Two Tools for Clipping YouTube Video

More and more teachers and their students are implementing YouTube video into their classroom presentations, wikis, blogs, and web sites. Often, however, there's only a portion of a YouTube video which is really relevant to the lesson. In this post, I will be presenting two online tools that allow a teacher or student to embed only the salient part of the video, Splicd and TubeChop .

Both work in a similar way. Find the YouTube video containing the clip you plan to embed, copy its URL, paste it into a text box on either the Splicd or TubeChop home page, select the endpoints of the pertinent section of the video, and an HTML embed code for just that part of the video will be generated as well as a direct link for sharing through Twitter , email, and so forth.

The main difference between Splicd and TubeChop is the interface and exactly how you define where your clip begins and ends. Splicd takes a more direct bare-bones approach while TubeChop has a slicker UI, though it will require a few more steps to get the job done.

SPLICD http://www.splicd.com/

To use Splicd, you need to make note of the time points where the part of the video you wish to use begins and ends, then manually enter these at the same time you enter the URL of the video. Click Continue.

The code is generated along with a preview of the clip.

TUBECHOP http://www.tubechop.com/

To use TubeChop, enter the URL. Click search.

Next, you'll see a thumbnail preview of the source YouTube video. Click chop it.

Then as the video plays, use the pause/play control and the black slider bars on the timeline to mark the clip, click chop it once more.

Finally you will see a preview of the clip with the embed code as well as a direct link. There are also links to share your clip online.

EXAMPLES

As examples, I used both tools to clip the same section using this Penguins/Flyers 2009 Playoff video as a source.

There is a fight that starts at about 0:17 and ends at 0:33. Here is the fight clipped with Splicd.

powered by Splicd.com

Here is the same portion of the video clipped using TubeChop.

I should note that in my limited experience using both of these tools, clipping to exact start and end times appears to be a not yet perfect science. But, clipping source videos can save both time and bandwidth. Both Splicd and TubeChop are well worth trying out.

Mindmap visualization of Splicd/TubeChop