Recently, Google announced it will be deprecating one of its best kept secrets known as the YouTube Editor. This was one of my favorite tools for editing video in the cloud, especially since it also worked well on a Chromebook. Sadly, any projects not completed by September 20, 2017, will disappear when the application is removed from service. The full announcement regarding the changes can be found at: https://goo.gl/LDx2tE
Hopefully, you will find some viable alternatives by expanding and reading this post.
Alternatives
YouTube Enhancements Tab
For the time being, YouTube will continue to maintain a “light” version of the editor in the form of “Enhancements”. This can be found within the “Creator Studio” under your profile avatar in the upper right hand corner.
While nowhere near as powerful as the YouTube Editor, the Enhancements Tab (found on each video you have uploaded) will allow you to Auto-Fix, Stabilize, Trim, and apply Filters and Blurring effects.
WeVideo
WeVideo may be the best solution for those who are looking for a traditional video editing software in the cloud. While there are reasonably priced plans that dramatically increase the usability of the program starting at as little as $5 per month, District 207 has a district-wide enterprise level subscription for all faculty and students. All you have to do is activate your account to get started.
To begin the process, you will need to click on the Log In link or the Google “Sign Up” Button at WeVideo.com. You will need to follow a series of prompts beginning by selecting that you will use WeVideo for School. Alternatively, you can “Skip this Step”.
You will be given the option of watching some training videos. Once you have viewed or skip through them you will be brought to your Dashboard where you can begin uploading, creating and editing content. As you can see from the image below, the WeVideo editor looks similar to Windows Movie Maker and is a bit more robust than the YouTube Editor with a number of additional features. In a future post, I will share some tips and tricks to get started using WeVideo.
Hopefully, this is enough to get you started transferring your video editing projects to WeVideo.
There is also an Individual Free Plan is limited to 1 GB of Cloud storage and 5 min of publish time per month. Additionally, the final product is reduced to 480p resolution with a watermark.
Stupeflix
If you are looking for a quick, less feature rich solution, Stupeflix is another online editor that can be used to work with video in the cloud. While also not as full featured as the YouTube Editor, it offers a few more options than the YouTube Enhancements Tab. You can log in with your gmail account at https://studio.stupeflix.com/en/.
The editor will start off by asking you to pick a theme for your video. While there is some rudimentary video editing available, for the most part Stupeflix designed to create an animated slideshows of existing images or videos. Once you have uploaded or selected content from the Internet (which includes YouTube), you will be able to arrange photos and videos, trim segments, add titles, and select transitions. A soundtrack option is also available.
Hopefully, you have found at least one of these alternative to be a valuable way for you to continue to edit video in the cloud.
The Maine Way 