HighlightCam aims to make video editing simple and mobile

Mobile video startup HighlightCam launched today, as it aims to make it easier for users to take their movie making totally mobile and simplify the editing process, CEO Robert Neivert told me Thursday.

Using “objective-based video editing,” a user can create “edited” minimovies without having to do any manual editing themselves.

“Think of it like having your own personal video editor: you send them the footage, and tell them what you want, and they do all the editing,” said Neivert. “For us, you send us your footage and tell us what you want, and we do the work and send it back to your iPhone, including scene selection, fades, cutting out of bad shots, audio fading, and more. Just like a professional editor would.”

It “edits” a user’s footage using machine vision systems to analyze both the images and the audio track and convert them into a complex series of scores about factors such as quality, activity, voice and human faces.

Then, based on the user’s objective, HighlightCam simulates a human editor’s decisions and implements them in conjunction with the user’s stated objectives.

It also allows someone to publish minimovies to YouTube or Facebook in one step.

Neivert said the company wants to begin centering video creation around the mobile device and not the PC. It currently works on the iPhone or iPod Touch, with an Android component soon to come.

Although HighlightCam does not have any direct competitors, there are other video editors for the iPhone including iMovie, and entertainment companies such as Animoto and Instagram who focus on images, but provide similar entertainment value.

Founded in 2009, the company currently has four employees.

“Our ideal user is an iPhone user that shoots video and want to share it, but does not have time to manually edit it,” said Neivert. “We expect this will be strongly represented by parents with small children and pet owners who tend to shoot a large amount of casual video, but don’t have the time or skill to manually edit all the footage.”

So far the startup has received $350,000 in one seed round from Quest Venture Partners, K9, Pong Lim, and other smaller investors.