Sharing the power

My friend Matt invited me to check out Kaltura, a communal video editing community (Their main site doesn’t support Safari so Safari users should take a look at their blog).

Their current plan is that you join up and initiate projects that can be shared with whoever you want. You come up with the kind of video you want to make, upload some clips, and invite people to add clips or make their own edits.

The concept is that this site gives access for ‘normal people’ to the tools for them to collaborate in editing films. More than one person can upload footage, more than one person can edit.

Each ‘Kaltura’ is ‘a community of clips and edits’. If you are a fan of a band, you could set up a site where you and others can upload clips and make fan videos. If you want to make a campaigning video, you can add clips of footage that might help get the message across.

The video editor looks like an early version of iMovie. It’s flash based, so there don’t seem to be any keyboard shortcuts or mouse shortcuts.

Or an Undo feature.

All footage is assumed to be 4:3 ratio. There are a variety of transition types. You get one layer of video (with a text overlay channel) and three sound channels: from the clip on the timeline, a channel for music and effects (they need to be bounced down to a single file) and a channel for voiceover.

Do projects benfit from multiple editors? Could this be used for a team collaborating on edits? If this is offline resolution, how do I get the EDL so I can do the online?

…and when will they support Apple Safari?