Animoto Adds HD and Boosts Speed, Simplicity of Popular Online Service for Creating Pro-Quality Videos From Photos and Videos

NEW YORK, Feb. 7, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Award-winning online video creation service Animoto (www.animoto.com) today announced it is launching a significantly enhanced version of its popular service making it easier, faster and more fun than ever for consumers to produce professional-quality videos from their photos and videos. As part of the revamp, Animoto now enables users to create HD-quality videos and to process their completed videos 10 times faster than in the past. What's more, Animoto's freshly redesigned Web site is even more intuitive than before, walking consumers through a very simple, streamlined process – from selecting photos and video styles to adding music – for creating high-impact video slideshows in just minutes.

"With today's launch, we have taken what we have always been passionate about  – giving people the tools to become great digital storytellers – and made it substantially more accessible and user-friendly," said Brad Jefferson, CEO & Co-founder of Animoto. "At the same time, we've sped up the video rendering process tremendously – shortening the user's 'time to video' – and boosted video resolution quality in a big way by adding HD.  Now, even the least tech savvy among us can look like a serious video pro in minutes."

Industry-leading Animoto has built its reputation on making it easy and fun for anyone to transform photos and/or video into an impressive video slideshow complete with music, animation, text and much more – no expertise required.  The web-based service allows consumers to quickly turn out videos that range from energy-packed to sentimental, while leaving the "heavy lifting" to Animoto.  For iPhone users, Animoto even has an iPhone app that allows them to create Animoto videos from their iPhone without ever touching a computer.  

What makes this possible is Animoto's patent-pending Cinematic Artificial Intelligence^® (CAI) technology that automatically crafts animation design based on both the user's images and nuances in the music, producing a highly polished product. Once completed, the personalized videos can be shared immediately via Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, email, DVDs and more.  With the range of resolutions available for Animoto videos, they look great on any screen, from the iPhone to large HD television screen.

"Armed with digital cameras, camcorders and cell phones, people are capturing and sharing more photos and video clips today than ever," added Jefferson. "However, they typically share a single image or clip that doesn't convey the emotion of the story they are trying to tell.  Our service, especially with its latest enhancements, solves this issue. It gives users an ultra simple, speedy, fun and beautiful way to more fully share moments in their lives with engaging video – from weddings and birthday parties to Valentine's Day or a big night out."

Getting started with Animoto is easy and the service is available for free, or via a variety of affordable plans. Animoto Lite offers unlimited free 30-second videos.  Animoto Plus provides unlimited full-length (10 minutes or less) videos for $5 per month or $30 per year; with HD and DVD available for $6 and $3, respectively. For photographers, businesses and other professionals, Animoto Pro gives unlimited access to full-length commercial-use videos and unlimited DVD quality videos for $39 per month or $249 per year.

Animoto provides more than 20 different video "styles" or templates to make it easy for consumers to create videos. It's most popular style, called "original," is available in HD today and additional styles will become available in HD in the upcoming months.

About Animoto:

Animoto (www.animoto.com) is an online video slideshow creation service that enables consumers, professionals and businesses to easily make and share professional-looking videos that will amaze friends, family and others. The Animoto team, which includes entertainment and technology industry veterans, has leveraged their expertise to develop a web-based service that makes it easy for people to quickly create and share their stories through video – using photos and or videos.  The heart of Animoto is its Cinematic Artificial Intelligence^® technology that intelligently crafts animation design based on both the user's images and nuances in the music, producing a highly polished product. A fast-growing company, Animoto Productions is based in New York City with an office in San Francisco.

SOURCE Animoto