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Mozilla releases free video remixer

Kathryn McConnachie
By Kathryn McConnachie, Digital Media Editor at ITWeb.
Johannesburg, 13 Nov 2012
Mozilla says Popcorn Maker makes adding interactive elements to video easy for non-programmers.
Mozilla says Popcorn Maker makes adding interactive elements to video easy for non-programmers.

Mozilla has announced the availability of Popcorn Maker 1.0, a free Web app that allows users to remix videos to include contextual, interactive content from around the Web.

"Using Popcorn Maker's simple drag-and-drop interface, you can add live content to any video - photos, maps, links, social media feeds and more. All right from your browser," says Mozilla.

The content is pulled live from the Web on playback. Popcorn Maker is built entirely using open Web elements, written in HTML, CSS and Javascript.

Tech lead for Popcorn Maker, Bobby Richter, says: "At its core, Popcorn Maker is an HTML5 Web app for combining Web media with images, text, maps, and other dynamic Web content. Its appearance is unique, but not unfamiliar, providing a timeline-based video editing experience for the Web."

According to Richter, once created in Popcorn Maker, the remixed videos are hosted as simple HTML pages in the cloud, which can be shared or embedded.

"Furthermore, every remix provides a 'Remix' button, allowing anyone watching to become a creator themselves by using the current remix as a base project for their own creation. This 'view source' experience for Web media is a key aspect of Popcorn Maker's goals as part of the larger Mozilla Webmaker project," says Richter.

Out of the box

Mozilla's director of Popcorn, Brett Gaylor, says of Popcorn Maker: "It's essentially a Web page that makes other Web pages. We think it's a great example of Mozilla's larger vision for what Web apps can be."

Popcorn Maker builds on a Java script library for developers, called Popcorn, which was created last year and allowed for the remixing of Web video.

"But until now, the power of Popcorn has been available mostly just to developers," says Gaylor. "Popcorn Maker puts that power in everyone's hands, through an intuitive interface anyone can use. We're really excited to see what the world will make with it.

"Until now, video on the Web has been stuck inside a little black box. Popcorn Maker changes that, making video work like the rest of the Web: hackable, linkable, remixable, and connected to the world around it."

The app is available via the Popcorn Maker site. The landing page also includes various examples of how the app can be used to remix videos and add interactive content.

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