In today’s post I am going to be discussing my take on the latest video creation software, Video Motion Pro which launched on April 21st.
As a software developer, great software is something I really adore, but not every app released by even good companies make the cut. Check out my full video review to find out what I REALLY THINK about Videomotion Pro after playing with it for a couple hours to make a video.
Hint, it’s not all rosy, but it has some neat features. Is Videomotion Pro for you? Watch my point-blank honest review and decide for yourself.
Grab Videomotion Pro Here: http://authorityseolab.com/videomotionpro
What is Videomotionpro?
Videomotion Pro is a new video creation application just released by Josh Ratta’s company, InmotionTech. Following the blockbuster success of VideoMakerFX, Explaindio, and others in the video marketing space, I expect we will continue to see many new offerings in the video creator software category.
Videomotionpro Features List
- Import Media (Video Clips and Images)
- Green Screen Editing (Premium Version)
- Animated Lower Thirds (Editable Text and Logo Images)
- Animated Intros & Outros (Editable Text and Logo Images)
- Record from Screen
- Record from Webcam
- Drag and drop Video Elements to Timeline
- Trim Video Segments
- Add Background Audio
- Render videos in different sizes and qualities
- Upload to YouTube
- Save Video Projects and Open Projects
- Add Text Elements to Video
Does Videomotionpro live up to the launch hype?
So first let me say that I really expected to love this software. It looked a LOT like Camtasia visually, which is exceptional, but with a bigger library of animated template elements, and the green screen editing is something I’ve always wanted to try (but Camtasia lacks).
But once I got into the software and started actually editing the videos, I realized that there are some things that Camtasia just does a lot better, and a few things that were REALLY frustrating in Videomotionpro as far as usability. But it’s not all bad and there are definitely some things I really liked.
So here are my detailed remarks on the features of Videomotionpro, and how easy each of them was to use.
Videomotionpro’s Animated Lower Third, Intro & Outro Templates
The number of the included library of animated templates for lower thirds, intros and outros is pretty big, compared to what Camtasia comes with, and very attractive.
Some of the template elements Camtasia comes with are simply getting fairly dated looking, and I find myself using the same ones over and over or just not using them because they are so limited. Videomotionpro on the other hand are very modern and current looking, and there are many different styles to choose just the right presence for your video branding.
A couple of things however ARE lacking in the animated template elements.
- Elements have to be compiled before they are added to the screen, and once compiled cannot really be edited. So if you decide you want to change the text, you have to go through the whole process of selecting the element, changing the text, changing the color and font, selecting the logo from your computer again… in other words it’s pretty inconvenient compared to how easy editing the configurable parts is compared to other editors like VideoMaker FX and Camtasia.
- You cannot shorten or lengthen the animations in the video like you can with regular images, and text elements. So if you try to trim an animation on the timeline, Videomotionpro will ignore you as you click the scissors. No error message, just nothing happens.
Videomotionpro’s Timeline Interface Behavior is Quirky
The timeline is one of the features I really love in my existing video editing app, Camtasia, which I’ve been using for several years. So when I saw a similar feature on Videomotionpro I was prepared to fall in love all over again. I pretty much assumed I was going to just adore it. But once I got working with it, that’s not what happened.
Because, unfortunately, the timeline in Videomotionpro turned out to be one of the most frustrating parts of the application.
Here are the things that drove me crazy about the Videomotionpro timeline:
- Automatic Layer order for new elements is opposite of what it should be. In Camtasia, when you add an item to the timeline, it automatically is added to the topmost layer, where it is visible above the other things already added to the timeline. In Videomotionpro however, when I dropped something new on the timeline, no matter which layer I dropped it on, it went to the bottom of the stack– you know.. BEHIND my video clip! Now you can drag things around to re-order them, sure, but you shouldn’t have to on every single item, if the default behavior was more sensible.
- Automatic timeline positioning in Videomotionpro snaps to the start of the timeline for every item, no matter WHERE you try to drop it. Which again means, you have to drag it around extensively to try and get it where you want it, particularly if you want that element at the END of the video. Camtasia on the other hand, does this correctly, and snaps it to whatever position in the video you are editing now.
- Even worse once you start dragging an element over a very long video, there is some sort of stuttering of the display that stops you from dragging it all the way to the end of the video easily. And since every element is dropped at the START of the video, this problem will always show up for elements you want at the end.
- The timeline has a completely separate layer track for each and every element on the timeline, and they can’t occupy the same space even if they don’t overlap each other on timing. This means if you have 20 elements in your video, you will have 20 layers to sort through, which can get unmanageable fast. (Now according to an email I got literally FIVE MINUTES ago 🙂 Josh says this is scheduled to be fixed by mid-May, so this irritation may go away soon.)
