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Show HN: CompressX, my FFmpeg wrapper for macOS

compressx.app

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Re: Show HN: CompressX, my FFmpeg wrapper for macOS

#121

Post by CharlesW »

booi wrote: post #112
akaru wrote: post #99

What does ffmpeg do that AVFoundation does not?

Supports hundreds of file formats both new and ancient, ability to control every aspect of encoding, uses libx264/x265 which are much better than the libraries available in AVFoundation etc.. What does AVFoundation do that ffmpeg cannot? Probably streaming libraries, Dolby Vision support, hardware accelerated encoding. AVFoundation is great for what it is, an OS embedded library.

> …uses libx264/x265 which are much better than the libraries available in AVFoundation etc.

Citations? As a counter-example, AVFoundation's AAC encoder trounces anything in ffmpeg, which ffmpeg thankfully exposes suffixed "_at".

  ffmpeg -i input.wav -c:a aac_at -profile:a aac_he -b:a 64k output.m4a
https://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=Apple_AAC

Re: Show HN: CompressX, my FFmpeg wrapper for macOS

#122

Post by hbn »

ubanholzer wrote: post #100
threecheese wrote: post #89

How does your site know that “22 files compressed in the past hour”? Does the app collect this type of metrics from Desktop users, or is there some web-based function that’s being observed?

The app connects to telemetrydeck.com. Sadly, couldn't find any opt-out setting.

I'd really urge the author to rethink doing something like this at all. The app looks great but those stats on the front page were an immediate turn-off for me (not to mention how it pops up in what looks like an annoying cookie banner). You can talk about user activity on a web service where it makes sense to be hitting a server, but for a local app that should really just be a nice GUI for ffmpeg, I don't want my computer updating you whenever I use it with data about how I used it.

And the types of users who are going to be using something like an ffmpeg wrapper are the types who are gonna care about something like that.

It's not SaaS anyway, so why would I care about your current to-the-hour success metrics? Might as well just slap your amount of sales up there, it's less intrusive at least. Put some user testimonials, anything other than telemetry data.

Re: Show HN: CompressX, my FFmpeg wrapper for macOS

#123

Post by CharlesW »

Solvency wrote: post #40
wpm wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Handbrakes UI is a mess.

how so? you literally select a file, and choose a preset and export. Not happy with one of the presets? Cool, adjust some quality sliders and hit export.

Handbrake settings can be overwhelming for beginners once they escape the playpen of presets, while CompressX provides just a handful of controls, with no bitrates or codec names in sight.

Re: Show HN: CompressX, my FFmpeg wrapper for macOS

#124

Post by ryandrake »

wtallis wrote: post #102
andsoitis wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reality is that for most people, they use an app on a sibgle platform (typical end users don’t constantly switch between Windows, Linux, and macOS) so that consistency does not primarily benefit the end-user.

Exactly. The consistency being extolled here is not from the perspective of the users but of the marketing department that wants to warp basic UI conventions in service of making their branding a more pervasive part of the user experience. Users basically never want you to give them an app where even the buttons and scroll bars are changed to comply with your corporate style guide.

I remember raging with our designers over this, when building a mobile app. They were insisting on controls that look and feel exactly the same on iOS and Android because of some vague need to have consistent marketing/branding. Which ultimately meant custom controls (sometimes 10x development effort) that were not familiar to users on either platform. No user wants this. It's desired entirely by companies whose design department is too focused on their own designs.

The same is true for desktop applications. No macOS user wants their application to look like a Windows application and no Windows user wants Mac controls.

Re: Show HN: CompressX, my FFmpeg wrapper for macOS

#125

Post by hbn »

altcognito wrote: post #106
jjice wrote: post #23

I swear the best looking software like this is all built for MacOS. Maybe there's a lot of it on Windows as well, but I don't see a ton of it on HN (maybe just the demo?). Is the ecosystem part of this? Is it that the application demographic leans towards MacOS? Is the dev and monetization experience better? I'm really curious if anyone know why I see so much good native indie software for MacOS specifically.

