Animoto for Photography now lets professional photographers create high-quality videos branding-free; extends music library and improves video resolution

 New York, NY, April 15, 2009 – Animoto (http://animoto.com), the video creation platform that lets users quickly and easily create professional-quality videos from their own photos and music, today introduced a white label feature for Animoto for Photography (http://photography.animoto.com) commercial accounts, a frequently requested upgrade from professional users. Photographers can now create high-quality videos free of Animoto branding to sell on DVD or as high-resolution digital files, or to share on websites, blogs, social networks and mobile devices.

“Since introducing Animoto for Photography last October we’ve had a great response from professional photographers who have come to rely on Animoto as an essential tool,” said Brad Jefferson, CEO & co-founder of Animoto.  “We’re pleased to upgrade the offering to include white-label videos as we want photographers to incorporate their own brand and identity into each of their Animoto video creations in order to derive extraordinary value from the offering.”

Built on the Animoto for Business platform, Animoto for Photography is a subscription service that provides unlimited access to create, present, view, share, download and sell professional-quality videos.  In addition to all the standard Animoto.com consumer features and the white label feature, Animoto for Photography has incorporated other new and improved features designed specifically for photographers, including:

• Extended Library of Music: Animoto’s library of commercially-licensed music surpasses 300 songs, and now includes longer songs and new genres.  In response to feedback from photographers, Animoto has added scores of new instrumental tracks, longer songs, and two new genres: Children's and Country.  Since launching Animoto for Photography in October of 2008, Animoto’s music library has grown from 175 songs to over 300, and will continue to be built out in 2009.

• Improved Video Resolution: Animoto for Photography now features enhanced resolution for all videos, including DVD-quality downloads and web videos.  As part of the company’s ongoing effort to improve the quality of Animoto videos, the high-resolution download compressions have been improved, including a 50% higher bit-rate, advanced encoding on high-resolution MP4s, and a 75% higher bit-rate on ISOs to ensure that videos are crisper than ever.

"Animoto videos have given Baltazar Photography an important edge over the competition," said Chris Baltazar, a professional photographer whose work has been featured in Grace Ormonde Wedding Style and The Knot magazines as well as the book, “Real Simple Weddings”.  "I expect white label videos to have a huge impact on our business.  While our clients already love receiving Animoto videos to preview their wedding images, white label videos open the potentially lucrative door of reselling them."

The heart of Animoto is its Cinematic Artificial Intelligence technology that thinks like an actual director and editor using the same sophisticated post-production skills and techniques that are used in television and film.  The technology takes into account every nuance of a song: the genre, song structure, energy, rhythm, instrumentation, and vocals.  No two videos are ever the same; even videos generated with an identical set of images and music will each have a completely distinct set of motion design.  Videos are produced in widescreen format, can be emailed, embedded on any website or downloaded in DVD-quality formats for display on computers, televisions, and even large projection screens.

Animoto has been nominated for a Webby Award in the Services & Applications category, and voting for the People’s Voice Award begins today at http://pv.webbyawards.com .

More information about Animoto for Photography can be found at http://photography.animoto.com .

About Animoto
The founders of Animoto Productions include veterans of the entertainment industry who share a passion for helping people share their stories and express themselves through online media by innovating technologies in the field of video production.  Animoto Productions, founded in August 2006, is based in New York City with an office in San Francisco.  Visit http://animoto.com.

###