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RPPtv's Simple Web-Based Video Production

RPPtv sounds a little too good to be true: A Web-based uploading, sequencing, editing, and output program for consumers and broadcasters. It's also free, available any day from RPPtv's site or as a Facebook application.

The company was part of a research study the British government funded more than four years ago; the European Commission also provided funding to test it as a commercial offering.

RPPtv's site is a little sparse on details, but we saw a live demonstration at Startup Camp in London over a week ago and it was pretty slick. You can take various media clips, pull them together quickly, edit, tag, add a variety of audio tracks (although this is limited today) and then encode the video for output to the Web or to an iPhone.

One of the more interesting features is its Metadata Editor (MDE), which lets you input a hefty amount of information about the video during the editing process as opposed to having to enter it into a complex video publishing system. However, if you publish in one of those systems, it will have to be able to read RPPtv's MDE format.

RPPtv says that this is initially for the average consumer interested in making short films. It has created a channel for short films called My Movie Channel. But it also claims that professional broadcasters will be able to use it for archiving and meta tagging purposes in order to repurpose content for the Web or for broadcast TV production.

I'm not sure this is going to replace your Avid or Final Cut Pro, but it sure is compelling. It's easy, and it's free, and because it's on the Web, it makes it easier for multiple people to collaborate on a final product.

The company thinks that business models will soon emerge; that any piece of software that is useful and popular will eventually find its way into a paid model. But like so many of today's startups, the focus is on the product and on audience before the real business plan is finalized. Money could come from charging for more sophisticated features, or when the user monetizes the output.

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