httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=T_P5H3XZ1-Y
I shoot a bunch of video these days. It’s so easy, as everything from my iPod to my iPad to even my camera shoots HD video. And editing it is a blast using iMovie on iOS. But what I don’t like, and what keeps me from editing much of the video I shoot, is dragging through the footage to find the good parts.
Enter Highlight Hunter, a Mac (and PC) app which runs tirelessly through any amount of video and separates out the highlights into discrete 30-second clips, ready for further editing.
The cleverest part of Highlight Hunter is its simplicity. Just film as much as you like and, when something cool happens, just cover the lens for a second with your hand. When you get back to your computer and point Highlight Hunter at the folder of clips, it will run through and detect these black spots, marking up to 30 seconds of video before them as a highlight.
It will then save these clips ready for posting to the internet or editing in iMovie.
I tried the app out quickly using an awesome action movie of me walking through my apartment. I guess I didn’t quite cover the lens of my iPod touch quite enough, as even with the highlight detection set to “Loosest” the app found nothing. I’m sure that it’s just fine when used properly, but the process itself was a little annoying.
It goes like this: You shoot your video. Then you import that video to you computer, and then point the app at the folders or files.
Analysis is fast, and you’re left with a bunch of clips, which you then need to export to your iPad, or send to iMovie. This much work kind of defeats the point of having iMovie and a 1080p camera on an iPad.
Still, for sports people, who might leave their GoPro cameras running through a whole game (or downhill run), being able to highlight by just putting a hand up to your helmet is a great feature,
In short, this is better for sports than for movie-making. You can try it for free, and upgrade to the faster, watermark-free pro version for $30.
[Thanks, Noah!]
