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

[photawe]

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!

[gus_massa]

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.)

[photawe]

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?

[gus_massa]

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.)

[photawe]

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.

[Jugurtha]

I use ffmpeg, and for certain operations, the steps involve getting an ogre's tongue hair, a few drops of a frog's blood, and chanting medieval songs.

- Cutting some segments of the video: say you are recording the screen, and during the session, you tab and there are some information you don't want to appear in the video at three different places. Cutting the three segments isn't trivial in ffmpeg.

- The above but keeping the audio and removing video in those segments, because someone is talking.

- The inverse of the above: keeping the video but removing the audio because there was a private call for example and you kept rolling.

- Concatenating videos with different codecs is not trivial. If you have 200+ videos you want to make into one, and there are some that have a different encoding, you get warnings and the output throws the player off.

[photawe]

Thanks!

1. I already have that- and it's easy as hell to use ;) 2. "The above but keeping the audio and removing video in those segments, because someone is talking." What do you want to replace that with? (perhaps a still of the last shot?) 3. That is possible already in my app 4. For now, I've only focused mainly on .mov and .mp4, but I can add definitely support more.

[quickthrower2]

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

[photawe]

This guy - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMMgvkLj8es says pretty much "Start before you're ready" - once you start doing videos, even if they don't look good at first, you just need to keep at it. It's the only way to grow. In time, you'll figure everything out ;)

[laurieg]

I want to edit "as live". So, I throw in 3 or 4 camera shots covering the same period, then I play them all simultaneously, cutting between them with the number keys as if it's a live show.

Of course, after I might make some adjustments, but this is a great way to get a fast first cut.

[photawe]

Cool! That sounds like a really cool stuff to have. Do you also want to show several cuts at once, at the same time (with some mask on each)? I have the foundation for this, but to fully implement it, it will take a bit of time (maybe 1.5-2 months time frame)

[laurieg]

In my use case I basically never do picture in picture. I just want to produce content "as live". If you go on YouTube you can find a bunch of behind the scenes videos of people editing together live events on the fly. This should give you a good idea of what "as live" editing is like.

[photawe]

Since you never do picture-in-picture, I assume i understand what you mean. However, I don't think I found examples on youtube. For some searches, the closest I got was: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFRI6YTAhvw and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTpo9Tj-xQg

Can you post a youtube video of what you mean (even though I think I understand :D)? Thanks!

[laurieg]

Here is a nice example with a gameshow:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rL6OBjMWYYI

Basically the director is giving instructions to camera people and then switching feeds on the fly. (though the actual feed switching is done by an assistant). I want to watch my footage in realtime and just hit 1,2,3,4 to switch between the various feeds.

[photawe]

Got it, so my initial understanding (I hope :D) was correct. Having said that, you don't want to do this process live, right? (if so, what you want will definitely be doable, withing 1.5 months or so)

LATER EDIT: On another note, I'm curious how big of a use-case is this, 'cause if it's big enough, I could actually make a subset of my app which would do just this (allow you to cut which camera is the "active" one) - and I would give this for free.

[kleer001]

I need something that can be as simple and stupid to use as Quicktime Pro 7 used to be. Basically editing the video as easy as editing a text file with fast, consistent, frame accurate selection, instant copy and pasting.

Also, sensible hotkeys.

[photawe]

Thanks!

Agreed! Haven't used Quicktime Pro, but I will ask around.

> Basically editing the video as easy as editing a text file with fast,

Yes, basically that's my focus from the get go.

> consistent, frame accurate selection, instant copy and pasting.

Agreed. Right now, you can even move with the arrows between frames :P

About copy-pasting - I will need to improve on this one. I do allow you to cut a segment very easily. I don't allow pasting yet (you can achieve it easily by splitting the video into segments, then moving the segments around)

> Also, sensible hotkeys.

Agreed. I have hotkeys as well, I just need to fully document them.

[kleer001]

Quicktime Pro is ancient abandonware. The downloads exist as do "cracks" for the serial numbers to unlock pro mode. Apple will not provide the download and will not sell serial numbers.

[photawe]

I see, thanks! :)

[scott31]

Linux support

[photawe]

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.

[scott31]

That sounds like a no

[photawe]

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

[stakkur]

Full, complete Linux support.

[photawe]

Right. I will quote from my other answer: "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."