Google Makes Mobile Editing a Reality With Movie Studio for Honeycomb

We all know the iPhone has iMovie, but with the announcement at the Mobile World Congress on February 15 (which we know is almost a month and a half ago), Android has a new contender. Theirsoftware, Movie Studio, is an application for mobile editing using Google’s latest Honeycomb OS for tablet PCs.

With this announcement, video editing has finally reached almost every smart device on the market. Along with Apple’s version of its editing application, iMovie, which allows you to transfer video editing projects through iTunes to the iPad 2, iPod Touch (4th generation) and the iPhone 4, more than 50% of the cell phone market and 60% of tablets can now cut home movies and short films, albeit rather slowly for now.

While having the option to edit simple videos on a tablet or smartphone has its uses, there’s still little doubt that most experienced editors will choose to stay faithful to their beefy desktop computers (and their beefy investment). But with the ability to pinch to zoom photos and with a slick interface, these applications are more than likely the wave of the future in mobile device video editing.

At first glance, the interface seems rather slick with a dark interface, simple controls, and intuitive tools. The demo does show some of the footage playing back in less than real time, but with a little rendering, it’s more than likely that the problem would go away. One of the most interesting parts of the demo show the numerous transitions that Movie Studio has which can be previewed in real time – something some computers in the past couldn’t even do.

Either way, this software, along with increasing tablet PC power, seems poised to bring about a new revolution in mobile editing. It seems only a matter of time before someone edits an entire feature film using only this software.

If you want to see video of the Movie Studio interface, check out both the MWC keynote and the demo video below to see what you think!

Daniel Bruns
Daniel Bruns
Dan Bruns is an award winning cinematographer and editor.

Related Content