Pictureal puts consumer home videos online; Retailer partnerships in the works.

Pictureal Corp., San Francisco, Calif., helps rescue home videos and photos from the sad fate of being captured and promptly forgotten.

"We transform people's raw content, whether that's photo or video, into entertainment," says Negin Kamangar, director of marketing. "It's all about helping people glean something from their memories. We help the consumer who has a lot of video and no clue what to do with it. They take the footage of one event or another, and then it just sits there. Everybody intends to do something with it, but most people don't. Folks who have the technological ability sometimes think they want to edit their videos themselves. They buy editing software and then realize it's a Herculean effort to take a 3-hour wedding and cull that down to a half-hour watchable video. We help in that process."

Pictureal customers merely sign up on the site to create an account. The company provides prepaid shipping material, and the consumer sends in his raw footage in any form, even film reels. Within 7 business days, Pictureal edits the footage and puts it online, along with the customer's original raw footage, and provides the video on DVD (because the online footage is low res, Kamangar says consumers wouldn't want to burn DVDs themselves). The company offers similar services for putting photos online.

"We find there is that 'aha!' moment when they log into their account and see things they have forgotten ever existed--their kid's fourth birthday party or their trip to London, whatever it may be. We categorize and catalog the footage, naming each chapter. By the time the consumer sees it, we have done all the hard work for them, and they can just take pleasure in their memories," Kamangar says.

Create it and keep it

Some people like to do more than sit back and enjoy the videos. For them, Pictureal offers customization tools online, with which consumers can get creative.

"If they would like to move the chapters or add music, they can," Kamangar says. "We provide a number of editing tools that are simple to use. We facilitate a start-to-finish process, so people can get a DVD in hand to share with others, or send them a link to a video and invite them to watch it online. Friends and families only need to have Windows Media Player to watch it, which is standard on most computers these days. When we make DVDs, they are beautifully packaged in the color and style of the templates the customer has chosen. It's all very professionally done and it looks good."

The Pictureal site also has an area called "shorts," which offers animation templates and allows consumers to make music videos with their footage.

"With a couple clicks, you could put together a music video. You simply select the footage, the style and the templates. The site will automatically apply them, and you're done," Kamangar says." We do some pre-rendering of several different videos to show the consumer what it will look like. They can choose to further customize if they want, or create the video from scratch."

For $1.99, iPod users can download their videos and take them anywhere. "It's a great way to showcase your memories," Kamangar says.

With older formats rapidly deteriorating and newer formats coming out all the time, Kamangar says consumers have a real need for Pictureal services.

"We have created a way to help people get all their footage online," she says. "Once it's digitized and online, when new formats come out, we'll be here so they can download their footage. It will be there for them forever."

Connecting to retailers

Although the Pictureal model is currently based on working directly with the consumer, Kamangar says the company is working with retailers to make the service more accessible.

"We want people to go into the retail store, drop off their video, get it digitized--either on site or sent to us--and then log into their account and have their footage waiting," she notes. "We are talking with several different retailers to put that together. It's a very similar procedure to photo processing in terms of the consumer's behavior. Just as they would drop off their film for processing, they could drop off their videos for processing."

Find that face

One of the coolest features of the Pictureal service is casting. "We have facial recognition software on the site," Kamangar says. "Once a video is processed, it's able to recognize faces within the videos. Those faces are automatically put in the casting area. The consumer can go in and name them. Then, everywhere each person appears within the video is cataloged.

"Let's say, 5 years down the road, you want to put together a video for your mom and dad's 40th anniversary. You can pull up all the video pieces where mom appeared and dad appeared. With a couple clicks, you can put together a video showcasing them," she continues. "You can type, 'Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad!' You select the style and template, and you're done. It's as easy as that."

Choosing a video editing service

Consumers have several choices in video editing services, but Kamangar says choosing Pictureal is a "no brainer."

"There are lots of mom-and-pop shops out there that do video editing, but they are quite pricey and you have to work with them directly. The do-it-yourself method requires consumers to buy expensive software, learn how to use it, manage the digitization process, sacrifice an enormous amount of hard disk space, and do the rendering," she says. "We have simplified the process for the consumer. We do all the work, and leave just the fun part for them."