Pictory: What is It and a Detailed Review [2023]

What is Pictory?

Pictory is an AI-driven video creation platform that transforms text like blog articles and scripts into customizable videos. Its main features include text-to-video tools, video editing using text, creating video highlights, and auto-captioning on videos. This tool is primarily valuable for bloggers, marketers, and content creators.

Is Pictory Right For You?

We recommend Pictory if you fit into the following descriptions:

• You want to create AI-generated videos using a script or blog post.
• Your team wants to generate video highlights from your recent meetings and other video content you can repurpose.
• You want access to advanced AI editing features, like Edit Video Using Text.
• You’re a course creator who wants auto-captioning on your video content.

Pictory may not be suitable for you if:

• You prefer using traditional video editing tools for more control over the editing process.
• You want more natural-sounding AI voiceovers on your video content.
• You’re a startup that has limited funds for AI editing software.

Pros & Cons of Pictory

Pros

Cons

What Sets Pictory Apart

Compared to competitor tools like Synthesia, Fliki, and InVideo, Pictory has more robust AI-video generation capabilities, which mainly use AI, NLP, text-to-speech, and computer vision to create relevant and engaging videos based on the user’s prompt. Users can also use the tool’s extensive media library and add personal branding to the video, like their logo, fonts, and colors.

Key Features

As an AI-driven video creation and editing  platform, here are some of the best features of Pictory:

Script to Video

The Script to Video feature lets users create AI-generated videos using scripts, articles, or similar content. The tool uses the inputted text as a prompt, enabling it to generate a video in seconds using relevant images and music. For instance, we’ll create a video about Twitter/X using information from Wikipedia:

Next, you can choose from in-built video templates and your desired aspect ratio. We’ll select ‘Executive’ with a 16:9 ratio:

Once the video is created, you’ll be redirected to the video editor page—it allows you to customize specific elements on the video, like rearranging scenes, editing visuals, audio, text, and more:

Once the video’s ready, you can save it to your device by clicking Download.

This AI-powered feature was easy to use and created videos in seconds using written content. Users can also make basic edits on the Video Editor, which we found user-friendly.

Edit Video Using Text

Another valuable feature of Pictory is Edit Video using Text. As its name suggests, it enables users to edit a video by removing parts of it using its transcribed version. It features the Auto Highlights tool, which lets users create a shorter video version by only including relevant details highlighted by AI—handy for making short-form content on various platforms.

Besides that, the tool can remove filler words and silences, add subtitles, and customize the video’s aspect ratio. In this example, we’ll use a YouTube video about the best AI tools in 2023 by TechTelligence. To start, paste the video link on the field; you can also upload videos from your computer:

Once the video is uploaded, the tool will generate a transcription for the video, which will allow you to edit it:

If you want to remove a portion of the video, you’ll need to highlight it from the transcription and select Delete from video. In this example, we’ll remove the first few lines from the transcribed version:

After it's removed, the player will only play the remaining parts. To customize the video’s elements, click Customize video, which will direct you to the video editor page.

Next, if you want to make short-form content from the video that you can share to other platforms like TikTok, YouTube Shorts, Facebook Reels, etc., you can use the Auto Highlights feature. In this example, we’ll use the same video and include at least 25% of the key highlights:

After the AI scans the transcript for highlights, it will be placed on the Highlights tab. You can delete some portions using Unhighlight or manually add highlights from the transcript by selecting Add to highlights:

Like a regular video, you can edit all video highlights using the platform’s built-in editor by selecting Customize highlights video. To save the video highlight to your computer, select Download video highlight:

The Edit Video Using Text feature is the platform’s bread-and-butter tool; it has an intuitive interface where we edit the video by deleting segments on the video’s transcription. We also like the Auto Highlights tool for creating short-form content using key highlights picked by AI.

Pricing

As a powerful AI video creation tool, Pictory offers three main pricing plans, with a 15% discount for annual billing:

Pictory also offers a free trial that allows users to generate up to three videos with up to 10 minutes in length. It's a great chance to explore Pictory's features without spending any money. Take advantage of this trial to find out if Pictory is right for your video needs and see how it can help you make cool videos.

Final Thoughts on Pictory

Pictory is an impressive AI video generator and editing tool for course creators, online coaches, and marketing teams looking to create long and short-form videos for their brand. We liked its Script-to-Video and Auto Highlights features since they were easy to use and quickly generated shareable video content.

We rated the tool 4.0/5 because of its ease of use and serviceable features. However, considering its tools, especially its limited video customization options, we thought its pricing plans were expensive. Its pre-defined AI voices can sound artificial, which isn’t suitable for YouTube creators looking to monetize their content.

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