Now I think they are on the right track with this feature– and if they can resolve some of these quirks, then it may well move up to being a worthy contender in the video creation software space.
Videomotionpro Audio was not Impressive
The audio produced by the app may be fine for videos recorded with something else that you just want to decorate with animations and trim up a bit, but as you can see from my video above, when I captured from my webcam and played a short burst of that recording in Videomotionpro, the sound was awful.
Now in fairness, I recorded the whole video using the webcam mic, and you can hear just a little bit of external noise in the sections of the review I recorded with Snagit, but that noise bleed is just much worse with Videomotionpro. According to Josh’s latest email however, they are planning on adding support for higher end microphones, which probably means a better codec and some improvement on this front.
Green Screen Editing is Super Easy
The green screen editing feature is another of those features I really was salivating over when I saw it on the list and the demo, and it lives up to what I expected.
- It’s flexible enough to allow you to pick green, or any other color as the color to drop out, and allows you to adjust the tolerance of what pixels are selected to be replaced with a background.
- Plus, the ability to reduce the sharpness of the cutout element at the edge makes it so scenes look more natural instead of looking like obvious fakes.
If you do Green screen videos much, then this feature is probably worth the price of admission.
Rendering Videos in Different Dimensions and Qualities is Easy
Camtasia and I have always had a bit of a love hate relationship on video sizing because it’s hard to get it to let you change the size after the blank project is created. So this is one thing I was really impressed with in Videomotionpro.
- At rendering time, you can just choose from one of the pre-loaded video sizes, and choose the rendering quality, for larger or smaller file sizes.
Conclusion
Most of the other features of the application worked roughly as expected, and because Josh has a roadmap for new improvements, I expect that Videomotionpro will continue to get better post launch. But am I ready to kick Camtasia out of bed…. er.. No. 🙂
Videomotionpro rates a solid 3.5 stars on my scale, as of launch.
So if you are in the market for a video editing application and you are willing to wait a little while as the application to get better, this could be a great way to eventually get Camtasia-like features on the cheap.
Thanks. Great review Lisa. Quite thorough and really helps in making up one’s mind to buy the product or not.
It it were not for the timeline dragging issues Art, I probably would have rated it 4.5 instead. Hopefully, Josh will get to those sooner rather than later. Though to be fair, Camtasia is $300+ and has been around for years and years to get all the kinks worked out, while this was only $67 and does have some things Camtasia doesn’t.
I bought the Premium version., though I have Camtasia, Sony Vegas, EasyWebVideo, EasySkerchPro2. You have saved me a lot of time and bother by telling me what VMP does not do well. Green screen is worth the price to me as you suggested. Thanks, Lisa.
Yes, totally agree Mike! And I think as long as Josh has been working on this one and his overall reputation, it will keep getting better instead of becoming another case of “Abandon Ware”. Would have nice to have been all prince and no frog out of the gates though. 🙂
Hi Lisa, thank you so much for your honest review. I to wanted the software to be top dog. I got my copy yesterday, but I have only been able to play with it for about 15 minutes today then your E-mail came through with this review. Thank you, you just save me a lot of time trying to figure this stuff out myself.
I am a big Screenflow for Mac user and every feature that you mentioned Video Motion Pro doesn’t do Screenflow does, along with green screen editing. Although, I’m in agreement with you, the lower thirds, intros and outtros are a great feature and I’ll probably keep the software just for that. I can record them and throw them into Screenflow and keep on creating and editing.
The first feature that I noticed that was missing, is that you can not record screen capture and webcam at the same time, so you can’t have interactive picture in picture which is a nice feature that Camtasia and Screenflow have.
Something tells me that some of these deficiencies will be addressed and added in the future. I believe I read that, being able to add to the end of the timeline is coming soon.
With great reviews such as yours, should motivate them to make some of these adjustments.
Thanks again,
Ron Mettler
Thanks for weighing in Ron! I’ve never actually tried to record both screen and webcam with Camtasia, but that’s a great point. I’m guessing that means you’d have to record the screen, and then record yourself on webcam, which obviously takes a lot more time.
My apologies, maybe Camtasia is doesn’t have that feature but ScreenFlow does. What happens is… ScreenFlow launches both the screen recorder and the webcam at the same time and loads both into the editor.xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Here’s a demo…but you’ve probably seen this before 🙂
http://streetsmart.evsuite.com/demo-for-lisa/
Hey that’s really cool you can move the placement of the webcam as it streams and you record the desktop. Thanks for shooting that. The only down side, it would seem, is that Screenflow is Mac only. Great video!
