is a breeze.
- Your projects can also be embedded for use on your own site for example. You can even email your creations if you want.
Cons
It’s Not Free if You Want The Good Stuff
- There is a free tier, although it is limited (50 music tracks, 3 types of fonts and 30 color backgrounds).
- You can still make easy videos and other things, but your shared creations will have the Animoto branding attached.
Method of payment
- Customers have mentioned that the automatic payment option will be turned on by default, which they don’t always realize.
A Bit Expensive
- Animoto is a business like any other. They charge for their premium services. Although there is a free tier, the paid services can be expensive for some.
The Current Fees:
- Professional tier is $180 annually. The monthly fee is $29.
- Team tier is $468 annually. The monthly fee is $79.
At those prices, there are other alternatives available that will do even more than Animoto offers. There are even truly professional software suites online that would compete well against Animoto’s offering.
Wrapping Up
We hope you enjoyed our review of Animoto. If you need to do quick but sophisticated videos, sideshows and marketing promotion then Animoto will fit the bill. The massive variety of art and music templates is hard to beat.
The free tier is great for beginners. If you want access to the full music and art libraries, you’ll have to pay. We’d recommend Animoto to those who are really going to use the service quite often to get their money’s worth.
Animoto’s ease of use is what people like best about the service, and we can’t blame them. The tutorials are very good, and it’s very simple to share your creation to social networks, email, etc.
All in all, Animoto offers people ease of use to get their videos and other creations online as quickly as possible. Animoto is highly recommended.