Today, during day two of its annual Build conference for engineers and developers, Microsoft unveiled Windows Story Remix, a video editing app that's infused with AI, mixed reality and collaborative tools.
The app seems like a grown-up version of Windows Movie Maker, but it also borrows some of the best elements from apps like Google Photos, Apple Clips, Snapchat and more. By combining many features under one umbrella and adding a few of its own, Story Remix looks poised to be more powerful than any of those.
When you create a video with Story Remix, you have the option of starting your own from scratch or capitalizing on one of the automatically-generated highlight reels that Story Remix creates with AI. This is similar to what the Assistant feature does in Google Photos, automatically creating animations, montages and edits (Story Remix also seems to replicate Google Photos' excellent searchability).
However, Story Remix adds a number of smart features for tweaking videos. For example, you can select a star of the video, and Story Remix will edit clips to focus on your subject of choice. When you change the soundtrack, the app automatically reworks video cuts to match up with the beats of the song. If the automatically generated video doesn't suit your needs, you can open a video editor to manually tweak clips.
Story Remix is also tapped into Microsoft's Remix3D community, a searchable library of virtual objects created by contributing artists (who are credited whenever someone uses their work). This allows users to drop virtual objects in your clips: In one example, a soccer ball was turned into a 3D fireball that exploded when it hit the net; another showed real people fleeing from dinosaurs. These mixed reality features take a strong cue from Snapchat's AR lenses.
Story Remix also has pen and ink support, so you can write a message or doodle, add it to the video and even anchor it to a person or object. It also contains collaborative features that allow various users to contribute footage to a highlight reel and work on finalizing the project together, even across platforms.
Story Remix will be a universal Windows app available in the Windows Store, but perhaps more importantly, it will also be available on iOS and Android. We were impressed with Story Remix's breadth of features during the keynote today. If the app pans out to be as well-rounded and easy to use as it seems, it could represent stiff competition for some of the more established desktop and mobile video editing apps.
We expect Windows Story Remix to be released alongside the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, which Microsoft also announced today and should roll out around September. Learn more in the video below.
