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Show HN: Glitterly – Create and share videos of your app
- oskarahl 6y agoHi HN, I’m a big fan of following feature updates for my favourite apps, and I’ve always wondered how they make videos that have all these nice transitions and zooms. And so I wanted to create a product that a non-professional video editor / solo developer / bootstrapping tech founder can use to edit a screen recording of your app. Features: - Add padding and set a frame from Unsplash - Gifs - Highlight user interactions with a zoom - Transitions and animations. Use cases: feature demos, presentations, social media posts, “how to” videos. Putting my MVP out here, and keen to hear your feedback.
- forgingahead 6y agoHi @oskar, looks very nice! What's the pricing on this? Couldn't see anything on your site. I know there may be a concern about putting pricing front-and-center in that would scare off potential users, but highly recommend having some pricing somewhere to test actual market viability. Many people want cool stuff, but refuse to pay for it - unfortunately, that indicates the product or service isn't solving a real pain point (and that that user base is actually lousy for a business). I don't think Glitterly falls in this category, but you need paying customers to have a business, and it's best to find out this information sooner rather than later. You can always raise or reduce prices, but having something there is the best way to start figuring this out. Good luck! It's a long journey so congrats on taking the first step.
- oskarahl 6y agoThanks for the suggestion it's a good point of view that I hadn't considered yet. Currently it's completely free and open to use for anyone, but I'll run out of free digital ocean server credits one day :) Did you get a chance to try out the video editor itself, what do you think?
- nmstoker 6y agoHi @oskarahl - I'll give it a go. Two questions: 1. How does video capture work - does it need local installation or does it do something clever through the browser? 2. How well suited is it to recapturing an updated version of a video, without redoing all the config again by hand? On the second point, my common scenario is an app gets updated and there's a new button or slight change in a part of the screen (not the core feature being captured) and to keep it consistent, I need to re-record basically the same video with the latest app release. Got anything to help speed that up?
- oskarahl 6y agoThanks for checking it out. 1. Currently it's a web-based video editor (so no download required) where you edit screen recordings, so at the moment you'll need to record your screen and then upload it. 2. I see, maybe adding a "skeleton" loader overlay over content that's not affected by the core feature would handle this? e.g. something like this: https://twitter.com/SlackHQ/status/1275154148938461185 https://twitter.com/SlackHQ/status/1275154148938461185
- nmstoker 6y agoOn point 2, yes that could work. Originally I'd been thinking of it remembering the same screen capture size/locations etc, so it would just reapply those to my updated capture but your way would help keep people focused and avoid distraction with surrounding UI.
- transitivebs 6y agoLooks really solid. I built a similar product called Automagical awhile back (https://automagical.ai/ https://automagical.ai/) that we exited to a media agency. A few notes from my experience: 1. Using gifs in this way as part of a composite video is unfortunately against giphy's ToS. We received a cease & desist from them after awhile, so just be aware of that up front. 2. If you want to support more variety in your transitions, check out my OSS project https://github.com/transitive-bullshit/ffmpeg-concat https://github.com/transitive-bullshit/ffmpeg-concat Overall, the product looks really polished & I love where you're headed. Best of luck!
- oskarahl 6y agoThanks for the feedback, very impressive that you exited Automagical. 1. Haha oh no, I'll have to look for alternatives to Giphy then. 2. Yes i've been eyeing this for a while as the GL-transitions are really smooth, I plan to add it once I release further support for multiple screens.
- 1f60c 6y ago> Using gifs in this way as part of a composite video is unfortunately against giphy's ToS That seems silly, as I don’t think they own/have a license to any of their GIFs.
- bberenberg 6y agoBut they do have a license to their API which you are using to access those GIFs.
- nakovet 6y agoLooks great, I used for a few minutes and it's very intuitive! I did try to download my video on Firefox and after waiting a few minutes I gave up, maybe you got an error in your tracker?
- oskarahl 6y agoThanks! The video transformations can be a bit time-consuming (especially right now as there is quite a bit of traffic from hackernews) - I'll add a proper loader so you can see how much time is remaining. Admittedly I haven't tested much with firefox, i'll check if there is an issue with the download itself.
- propter_hoc 6y agoI've been dragging my heels on doing a new demo video for my company - going to try this out first thing Monday. Thanks, @oskarahl! Couple things I'll be looking into: * the zooming looks awesome * how easy it is to insert title cards or subtitles * I don't think I need the borders, so it'd be good if those are optional.
- oskarahl 6y agoThat's awesome let me know how it goes. The border can be removed by pressing the "undo" button (perhaps the ui/ux for this could be a bit clearer - i'll see what I can do). Currently no title/subtitle support yet (outside of the intro scene), but it's something i'll start working on asap as it's been requested by quite a few users already.
- mindhash 6y agoThis looks good. I use screen flow but can see the simplicity of this.
- vishnumohandas 6y agoHey oskarahl, as a solo dev working on https://ente.io https://ente.io, I was looking for something just like this! The MVP imo is the ability to zoom. What I'd kill for is the ability to add text widgets to point out/explain features. Thanks for building this, and congratulations for launching. All the best!
- oskarahl 6y agoThanks! Yes sliding in texts / headers / annotations are on the upcoming features list. Any specific kind of text widgets that you are thinking of?
- vishnumohandas 6y agoI was thinking of a widget where in I can set the font-style and related properties, along with the background color and padding.
- davidajackson 6y agoAre there an pre-set dimensions/settings for iPhone apps? What I'd really like is just easy exporting of all screenshots and the video thumbnail. I know there's a lot of tools that do this already but there's always room for new effects/styles. Thanks
- jack_riminton 6y agoNice job, this is exactly what I'll be using on my weekend project to show my other projects! (makers.page, a place for makers to show their projects, blog etc.)
- oskarahl 6y agoGreat, let me know how it goes :)