A few months back we looked at Highlight Hunter, a handy little application for bookmarking video highlights during filming by covering the lens for a few moments. An updated version has now arrived that features a cleaner user interface, Facebook sharing and a more accurate scanning engine. Even more notably, the application is now free.
Like the original version, Highlight Hunter 2.0 is compatible with Mac and PC and scans through captured video footage, pulling out clips that have been bookmarked during recording by placing a hand over the lens for about a second. The length of the clips leading up to the covering of the lens can be customized and the resulting clips can then be imported into a video-editing program for further refinement.
Added to the new version, along with a cleaner user interface, is the ability to share clips on Facebook from directly within the application and an improved scanning engine. The makers claim this makes version 2.0 twice as accurate in finding highlights as the previous version. We had no problems with the original version correctly identifying all our highlights, but won’t say no to greater accuracy.
The only catch with the shift to a free download for the new version (the original retailed at US$29.99) is that a small watermark is placed on outputted clips. However, the watermark can be removed by upgrading to the Pro version, which costs $99. Aimed at professional videographers, the Pro version also adds the ability to export clips as ProRes and will open the highlights directly in a third-party editor.
The updated application is currently available for free download for both Mac and PC from the Highlight Hunter website.
The following video shows how Highlight Hunter works.