YouTube introduces video editing feature

Some YouTube users may be noticing that they can now edit their videos onsite thanks to a new feature that’s rolling out globally Wednesday. 

Using the feature will enable you to edit uploaded YouTube videos while also maintaining the same video IDs, making it possible to hold onto view counts and comments. Existing links to the video will also continue to work. All you have to do is click “Edit Video” on your video’s page or on the My Videos page.

While the editing feature isn’t necessarily meant to replace software like Final Cut Pro, it is meant to help users fix their videos in a less time consuming manner.

“We noticed that a lot of people were uploading videos to YouTube that we can say are somewhat unpolished,” says Jason Toff, product manager at YouTube, adding that rougher amateur footage tends to be a lot more common than professionally edited work on the site.

A blog post from YouTube Software Engineer John Gregg outlines some of the editing options now available. If you have access to the editing feature, you can stabilize hand-held footage, rotate videos and boost the colors and contrast. The “I’m Feeling Lucky” feature will allow for one-click color correction.

YouTube’s team also collaborated with Picnik to provide new aesthetic effects. This makes it possible for you to add filters — such as black and white, lomo-ish and cartoon — to your videos. (Google acquired Picnik last year.)

Toff says there’s even an option to swap out your audio for something else by choosing from a number of available tracks. And if you have a video with too much footage at the beginning or end, you’ll be able to trim some of that out as well.

All you have to do is click “save” to begin processing video edits. But in case you aren’t happy with the new product, it is possible to go back to the original version. There is also an option to click “save as” in case you’d rather have multiple versions of the video. However, as the blog post points out, popular videos with more than 1,000 views and videos with third-party content will only be saved as new videos once edited.

Check out the video below to find out more about how the new editing feature works. According to YouTube, the feature will continue rolling out to users throughout Wednesday.

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