Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: I'm building an easy-to-use video editor, tell me your pain points

news.ycombinator.com

1–10 of 26 posts

Ask HN: I'm building an easy-to-use video editor, tell me your pain points

#1
Pretty much, what's in the title. My focus is to be extremely easy to use, and I want to cut video editing time at least 5 fold.

My target audience is beginning youtubers, youtubers wanting to grow their channel.

With that in mind, what are your biggest editing pain points? Those that drain you out, and take most time? Thanks for sharing!

Re: Ask HN: I'm building an easy-to-use video editor, tell me your pain points

#2
I'm currently using Shotcut. My problems:

* I want an option to repeat the last frame for a while, to add a pause in the middle of the video. (Now I have to save the frame as an image, and add the image to the timeline.) (Most of the time I use a static whiteboard, so a repeated frame doesn't look weird.)

* I'd like to remove some time from the images part of the videos and the same amount of time from the audio. (Now I can do it, cutting carefully.)

* I'd like to glue two intervals of video, and keep them glued forever. (Sometimes I remove a small part, and after that the section is "perfect" and I want to work with the section as whole object instead of two small sections.) (Perhaps also add an option to glue the audio and the image, for the same reason.)

Re: Ask HN: I'm building an easy-to-use video editor, tell me your pain points

#4

I'm currently using Shotcut. My problems: * I want an option to repeat the last frame for a while, to add a pause in the middle of the video. (Now I have to save the frame as an image, and add the image to the timeline.) (Most of the time I use a static whiteboard, so a repeated frame doesn't look weird.) * I'd like to remove some time from the images part of the videos and the same amount of time from the audio. (No…

Thanks!

1. I already have this - in my app, it's called "Static Video" - you select the "static video" tool, click where you want do set it, and drag for as long as you want.

2. I have this as well - I do need to test it a bit more, but it's there (as long as the audio + video are synchronized, which is the default) -> this works

3. This - I've added to my TODO list. About the audio - that makes sense too (also added to my TODO list).

A bit more details on 3. - I want to implement also something called a "lock" - basically, when you click it, you tell my app - I'm not gonna modify this anymore, so you can do whatever mojo you want, to optimize as much as possible. Will (in theory :D) work wonders on time remapping (which is what I'm working on right now).

^Does that make sense?

Re: Ask HN: I'm building an easy-to-use video editor, tell me your pain points

#5
post #3

Linux support

Thanks!

In the long term, I believe I will have this. Due to the complexity of video editing (I mean, implementation wise), I chose to go with a single platform for now (Windows 10). The more I think about it, the more I think I should have gone with Mac, but that's another story. All in all, I do want to go multi-platform, once I've gotten all the right features ready.

Re: Ask HN: I'm building an easy-to-use video editor, tell me your pain points

#6
post #5
post #3

Linux support

Thanks! In the long term, I believe I will have this. Due to the complexity of video editing (I mean, implementation wise), I chose to go with a single platform for now (Windows 10). The more I think about it, the more I think I should have gone with Mac, but that's another story. All in all, I do want to go multi-platform, once I've gotten all the right features ready.

That sounds like a no

Re: Ask HN: I'm building an easy-to-use video editor, tell me your pain points

#7
post #4

I'm currently using Shotcut. My problems: * I want an option to repeat the last frame for a while, to add a pause in the middle of the video. (Now I have to save the frame as an image, and add the image to the timeline.) (Most of the time I use a static whiteboard, so a repeated frame doesn't look weird.) * I'd like to remove some time from the images part of the videos and the same amount of time from the audio. (No…

Thanks! 1. I already have this - in my app, it's called "Static Video" - you select the "static video" tool, click where you want do set it, and drag for as long as you want. 2. I have this as well - I do need to test it a bit more, but it's there (as long as the audio + video are synchronized, which is the default) -> this works 3. This - I've added to my TODO list. About the audio - that makes sense too (also added…

In some brig (15 minutes :) ) projects, I made two passes.

In the first pass I made a lot of small fixes to cover typos, drop down menus of the interface, sometimes the mouse, a transparent frame to have nice borders, ... but I didn't modify the timeline.

In the second pass I cut dead time, error that were erased, and other similar stuff that modify the timeline.

The first pass takes like x4 the length of the video, but the second pass only take x1/2 of the length of the video. (I had to fix a few details in the first pass, so I rendered it like 3 times.)

Re: Ask HN: I'm building an easy-to-use video editor, tell me your pain points

#8
post #6
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks! In the long term, I believe I will have this. Due to the complexity of video editing (I mean, implementation wise), I chose to go with a single platform for now (Windows 10). The more I think about it, the more I think I should have gone with Mac, but that's another story. All in all, I do want to go multi-platform, once I've gotten all the right features ready.

That sounds like a no

I'm sorry you feel this way, I'm just saying it's gonna happen long term, as opposed to short term.

Re: Ask HN: I'm building an easy-to-use video editor, tell me your pain points

#9
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks! 1. I already have this - in my app, it's called "Static Video" - you select the "static video" tool, click where you want do set it, and drag for as long as you want. 2. I have this as well - I do need to test it a bit more, but it's there (as long as the audio + video are synchronized, which is the default) -> this works 3. This - I've added to my TODO list. About the audio - that makes sense too (also added…

In some brig (15 minutes :) ) projects, I made two passes. In the first pass I made a lot of small fixes to cover typos, drop down menus of the interface, sometimes the mouse, a transparent frame to have nice borders, ... but I didn't modify the timeline. In the second pass I cut dead time, error that were erased, and other similar stuff that modify the timeline. The first pass takes like x4 the length of the video,…

Assuming that is your workflow, I believe I should be able to cut that 4-5 times. Namely, I would cut down on your first time probably 3 fold, by making it waaay faster - I already have instant preview everywhere as you hover something with the mouse (I'm working on making this even faster).

Cutting down (trimming) videos is simply insanely easy and fast, so I assume I would cut that process in half also.

There might be some bugs to iron out, but if you'd like to try it out (the app), we can go from there.

Re: Ask HN: I'm building an easy-to-use video editor, tell me your pain points

#10
Just to give you another POV, might be useless - my main pain point would be how to know I am speaking well, that I’m interesting and clear, that people are getting something out of watching. I’ve not done much YouTube (1 or 2 private videos for product explainer ever) but it’s something that interests me, but only if I can create good content. Sorry I’m not directly answering your editing question as I have nothing to edit, but it’s a point of view that may be of interest
Post reply on HN