Day 29 – Video Editing and Movie Making with the Surface RT

30 Days with a Surface RT for Teachers
Teaching and Learning with a Windows 8 Tablet

I have been experimenting with creating short videos on the Surface RT for the past couple of days. Going into this blog series I did not think the Surface RT would be useful at all for video editing projects for the classroom. I have been pleasantly surprised to find a few video editors that do make the grade for classroom use. Let’s explore.

Movie Edit Touch App

The first app I tried out was Movie Edit Touch and I think this app may ultimately be my app of choice for short classroom video projects. Movie Edit Touch by Magix offers a free trial in the Windows Store but if you want to do anything productive you will need to purchase this app ($5.99 in the Windows Store). If you are wanting to edit videos on the RT downloading the trial version is worth it so you can see if it meets your needs before purchasing.

The trial version is crippled in that it will only export out 10 seconds of video. If you are into Vine-style videos that are all the rage right now this trial version may work for you but you will need to purchase the app to have practical export capabilities.

I have not purchased this app yet (or any other app) in this blog series but I most likely will purchase Movie Edit Touch so I can explore its true potential. Movie Edit Touch is very easy to use for basic video editing. It uses the touch interface of the Surface RT effectively and is very easy to use. If you or your students are familiar with the basics of video editing you should have no problem using this app, even if you have no experience with video editing it is easy to learn the basics.

The major difference with the Movie Edit Touch app compared to other video editors is that you slide your video timeline underneath a stationary scrubber marker located in the center of the timeline. In many video apps the video timeline stays stationary and you move the scrubber to position it where you want to make edits. This is a small adjustment and you will quickly get the idea when you first start to use Movie Edit Touch. The touch motion is very fast and is quite easy to position the video to the frames where you want to edit.

 

Movie Edit Touch also supports adding transitions, titles, and audio (it has a separate music track). You can adjust the volume separately for the video track and audio track which is really nice when you want to add background music to your videos but need to have music softly playing in the background so it does not overpower the sound on the video track. You can also easily add other video clips, photos, music, and even take a live camera shot (still picture or video) within the app. Talk about a live video editing experience, my mind is racing with all kinds of classroom possibilities!

 

With the Movie Edit Touch app and the Surface RT with its two built-in cameras you have everything you need to create basic classroom videos. You can use the kickstand on the Surface RT, set it on the table, open the Camera app and select the front facing camera and record a quick video chat for your students.

Another example, say you are going on a field trip, you can use the Camera app and back-facing camera on the RT to take still snapshots and/or videos of things of interest. When you get back you can import the photos into Movie Edit Touch, add some background music, and you have created a video montage of the fieldtrip!

Once you export the video you can save it to a flash drive and share it easily with others or upload to SkyDrive. Just imagine the possibilities… all with a sub $200 tablet, Wow! (The current education price of $199 for schools/universities is a limited time offer).

ShowBiz Video Editing App

The other video editing app I discovered that shows promise is ShowBiz by ArcSoft. This too is a very easy to use video editor that provides basic editing capability. It also uses a stationary scrubber and you move the video underneath the scrubber marker to the place you want to add or make edits in your timeline.

 

ShowBiz also has a paid version ($9.99 in the Windows Store) for more functionality. The trial version of ShowBiz is a little more useful than Movie Edit Touch as you can at least export out low resolution (VGA – 640x360) quality videos. This lets you get practice with the app to see if you would like it and if you do purchase it you will be able to export to a higher quality video format.

Another benefit of using ShowBiz is that it also allows you to record audio to add narration either to still photos or videos in addition to adding a music tack. This gives you a video track, music track, and narration track. To add a narration position the video underneath the scrubber marker where you want to begin the narration, then press + Add and select “Record Audio”. You will see a microphone icon under the preview window. Just click on “Start” to begin recording your narration and press “Stop” when finished. You will see an audio track under the video segment on the timeline. I can think of many useful student projects for this feature as students narrate slideshows or videos that they have taken, pretty cool!

 

Cinelab

The last app I will mention is cinelab and it is a very, very, simple video editor app that basically lets you easily trim videos and combine them into one video track, that’s it. No titles, no transitions, no soundtracks. If you do go into settings of the paid version it does have the ability to rotate your video ($1.49 in the Windows Store) but this comes in handy if someone mistakenly recorded a video in portrait mode (like many do with cell phones).

Cinelab will be good for very fast trimming or when you have a series of videos you want to string together quickly. If you like this quick interface you could use it to put together clips then you could export out the compiled version and use it with Movie Edit Touch or ShowBiz to add transitions and titles. There are many ways to put together a movie project and the Surface RT has surprised me with the video editing possibilities.

So there you have it, three video editing apps that turn the Surface RT into a capable video editing machine.

Surface RT Rocks!

Until next time...
Keep on Learning,

Tom Grissom, PhD

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