YouTube launches online video editor

Cloud-based application enables people to edit videos online before uploading them to YouTube

Published: 11:42AM BST 17 Jun 2010

YouTube has launched an online video editor to make it easier for people to edit and publish their clips on the video-sharing site

YouTube has launched a cloud-based video-editing tool to enable people to edit their videos online before uploading them to the video-sharing website.

The YouTube Video Editor allows users to "mash" multiple existing videos to create a new, longer video, as well as to trim the beginning or end of videos to make them shorter. The editor can also be used to add soundtracks to a click, and provides one-click publishing to YouTube without needing to re-upload the new clip first.

"The editor is ideal for merging single, short clips in to a longer video," said Rushabh Doshi, a Google software engineer, and Joshua Siegel, a Google product manager, in a YouTube blog post. "For example, you can transform clips from your vacation in to a video travel diary set to music, or create a highlights reel from footage of your last basketball game.

"It's also great for trimming a long video down to the moments you really care about. Say you've uploaded a wedding ceremony – a beautiful event, but do you really need to see all the guests shuffle in? The video editor lets you easily remove unwanted footage so you can capture just the moment when they say, 'I do'."

Google, which owns the video-sharing website, has made the editor available through the TestTube section of YouTube, which hosts new and experimental features.