1. One True Media – http://www.onetruemedia.com – allows you to combine your own pictures, video, audio, music, etc. to create what they call a video montage. In addition to your own resources, they provide an assortment of stock photos, video clips, and music for you to use. They also have a variety of transitions and special effects to give your video that little extra zing. In addition, you can share your videos and download them to your computer. One True Media offers free and premium memberships. At $3.99 a month or $39.99 a year, the premium membership is an excellent value and will give you many more options in creating your videos.

 

2. Xtranormal - http://www.xtranormal.com – lets you create animated videos using a variety of characters and settings. They advertise that if you can type you can create an animated video. I say it takes a bit more than that to get the animation just the way you like it, but the online Movie Maker is easy to use. When you sign up, you get 300 points added to your account. You use these Xtranormal points to purchase the characters, the backgrounds, and to render the video. Once you’ve expended the initial 300 points you’ll need to add more to your account to purchase more characters and backgrounds. Pricing for points starts at $10 for 1200 points up to $150 for 80,000 points. Most videos are going to cost a minimum of 211 points to create and render online. To avoid the 100 point rendering fee for making videos online with the Movie Maker, you can download Xtranormal’s State software and use your already purchased characters and backgrounds to create videos on your own computer at no extra charge. Finally, you can share your videos online. Downloading the video to your computer from the Movie Maker costs points but see the next tool for a workaround.

 

3. RealPlayer - http://www.real.com/ – works with your Internet browser and allows you to download just about any video you find on the web. It also converts videos into a variety of formats, including mp3 and mobile formats. It’s a handy, free tool for anyone using a PC (some features are not available for Mac). One caution, don’t download and re-use copyrighted material. Just because you can download it doesn’t mean it is free for the taking. However, RealPlayer can be used to download a good quality version of your Xtranormal videos rendered in the Movie Maker.

Although I often use Adobe Premiere Elements for creating video, I find that these tools expand my options for the types of content I can include in my video emails.