Gotcha’s – yep even though I had not gotten as far as you did with my Premium Version, I think it was worth the money. Not just for the Green Screen feature but the intro’s and outtro’s I have tested and because those don’t mean working with long videos, the gotcha’s I missed didn’t really come into play (so to speak) yet.
I have some of Josh’s other products and he does stand by them and updates them fairly regularly. So for $67 bucks It’s kind of a wait and see about the gotcha’s and enjoy using the features I know are working while I wait.
GRRRRRRRREAT honest review Lisa. I appreciate you always shoot straight with us, your loyal customers.
Mike C.
The intros and outros are some of my favorite things in the package for sure Mike. I am hoping you can render them as transparent– but if not then that probably means you have to pull your video into VMP and put the extra animations on inside that and render. Still make for some great branding though!
Just an fyi… I am using Camtasia 8.5 and it does green screen projects very well. I haven’t played with Video Motion Pro yet but I’m hoping some of the cool template stuff (intros & outros), will be a huge time saver by using it to make clips to add in to my Camtasia projects.
Thanks for the heads up– I am still using 8.4, so probably why I haven’t seen the green screen feature in Camtasia yet 🙂
Ah, just found it… but they call it replace color, or something innocuous like that. Which would probably be why I never noticed it. According to Camtasia’s online docs, it’s been there able to do green screen since version 8.1.
Thanks for the honest review Lisa.
Dennis
Thanks Dennis, Great to see you and thanks for chiming in.
I have nothing much to say Lisa. Your review is great, helpful and up to the point.
Thanks for dropping by to read and comment Sahih 🙂 Glad you enjoyed the review.
Hi Lisa,
Great review! The few annoyances aren’t a deal breaker for me. When I bought V.MP., I knew I’d use it in conjunction with Camtasia, and not as a replacement.
For the price, I’m not disappointed.
Thanks for checking out the review Joe– I think I may just be more likely than most to run into the issues with dragging than others, since detailed explainer videos can get pretty long. If my video was 2 minutes, I never would have seen them.
And as you point out, the features are good for the price range and the likelihood of those annoyances disappearing later.
Thanks for your candid review. Having Camtasia 8, I wasn’t jumping for it here, but realized whatever Josh released would have improvements to get the bugs out. At least now, I know what some of them are.
You are very welcome Jonathan, thanks for swinging by and weighing in on the topic.
For the longest time, I was only posting reviews when I unreservedly liked the software, but I think lately I’ve decided I should be posting both kinds of reviews. There is just so much going on in the marketing space, and I think maybe I can help push the level of quality up if I post both kinds and help you sift through what works and what doesn’t.
Hi there Lisa,
Great review! I thought it was me having all the problems!
I am having horrible success with this, it is freezing on me, will not reload, and will not work with the timeline of the 7 elements that I wanted to put in the one video.
Your review gave me hope that if I wait until mid May it my work better. I was about to return it.
Thanks again
Thanks Martyn! It’s definitely not all you, though it sounds like your glitches may be a little worse than mine. I’d contact Josh’s team and let them know what kinds of issues you are seeing so they can prioritize those issues for development.
I love VMP for branding PLR vids, using their intro/outro templates, so if that’s all it contained, I’d still think it was money well spent. Haven’t edited a longer vid there yet, so that’s probably why I haven’t experienced the negatives you have… yet.
My only BIG developer request is for them to increase the character count for text and urls within almost all of their intro/outros. For the most part, it’s limited to 14 characters (which corresponds to Twitter’s 14 character username limit) or less. BUT, that’s INCLUDING your www. or http:// spaces, so that’s NOT enough text room.
A typical 14 character url plus a www. and .com equals 22 character, 8 of which get cutoff. Even a 14 character url with ONLY .com added gets cut off. That definitely needs adjusting. Not ALL intro/outros are affected by this, but ALMOST ALL are. So for anyone who has a “videomarketing” url… well… you’re pretty much going to have to upload your logo to get your name seen, as the text boxes won’t help you at all.
That’s a really good point on the length of the allowed text in boxes, Robin. I think it varies per box, but a lot of them were pretty short. Josh, if you are listening.. 🙂
I had given up on thinking about buying this software, because ALL of the other reviews out there are pathetically transparent JV hype fests. It was ridiculous to read those other ads, which basically were selling it’s benefits, but not talking about its function, or comparing it to other products.
Finally, someone who actually thinks critically and has the integrity to say what’s good and bad!
Thanks for being real.
It actually gives this product a bit more credibility in my eyes.
I see what it is good for, and not so good for, so I can make a decision, rather than just blowing it off.
thanks!
Thanks for your feedback David! I agree it can be hard to find a balanced review during launch especially. I really wanted to love the product, and I think it may still evolve into a worthy offering, given who the vendor is– but just not quite there yet!