Following on from my post yesterday, here’s the breakdown I used to help evaluate the features and final product of the three sites:
So, which one to recommend? Personally, I prefer Animoto, especially if you have access to the Educator’s Pass. Otherwise, you could pay for the video upgrade or settle with the 30 second video. Animoto looks flash, professional, modern and the transitions are synced to the music. You are able to highlight certain photos too. You can do this with the other two, but you would have to play with the transition times to do this. Animoto has a simple click option. The DVD quality upgrade costs five (US) dollars per flick.
UPDATE: As of today (what a coincidence), Animoto has announced that you can add video clips to your Animoto videos! Watch a few sample videos and find out more here. You can upload clips from your camera or phone, or use some from their collection (from iStockphoto and Getty Images). You can choose highlights of up to 10 seconds each, though they recommend using only 3-5 seconds as that works best within the flow of an Animoto video. (I’ll update it on the chart later as the file is on another computer)
Stupeflix, though in beta mode, does not store your video. It only hosts it for a month, allowing you and viewers to download it. This may be a good option for those teachers willing to share videos with parents, but unwilling to post them to YouTube etc. (It would also save time of burning it to disc.) Therefore, it also does not allow embedding. You would have to download the video and then upload it to a sharing site. Stupeflix states you may also upload video, but when I tried, I was not permitted. I even converted the file (more investigation needed on this). I didn’t really like the black background at times and some of the cropping of the shots.
Photopeach does not allow downloading. It only hosts. It was rather fast and simple to use though. If you could download it, it may have stretched to number one. One option I did find interesting was the “Spiral View.” When you create a slideshow, you may switch between the two modes for viewing. It also has a quiz option that teachers may find useful. I did prefer the larger display area for photos.
Hope this helps. Good luck!
UPDATE 2: I have updated the change in the chart to the Animoto category regarding uploading video.
