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Show HN: CompressX, my FFmpeg wrapper for macOS

compressx.app

141–150 of 173 posts

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

#141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is Google if not a Microsoft-scale company

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

The acceptable replacements would be Libre/Open Office, then Pages. The latter has more feature than Google Docs. Where Google Docs shines is when you need collaboration and basic Word processing features.

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

#142

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%…

I usually share example of compression result on my Twitter (as the main marketing channel for now), some of the videos was compressed more than 90% of the size, by re-encoding with h264 codec. Thanks for the feedback, I will update the website to add some example videos and images. For trimming without re-encoding, it's not possible in the current version

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

#143
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

were talking about a tiny desktop app that wraps ffmpeg CLI. this is the perfect use case for it, over, say, VISUAL STUDIO CODE.

I actually think VSCode is one of the best use cases for Electron. It enables a robust and well-documented set of APIs for extension and theme developers, which IMO is why it has one of the most thriving extension ecosystems out there. Disclaimer: I work at Microsoft, but not in Developer Division.

> It enables a robust and well-documented set of APIs for extension and theme developers

Didn't VIM and Emacs have that for ages? Look at https://vimawesome.com/. I think the remote development extension is nice, but most people would just SSH and run their editor on the server or sync their project's files.

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

#144
post #31
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's because the user interface is actually consistent and normalised across the whole platform and the paradigms are well documented and understood by the developers producing software. On Windows and Linux one minute you're constantly poked in the eye by fucked up scaling issues, different toolkit weirdness and quirks, various layers of abandoned shit going back 25 years and people with the design ability of a thre…

This is a brilliant summary. I mean… less of the goat bashing… but otherwise you summed it up pretty nicely.

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

#145
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.

I think it’s partly down to the Mac’s long history of being favoured by creative types… especially designers.

And some developers are either pretty good UI designers too (it happens) or at the very least they have good taste for design. If you’re one of those people, it’s hard not to gravitate towards the Mac.

That and Apple care a lot about design too so as others have said, the platform is kind of setup for guiding you (mostly) towards making good decisions in that area.

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

#146
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 c…

Below changes will be implemented this week:

The website: Remove the pop-up & Update privacy & ToS to mention exact what data is tracked and how to opt-in/out from anonymous telemetry

The app: Add the option to opt-in/out anonymous telemetry

Thanks for the feedback

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

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It's not mentioned in the terms of service either. I would recommend removing this because it's against the GDPR... and even foreign companies have to comply (for the protection of European citizens, wherever they are) if they offer goods and/ or services to citizens in the EU in some way (European region of an app store, ad campaigns in Europe, etc.) I also think that the GDPR is pretty correct in requiring opt-in c…

Thanks for the feedback. I will update it this week.

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

#148
post #94

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?

Thought of this too, how do they know how many GB are being reduced? Hope the analytics can be opted out.

I will implement the option to opt-out anonymous telemetry this week. Thanks for the feedback

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

#149

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%…

For lossless cut, there's the LosslessCut [1] app, which even has an experimental but mostly working version of a "smart cut" feature [2] (aka. only re-encode the minimal mandatory amount of frames if you trim at a point between 2 key frames)

[1]: https://github.com/mifi/lossless-cut

[2]: https://github.com/mifi/lossless-cut/issues/126

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

#150
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 c…

I highly disagree. I think the majority of people who would pay money for a barebones ffmpeg wrapper don't care about telemetry.
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