A few months ago LoiLo rolled out an editing program that is worth serious evaluation, if for no other reason than marveling at their provocative approach to a very traditional process. Who knows what the future holds for editing software, particularly with the anticipated release of a new and improved MovieMaker by Microsoft and the revamped iMovie09. Certainly simple editing with your mobile phone is no longer science fiction with the release of the iPhone 3GS.

Watching this video, and I had to watch a number of times to fathom all the changes they have put forward, I marveled at how they are turning the process of editing onto its ear. Most of today’s software  utilizes bins, source/record windows, sequences and clips for the work flow. This is a paradigm rooted firmly in film editing, right down to a nomenclature established nearly 100 years ago. It is refreshing to see how the Super LoiLoScope MARS software not only rethinks, but executes an entirely new editor.

From what I can tell on the site the price point is not bad, at $88. That drops it into the somewhat crowded field of entry-level editing software. Here is a page with descriptions and  instructions, along with the download page. I should note it is only available for the PC.

I have to believe it would be an amazing kinesthetic experience to run this application on something like MS Surface. The opportunity to physically manage and move the pieces of your story would bridge the gap from cognitive to intuitive creation. Just the process of zooming in and out of your workspace would change your entire approach to editing.

One of the greatest values from the software may be the features listed at the end of their video demo. The ability to nimbly convert your source footage into easily distributable formats is invaluable. LoiLo appear to have taken the guesswork out of moving your 1080i AVCHD content into the smaller and more compressed 720 MP4 files for upload to YouTube. The same ease of flipping from one file flavor to another applies in down-converting your footage for mobile devices, and burning a DVD. The time it takes to compress your files becomes a screamingly fast experience when you tie the software to a GPU accelerator like the NVIDIA CUDA card. They claim speeds of up to 10x to flip files.

Looks like I know what I will be playing with for the next few weeks. It certainly looks promising.