Selecting which photos to send to Animoto

richlin71 · October 23, 2009

When creating an Animoto video, *all* the photos in the gallery are sent over. In my case, the gallery with my son's pictures has 300 photos. From the Animoto interface it's possible to delete the ones I don't want - but that's a huge pain. Not to mention the fact that Animoto spend a lot of time trying to download the all thumbnails.

Is/will it be possible to select which photos/videos to export to Animoto?

Andy · October 23, 2009

Not sure, but we'll check into it!

richlin71 · October 23, 2009

Andy wrote:

Not sure, but we'll check into it!

Thanks for the quick reply. Also, I've noticed that videos from SM result in a "File error" thumbnail in Animoto...so videos don't work.

Love the feature though. I discovered Animoto from this feature, and just signed up to the All Access pass.

Andrew Maiman · October 24, 2009

richlin71 wrote:

Thanks for the quick reply. Also, I've noticed that videos from SM result in a "File error" thumbnail in Animoto...so videos don't work.

I noticed this as well; it doesn't import any videos from Smugmug, every one of them comes up as a "File error". This is a bit of a deal breaker, I'm going to hold off on signing up for the all-access pass until it is fixed...

I sent a message to Animoto about it through their Contact Us form, since I think the problem is on their end.

HoyBoy · October 24, 2009

Thanks for this great new feature!

I, too, learned a couple of things when creating my first video with Animoto last night.

1. All photos from a particular gallery that you select are sent over. It's quite tedious to delete them.

2. If your photos are watermarked, that gets sent too. So, unless this changes, you'll likely want to create a separate gallery with no watermarks.

3. Videos on my smugmug page don't work at this time in Animoto.

Just my observations on a couple of issues that could use a little massaging. Thanks again for a great new feature!

DJ-S1 · October 24, 2009

Videos are limited to 5 seconds for non-pro and 10 seconds for pro. Maybe your videos are exceeding this limit?

Andrew Maiman · October 25, 2009

DJ-S1 wrote:

Videos are limited to 5 seconds for non-pro and 10 seconds for pro. Maybe your videos are exceeding this limit?

Yes, I know that's the limit for the clips actually included in the Animoto video, but you're supposed to be able to pick those 5/10 seconds out of your full video in the Animoto interface while setting it up. If they require you to manually edit the video yourself before it gets uploaded (to shrink the original clip to 5 seconds), that defeats the whole point of using Animoto in the first place. I don't think that's their intention, and hope they'll be fixing the feature.

asozzi · October 25, 2009

Same issue with videos here
I have the same issues regarding the videos (file error). I can download the video (use the save function) to desktop and re-upload it and that works.

But I think I know what the issue is with animoto. Try saving a video from your gallery while it is running (overlay mode) using the "Owner Save" link from the top navigation bar.
It downloads a partial mp4 that only contains the first still frame (200k).
Animoto uses the same link and gets the same broken video.

I hope this is fixed soon.

SamirD · October 26, 2009

I've talked back and forth with Animoto on these issues. The last I remember that we left it was that they were working on improvements that would pull the videos. I also ran into 300+ photos in a gallery all the time and SLOWness problems pulling up all the galleries (around 15 minutes). Both issues are currently unresolved so I can't use Animoto. :cry I wish I could. I would crank out at least 1 video a week, and have enough photos and video clips for about 4 feature films.

Zanotti · October 26, 2009

I too signed up for a $30 annual pass to make videos. Very cool feature, but as a photographer the low or web rez is such poor quality that its almost painful to watch.

I then paid an extra $5 to make it high rez and its great, but now it wont host on Smugmug.

Confilicting decisions for me, it's really nice stuff, but tougher to manage. The football one I did was cool, easy, and worth it for hi def.

The 30 second clip of a single 5 minute session with my wife and daughter really made me smile, but low def ruins it for me.

I put it on my ipod and will show some people. Maybe its a situation where good enough is good enough.

Z

Selecting which photos to send to Animoto

Comments