
Shred Video (YC S15) Turns Hours of Video into a Montage in Seconds - kevin
http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/21/shred-video-turns-hours-of-gopro-footage-into-a-dope-ass-montage-in-seconds/
======
heynk
I wrote a semi-detailed review from my first try today:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9924721](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9924721)

Overall it's not perfect but I like it and it got the job done. I'm also
pretty confident that with time, they'll be able to make this a pretty solid
product. I bought it.

tl;dr is that I got this very meh video with no effort:

[https://s3.amazonaws.com/gnarhub/hank/whatcom+falls+-+bad.mp...](https://s3.amazonaws.com/gnarhub/hank/whatcom+falls+-+bad.mp4)

And this pretty solid edit with some tweaking:

[https://s3.amazonaws.com/gnarhub/hank/whatcom+falls.mp4](https://s3.amazonaws.com/gnarhub/hank/whatcom+falls.mp4)

~~~
mikeshreds
thanks for the detailed review - you're tweaked video was really good! gainers
were sick. for readers, this will be a pretty common reaction w/ first time
use: the first version will not be that great, but with a few tweaks can make
it a lot better.

any thoughts on what we could do to make the videos better post-tweaking?

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mikeshreds
Hi everyone! I'm one of Shred Video's founders. We endeavored to make Shred
Video after suffering too many hours trying to edit surf trip footage into
movies that were any good. We hope to make editing GoPro and adventure travel
footage fun and painless, so we can all spend less time editing and more time
living. Happy to answer any questions about Shred Video, or just talk shop
about movie-making!

~~~
caio1982
Hey! First things first: awesome idea! I'm not sure how successful you guys
can be in the long term but IMHO this is something that has been lacking for
the target customers (me!). So:

1\. The app UI and UX are terrible, just terrible; find someone who knows
these to work on the app with you please. It feels "cheap". Also, the app icon
on Launchpad.

2\. I can make the app crash on OSX 10.9.4 whenever I want, all I have to do
is to drop a few random .mov from my iPhone 4S in there and boom! Or even some
random .jpg, boom again. Seems some basic QA was missed before the last
release. If you're confident about the app stability we could then talk about
sharing my files with you to reproduce it.

3\. That "buy movie" button triggered a WTF in my mind. Those are my stuff, my
movies! Maybe make it more specific, I don't know, like "buy this edited
movie" or something like that.

4\. Tried some shred videos and they all looked nice with the soundtrack I
selected, but every time I dropped some pictures togethers with the other
movies the final cut always had duplicated pictures showing up all the time.
Like boringly all the time. Maybe tune this down for pictures?

5\. Why would I pay that much for the edited movie if I a) can't edit it
anymore once it's finished (unless I redo the whole thing and buy it AGAIN)
and b) I won't probably be allowed to upload it to YouTube without being
flagged? Maybe if the edited videos kept part of the original audio tracks it
would help with this? No idea, just wondering if it's worth the money given
this legal issue...

Usually I'm the guy my friends ask for help to edit their Go Kart races or
whatever or any GoPro movies or vacations stuff because I took the time to
learn how to use GoPro's software and Apple's, but although I'd just love to
leave them behind to use Shred I'm still not convinced of the price versus
benefits here...

Congrats again and keep up the good work, I'll keep trying the next releases,
specially after my vacations at the Kilimanjaro next month :-)

~~~
mikeshreds
thanks for the feedback!

1\. haha yes Kevin OP working with us on this. we've spent a lot more time on
the backend tech than the front-end.

2\. yes would love if you'd send the bad files! mike@shredvideo.com super
helpful thx

3\. yeah we could have more clear messaging here. we wanted to align our
interests with the user's (as in: you only pay once we help you make a movie
you feel is worth paying for), will continue to work this.

4\. sounds like we need to make the app smarter when just a few pics are
added. we first optimized for the case where user has lots of footage/photos.

5\. this the reason for the unlimited SKU - save as many movies as you want!
on content, we've found more and more artists are choosing to pre-roll an add
when users upload their content, instead of blocking them outright.

thx again for the feedback! would love to hear more of your ideas for how we
can make the app better, send any ideas or feature requests right to me
mike@shredvideo.com thanks!

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outericky
This is pretty awesome looking. I have hours and hours of gopro footage, and
no edited video to show for it. Target demographic here.

~~~
mikeshreds
great outericky! get at me mike@shredvideo.com I'd love your feedback!

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0xdeadbeefbabe
I wish I had similar problems, surfer problems.

Nice video though. It's really clear to me what your product is supposed to
do.