It is a single screen with about 5 input boxes and a drag and drop interface. Probably a bit of hyperbole to put this into a category of "best looking software"

Yeah but if you look at a lot of single-screen apps with about 5 input boxes developed for Windows/Linux, they've got a face only a FOSS fanatic could love.

Re: Show HN: CompressX, my FFmpeg wrapper for macOS

#126

Post by ryandrake »

jwells89 wrote: post #55
jjice wrote: post #23

I swear the best looking software like this is all built for MacOS. Maybe there's a lot of it on Windows as well, but I don't see a ton of it on HN (maybe just the demo?). Is the ecosystem part of this? Is it that the application demographic leans towards MacOS? Is the dev and monetization experience better? I'm really curious if anyone know why I see so much good native indie software for MacOS specifically.

A lot of it is the frameworks available in Apple platforms. AppKit and UIKit are both wide and deep, providing just about everything needed to build polished apps while also providing well-supported “happy paths” for most tasks. I can whip up a decent looking AppKit UI for a moderately complex desktop app that can handle the rigors of accessibility settings and internationalization in an afternoon without importing a…

Also, a beautiful, polished UI is "table stakes" for Apple users. They'll walk away if the application does not look and feel polished. Windows, Linux, Android, and so on users aren't as picky and tolerate less finished/consistent designs.

Re: Show HN: CompressX, my FFmpeg wrapper for macOS

#127

Post by jwells89 »

ryandrake wrote: post #126
jwells89 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of it is the frameworks available in Apple platforms. AppKit and UIKit are both wide and deep, providing just about everything needed to build polished apps while also providing well-supported “happy paths” for most tasks. I can whip up a decent looking AppKit UI for a moderately complex desktop app that can handle the rigors of accessibility settings and internationalization in an afternoon without importing a…

Also, a beautiful, polished UI is "table stakes" for Apple users. They'll walk away if the application does not look and feel polished. Windows, Linux, Android, and so on users aren't as picky and tolerate less finished/consistent designs.

The two kind of feed into each other. The UI framework is conducive to polished UI, which results in more polished apps, which raises the bar of expectations for users. This then pressures developers to deliver more polished apps.

This is why I think that anybody looking to create a new platform with a similar culture of quality indie apps should put building an capable, pleasant native UI toolkit at the top of their list of priorities. UI toolkits are the lifeblood of platforms.

Re: Show HN: CompressX, my FFmpeg wrapper for macOS

#128

Post by talldayo »

saagarjha wrote: post #115
talldayo wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I couldn't think of a more branding-heavy native app. It's got the ribbon interface of Windows ported to MacOS, the rowed toolbox with different button sizes, the status-bar on the bottom, it's still basically a Windows app with MacOS widgets. And generally speaking, yeah, people are happy to use Microsoft Office. The Mac version is nearly identical to the other versions. The "branding" is ignored or even applauded,…

What is Google if not a Microsoft-scale company

What is Google Docs if not a perfectly acceptable Microsoft Word replacement?

Re: Show HN: CompressX, my FFmpeg wrapper for macOS

#130

Post by redundantly »

blopker wrote: post #119
emmanueloga_ wrote: post #86

Looks cool but raises a bunch of questions :-). Maybe you could add these to your FAQ, I imagine picky users like me may want the answers to at least some of these: "up to 90% file size reduction" What's an example of an input video or image that would see its size reduced by 90% without loosing quality? Also, how do you come up with this percentage? I imagine median/average size reduction must be way lower than 90%…

The macOS integration on this app is impressive, but the technical compression bits are a combination of ffmpeg and off-the-shelf image compression libraries. The 90% number is a pretty typical (with lossy) image savings when taking a totally unoptimized jpeg out of a program like Photoshop. There's just a bunch of extra data that can be stripped out (EXIF for one), that doesn't affect how the image looks. For video,…

EXIF metadata accounts for so little of the overall file size it isn't even worth mentioning...
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