Editing Video

Honeycomb tablets come with a great video-editing app called Movie Studio. Movie Studio allows you to shoot a video from your tablet, do some basic editing, and then export the video to YouTube. You can also import a series of pictures and create a slideshow to upload to YouTube.

If you’ve ever used video-editing software, Movie Studio will be pretty familiar. If you haven’t, this app may look intimidating; however, it’s actually fairly easy to use once you get the hang of it. Figure 20–12 shows the app’s basic interface.

Figure 20–12. The Movie Studio app’s interface

Movie Studio shows your movie in the middle of the screen. Below it, you’ll see the collection of clips that make up your movie in a timeline. On the right, you’ll see basic video controls, and to the left you’ll see a round ring that lets you expand and shrink the preview icons of the clips showing in the timeline. This lets you edit larger or smaller sections of video.

Long-press a clip on the timeline to edit that clip directly, as shown in Figure 20–13.

Figure 20–13. Long-press options in Movie Studio

Transitions

Movie Studio also lets you add basic transitions between clips, such as slides and cross-dissolves:

1. Long-press the desired clip.
2. You’ll see a green outline around the clip, and you’ll see transition symbols on either side of the clip. You can either tap the Transition button on the clip itself or tap the buttons on the top of the screen.
3. Choose a transition.
4. You’ll see a tiny box between the clips. This is your transition for editing purposes. However, when you view the movie, you’ll see the transition.

Video Effects and Adjustments

You can also apply video effects to individual clips within a movie, such as the negative effect shown in Figure 20–13:

1. Long-press on the desired clip.
2. Tap the effects button on the top of the screen.
3. Select the desired effect.

You may also find that you have video with different aspect ratios or resolutions. This happens if you’ve shot the video using different cameras, such as one part using the front-facing camera and another part using the rear camera. You can add letterboxing or change the resolution of some or all of the clips. To do this, follow the steps for applying effects; and instead of tapping the Effects button, use the Border and Aspect Ratio button.

Adding Titles

The layer immediately underneath the clips is for title text. You can’t add anything highly detailed, but it’s a simple matter to add a title or basic caption:

1. Tap directly underneath the clip you want to add a title for.
2. You’ll see a +FIN button. Tap it.
3. Choose your title style and add your text.

Uploading to YouTube

If you already have a YouTube account tied to your Google account, uploading to YouTube is a snap. However, if you’re using a data plan on your tablet, you’ll probably want to make sure you use Wi-Fi to save on data usage fees. Follow these steps to upload a video to YouTube:

1. Once you’ve finished your movie, tap the Menu button on the top of the screen.
2. Select Share movie.
3. Select YouTube.
4. Enter the video title and any other desired settings.
5. Tap Upload.

By default, YouTube videos are public, so you’ll need to override this setting if you prefer any other setting.