A new product from HighlightCam aims to eliminate all the tedius work from video editing (for the typical consumer of course) through careful use of some smart algorithms.  Built for iPhone and iPod Touch, their app allows you to load in your videos, answer a few short questions, and let their Amazon Cloud-driven service create the video you want.

“Using HighlightCam, anyone can create a minimovie regardless of their level of technical sophistication – we have developed the most advanced video technology available to make our app accessible and fun for even technophobic users,” said Robert Neivert, CEO of HighlightCam. “With our service, you can take vacation videos, pics of your kids, pets or friends and turn them into a great-looking video with the push of a button – we want to empower the use and sharing of edited video for people who don’t want to learn Adobe® Premiere® or even iMovie®.”

Available right now in the iTunes App Store for Free! Get the full details after the break.

Right now my biggest question is how are they paying for this?  Amazon’s cloud is great, but it’s not free, and I don’t see anything in their app about money.

Update: Commenter ‘Eric’ gives us the details on payment:

it makes money by charging you ‘credits’ to make movies…you start out w/ 10 and you have to buy more

HighlightCam Announces Service for Automatic Editing

of Mobile Consumer Videos & Photos – No Experience Necessary

Allows Anyone to Easily Transform Their Photos and Videos into Minimovies

For Easy Sharing; Free iOS App Allows “One Button” Editing & Creation via

New Objectives-Based Video Creation Process Developed at MIT

February 25, 2011 – Sunnyvale, CA – HighlightCam™, Inc., a new Y Combinator startup focused on the integration of state-of-the-art, AI-enhanced video editing algorithms with consumer-friendly applications, today announced a free app for iPhone® and iPod touch® to enable the fast, easy and fun creation of minimovies™.

Designed around mobile-centric videos and photos, minimovies are created automatically from user-selected media on their iOS device using an objectives-based video creation algorithm developed by HighlightCam’s founders during Ph.D. studies at MIT. Using HighlightCam’s app, anyone can quickly and easily create an edited movie with absolutely no editing experience whatsoever and without having to learn or buy any new software.

After arranging their movies and pictures in the rough order in which they want them to appear in the minimovie, users simply answer one question: do they want the automatic editor to focus on people, actions, voice or a balanced summary of all three criteria. Once answered, HighlightCam automatically processes and edits the media into a complete minimovie, ready to share with friends and family on YouTube® or Facebook® with the push of a button.

Developed over 5 man-years by HighlightCam’s team of Ph.D’s and engineers, the advanced mathematical algorithms combined with computer vision programming enable the software to mimic a human editor. HighlightCam’s finished product takes full advantage of the high-performance cloud processing architecture provided by Amazon® to make the application’s simplicity both possible and scalable.

“Using HighlightCam, anyone can create a minimovie regardless of their level of technical sophistication – we have developed the most advanced video technology available to make our app accessible and fun for even technophobic users,” said Robert Neivert, CEO of HighlightCam. “With our service, you can take vacation videos, pics of your kids, pets or friends and turn them into a great-looking video with the push of a button – we want to empower the use and sharing of edited video for people who don’t want to learn Adobe® Premiere® or even iMovie®.”

HighlightCam’s app is available immediately in the Apple® App StoreSM.

-more-

About HighlightCam

HighlightCam, Inc. (Sunnyvale, CA) is a Y Combinator company founded at MIT in 2009, fusing state-of-the-art artificial intelligence algorithms and face detection with consumer-friendly video editing applications. HighlightCam’s app automatically creates a pro-quality minimovie™ generated from unedited videos taken on an iPhone® or iPod touch®. The technology that makes this possible reflects 5 man-years of R&D by a team of individuals from MIT, UC Berkeley and Stanford. Easily shared on Facebook® or YouTube®, HighlightCam minimovies reduce the complexities of video editing down to the simple push of a button through the software’s advanced algorithms and easy-to-use interface.

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