In a world of novice
photographers and videographers, capturing a deluge of content via their
smartphones and handheld devices, there is a need for an intelligent,
easy-to-use tool for automating the creation of movies and video montages. To
date, many quality videos still rely on professional frame-based editing tools
to manipulate raw footage and produce a coherent video with a captivating
storyline. A global team of computer scientists, from Tsinghua and Beihang
Universities in China, Harvard University in the US and IDC Herzliya in Israel,
have developed Write-A-Video, a new tool that generates videos from themed
text. Using words and text editing, the tool automatically determines which
scenes or shots are chosen from a repository to illustrate the desired
storyline. The tool enables novice users to produce quality video montages in a
simple and user-friendly manner that doesn't require professional video
production and editing skills.
While existing video editing
tools still demand knowledge in video processing and editing, the researchers'
new method allows novices to create videos that tell stories more naturally.
Write-A-Video, say the researchers, allows users to create a video montage by
simply editing the text that accompanies the video. For example, adding or
deleting text, and moving sentences around convert to video-editing operations,
such as finding corresponding shots, cutting and rearranging shots, and
creating a final video montage result. The team's research shows that
intelligent digital tools combining the abilities of humans and algorithms
together can assist users in the creative process. For the study, the approach
was tested on various pieces of themed text and video repositories, with
quantitative evaluation and user studies. Users without any video editing
experience could produce satisfactory videos using the Write-A-Video tool,
sometimes even faster than professionals utilizing frame-based editing
software.
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