Not long at all!  We've seen people create videos in less time than it takes to heat a Lean Pocket®.  True story.

For most of our videos, it takes about 10 seconds to render 30 seconds of video.  So, if you have a video that's about 3 minutes in length, it should be ready in about a minute.

Animoto uses patent-pending technology to analyze your images and everything about the selected music - its structure, genre, energy, build, rhythm - before developing a blueprint for the motion design of your video. The remaining time is spent rendering your video, using a giant farm of computer processors to custom-generate 15 new images per second for your final video.  (Fancy, huh?)

High-Resolution Upgrades

If you're upgrading the quality of your video, it will take a little more time to prepare it.  It usually takes about 20 seconds to upgrade 30 seconds of video.  So, if you're upgrading that same 3-minute video, it should be ready in about 2 minutes.

In a Rush?  

We suggest that if you need this for a school assignment or presentation for work you make your video the day before to ensure that you have it in time.  Try downsizing large image files before you upload them to make the image upload stage fast, especially if you have a lot of images.

What To Do While Your Video Is Being Created

You don't have to keep your computer on or even stay on the animoto.com website while you video is rendering. We'll e-mail you once your upgraded video is ready to be viewed or downloaded.  You can also check the status by visiting the downloads section listed below your video.  If the section next to your upgraded resolution still says "Producing video...", it just needs more time.  If it's available for download, your upgrade is complete!

Stuck video?

If it's been a few hours and you think your video might be stuck, email us a link to the video (starting with http://animoto.com/play) and we'll be happy to take a look at what the holdup might be.