I want to hear about success for this, but building on zoom?
Isn't that kind of like dumping waste into the bay, and then trying to build on top of those sludge heaps? It's totally possible, but is there not a better way?
Grain, a startup built atop of Zoom for note-taking and video-clip making
21–30 of 84 posts
Re: Grain, a startup built atop of Zoom for note-taking and video-clip making
#22The video on their landing page does a vastly better job explaining how it works:
I've got to say, that for meetings big/important enough where you've got someone dedicated to taking notes/minutes, this seems like it could be a really effective and compelling way of sharing meeting highlights/takeaways/fun bits with a broader audience, people who couldn't make it, or for posterity. A serious win for workplace culture and communication generally. (Of course, you never know until you actually try using it for a few weeks.)
But if this works well, hopefully Zoom buys them, and we'll expect to see Google and Microsoft build their own versions.
Re: Grain, a startup built atop of Zoom for note-taking and video-clip making
#23Can confirm the "new way of working" when it comes to video clips ...
I have made it a part of my worklife to share with co-workers EDITED video highlights of zoom calls and training sessions. This includes conference talks I find on youtube (e.g. Kubecon talks) that I want to have colleagues view.
I can usually cut down an hour talk/call. to around 5-20 minutes of good high impact content.
Historically, I just record in the cloud on Zoom (using all the nice extra features around auto-transcript, recording speaker and shared screen separately, etc... ) and edit it in Adobe Premier.
I've got the manual workflow down where this is something I don't do every day.. but several times a week is fine. Editing ain't pretty, but it is effective.
Since the lockdown, I have been working on the other end of the "pipeline"... the INPUT to Zoom. After a couple of false starts (OBS, CamTwist, Wirecast...). I ended up implementing Ecamm Studio Pro....
Looking forward to exploring your tool....
Re: Grain, a startup built atop of Zoom for note-taking and video-clip making
#24Can confirm the "new way of working" when it comes to video clips ... I have made it a part of my worklife to share with co-workers EDITED video highlights of zoom calls and training sessions. This includes conference talks I find on youtube (e.g. Kubecon talks) that I want to have colleagues view. I can usually cut down an hour talk/call. to around 5-20 minutes of good high impact content. Historically, I just recor…
Can you talk about the value you've gotten out of doing this? It sounds very interesting, but also fairly effort-intensive. Does it also help you remember meeting takeaways, because you're actively reviewing your recent day or two?
Re: Grain, a startup built atop of Zoom for note-taking and video-clip making
#25Can confirm the "new way of working" when it comes to video clips ... I have made it a part of my worklife to share with co-workers EDITED video highlights of zoom calls and training sessions. This includes conference talks I find on youtube (e.g. Kubecon talks) that I want to have colleagues view. I can usually cut down an hour talk/call. to around 5-20 minutes of good high impact content. Historically, I just recor…
Can you talk about the value you've gotten out of doing this? It sounds very interesting, but also fairly effort-intensive. Does it also help you remember meeting takeaways, because you're actively reviewing your recent day or two?
I do it mostly so I don't have to repeat myself. :)
I use the clips so that others can gain from the kernals of wisdom those clips provide... without having to commit to some portion of an hour to find the kernal themselves.
Saves everyone time and enforces compliance to decisions made )
Also, of course, by manually editing down a deeply technical discussion from an hour to 20 minutes helps me REALLY listen and understand what the speaker is saying....and so it also helps me to continue improve my knowledge...
Re: Grain, a startup built atop of Zoom for note-taking and video-clip making
#26Can confirm the "new way of working" when it comes to video clips ... I have made it a part of my worklife to share with co-workers EDITED video highlights of zoom calls and training sessions. This includes conference talks I find on youtube (e.g. Kubecon talks) that I want to have colleagues view. I can usually cut down an hour talk/call. to around 5-20 minutes of good high impact content. Historically, I just recor…
Can you talk about the value you've gotten out of doing this? It sounds very interesting, but also fairly effort-intensive. Does it also help you remember meeting takeaways, because you're actively reviewing your recent day or two?
I do this for my video courses. 10 hours of raw material becomes around 4 hours of course video.
It’s super labor intensive but once you get in the flow it’s surprisingly easy/quick. Especially if you’re okay cutting 10h down to 6h instead of 4h.
And yes it makes you know the material incredibly well. Way better even than the prep for and creating of the raw stuff.
Re: Grain, a startup built atop of Zoom for note-taking and video-clip making
#27Hey HN. I'm Mike co-founder/CEO of Grain. I decided to start Grain b/c I was tired of requesting access to recordings of convos and repeating myself when I could just share the part of a recording instead. Our team built something pretty cool that I honestly didn't see coming when we started. Happy to answer any questions and thanks for the support.
ETA? I filled out the form and it said it wasn't quite ready for me (Founder).
Re: Grain, a startup built atop of Zoom for note-taking and video-clip making
#28This post inspired me to repost [1] my side project that I open sourced as a PoC a while ago. I saw "note-taking" in the title and my project allows the type of note-taking that I envision should happen a bit more often (using a stylus).
The code is open-source, so I invite the co-founders of Grain to take a look and see if the idea might be useful to them :)
Re: Grain, a startup built atop of Zoom for note-taking and video-clip making
#29I think this product is way overdue for how ubiquitous video has become, even pre-social distancing. Scrubbing through lengths of video to find the relevant clip is such a pain. I'm digging the integration features, e.g. slack, imessage I feel like this is one of those tools that will end up being used in ways not initially planned. Meme generation and reaction videos perhaps, lol. Good luck Grain team!
Thanks! We think so too. We actually spent 9 months building a prior version of Grain that was basically a Google Doc w/ Zoom integration & time stamps. Ultimately, we threw that version away (kill your darlings as they say). People told us that what you described was the bigger problem b/c it was too much work to unlock a stream of recorded video w/ traditional post-hoc video editing tools. But if it's easy enough t…
Really liking the integration with Notion.
Re: Grain, a startup built atop of Zoom for note-taking and video-clip making
#30Hey HN. I'm Mike co-founder/CEO of Grain. I decided to start Grain b/c I was tired of requesting access to recordings of convos and repeating myself when I could just share the part of a recording instead. Our team built something pretty cool that I honestly didn't see coming when we started. Happy to answer any questions and thanks for the support.
Why did you name it grain