YouTube's Video Editor, Amsterdam, & Sucking

I'm going to start this post backwards because I've only just started the process of uploading my video clips, so I have no flippin' idea how the video editor YouTube launched works yet. So in the meantime whilst I wait I'm going to have a rooibos tea, listen to pirate radio, and watch the rain come down. Yes my planned boat ride on the canal shall no longer be. Though if the rain let's up I'm marching down there to see whether it's on or not anyways. I figure if it's not on at least I can sneak into the Rijksmuseum and not feel guilty.

On to the music. One of the features of YouTube's video editor is you can add music to your videos. I have no idea what copyright issues are going to do to the availability of my selection - but in the meantime let's dream shall we? Together?

Now Miss Pool (that's L) has suggested that I use Kraftwerk's "Trans Europe Express" and while I love me some Kraftwerk, it doesn't fit the video's subject matter. Going from Amsterdam to the seaside isn't exactly a transeuropean voyage.

Here's a list of songs I have considered in the 7+ minutes that it has taken YouTube to upload my 9min 59sec video...

Joy Division: Love Will Tear Us Apart, Atmosphere

Adam and the Ants: Prince Charming

The Specials: Ghost Town

The Smiths: There's a Light that Never Goes Out, Back to the Old House, Panic

And then it occurs to me...doesn't YouTube have a time limit for how long videos can be? If my vid is going to be 10 minutes long I'm going to need more than one song....

This is why I haven't forrayed into the YouTube video making world before. It's well complicated. Must stop listening to Ska. It's making me use my Ali G voice.

Phew. Somewhere from the starting point of YouTube to the absurdity of viral videos of annoyingly cute kitty cats, the nice people at YouTube upped the cap on the time limit from 10 minutes to 15 minutes.

The videos have all uploaded now. I have tagged them and all that stuff. So on to the next step.

Blogger not only didn't save my post, but I had some image problems too because I really need to buy Photoshop my print screens didn't save properly, but it doesn't matter because this "tutorial" I had planned to teach you (whilst teaching myself) how to use the YouTube video editor sort of became all about trying to find ways around the Editor's lack of functionality or lack of the functionality I wanted YouTube to offer me.

Here's why I think YouTube's Video Editor sucks the big one:

1. The whole editing the clips side bar-arrow thing is quite crap. Why can't I just point my mouse and click and remove the panels one by one??? Why??????

2. YouTube couldn't resolve the copyright infringement issues of using music, so what they offer is a list of artists I have never even heard of. So either I am way less cool then I think I am or no one knows who the hell these artists are either. Please say it isn't only me. Nice to know, on a sidenote that YouTube is really planning to make some more revenue off the music industry.

3. The transitions, to put it mildly, are what I would expect to see if a 5 year old figured out how to make a Power Point presentation. Does the world need another video that transitions between clips via a heart-shaped fade? I mean isn't Chinese karaoke videos plentiful enough?

What I had planned this morning was to make a brilliantly edited video of the video footage I've been shooting in A'dam. What happened is too horrible to even post a link to. However I am going to find the right software and do it. Just probably not until I'm back in France and the housework's been done.

Here is one of the print screens that saved properly. It looks basic doesn't it? Well that's because my dears, it is.

Read more >>