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onion2k
_Whereas editing in Final Cut or Adobe Premiere can take even experienced
editors a few hours, Shred Video can cut these videos down in a matter of
seconds._

You really need to be careful with journalists saying things like this. If
Shred ends up with the same result (or even just a similar result) as an
experienced editor then it's truly amazing and it will revolutionise amateur
video. If it doesn't then comparisons like this one will leave a lot of users
disappointed with the product when they try it, and disappointed early users
are _incredibly_ toxic to getting traction.

~~~
mikeshreds
Thanks onion2k, great point it's importance to not go too far with the hype.
There are certainly a ton of things users can do in pro softwares that Shred
Video doesn't (yet!) deliver. We've found most GoPro/equivalent users don't
want to go to the trouble or pay the cost (Final Cut Pro is $299 in the Mac
store) of these pro softwares, Shred Video is a great solution for them.

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jnpat
I like the concept of short remixes made from the music (the music processing
is impressively fast), but I noticed some glitches, sometimes the beat
detection was not perfectly accurate and so the junctions were not beat-
matching. Also, the music sync is not as good as I expected: I made a few
trials with different bunches of videos and music tracks, and for the majority
of them the beat drop at the start of the chorus was missed. The rhythm of the
video cuts was interesting, though.

~~~
mikeshreds
thanks for trying it out!

mind sharing which songs had trouble staying on beat? will help us improve our
beat tracker.

yeah catching that beat drop is super critical, mind sharing which songs it
missed on? super helpful thx!

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nivals
Reminds me of Vix

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7496430](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7496430)

Someone needs to get this type of NLE done right. I like the simplicity of
Shred although it needs some stability improvement - it crashes when I change
clip length in the detail editor.

More than happy to help test future versions.

~~~
mikeshreds
thanks nivals!

send the crash details to mike@shredvideo.com? we'll try write a fix for you
asap!

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koobz
A part of me feels like this would work extremely well as a kind of Vine or
Instagram for people with GoPros doing cool shit. Yep, social media features
and content hosting might be a bit out of scope but it would really close the
loop on the whole "videos I've made that no one will ever see" problem.

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comrh
One of the reasons I never bought a GoPro for skiing was I felt like the
footage would just sit on my hard drive. If this proves useful I would
consider getting a camera a lot more. Would be interesting if this gets picked
up by GoPro soon.

~~~
mikeshreds
this is the very motivation that caused us to build Shred Video! "I paid $400
for this camera, and the footage sits dormant" is a super common experience
with these cameras, one we felt personally.

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jmickey
Does the iTunes licence permit using songs from your player in a video montage
that is then shown to others/uploaded on Youtube?

I would have thought any music you have purchased is only for your personal
use and derivative work is not allowed?

~~~
frankdenbow
It doesn't. I know this since I was working on a startup using 30 second clips
from itunes and consulted with multiple music lawyers who told me it was a
grey enough area that I would get sued. I've advised for other music startups
and they face similar challenges with music (one just hit 1mm downloads and
got hit from Apple -> RIAA about the content).

Its incredibly frustrating when interesting applications like Shred pop up and
the music folks make it difficult. Hopefully they can get some licenses and
not have to sell their kidneys to do it.

This talk from Dalton is dated but still pretty relevant:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTOlrN5-UGU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTOlrN5-UGU)

~~~
mikeshreds
yeah it's hard for a giant industry like music to adapt to all the changes
digital, internet, and now streaming in so short a time. I feel the music
industry just wants the distribution it had w/ records: buy something you can
share w/ your friends, but not distribute to the whole world at once.

I think Shred Video perfect aligns with the music industry's objectives here.
Shred Video is not designed to help professional videog's make movies that
will be seen by millions, it's designed to make movies folks like you and me
can share with our friends. In this way Shred Video is a service that will
encourage more music purchases, a win for the artists.

If you happen to make a movie in Shred Video that gets a million views
(rooting for you!), YouTube has ways of making sure the artist maintains their
rights to their content and/or gets paid. This stuff will evolve, but there's
definitely a way to get the artist paid and the users able to make art with
the music they love.

------
hrayr
I have a different notion of what shred means when applied to a video, and
it's not pretty.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYc4DT18EJg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYc4DT18EJg)

~~~
mikeshreds
haha yeah....found out about this YouTube fad after we bought the domain.
alas.

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jdthomas
Hmm. Really needs a way to save and resume editing a "shred" I was in the
middle of selecting some different portions of a bunch of videos and
accidentally quit. Seems like an app with potential though.

~~~
mikeshreds
we're working on a recovery feature, so if you liked the previous shred better
than a new one you can go back to it. we can probably use that to salvage the
last shred in the event of the crash. thanks for the suggestion!

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quadrature
Hey guys, realistically speaking, what are the chances of a linux port ?. Also
if you could tell us anything about how it works under the hood (segment
classification ?) that would be pretty cool.

~~~
mikeshreds
hey there! proooobably not a linux port right away, we want to get the UX
fully dialed before we port to other platforms.

sure! want to know more about our video analysis, or the way we remix music?
the short on each: video analysis is looking for changes in speed and
smoothness of the video. music tries to find a seamless path through the song
where the transitions fit each other, so you get a shorter version of the song
that still sounds like the original song (i.e. has intro/verse/chorus/outro).

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malinens
Google Photos does the same automagically when I film multiple short videos
and take many photos the same day

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datamart
Awesome! Is there a plan to process footage if the user does not want to add
music?

~~~
mikeshreds
hi datamart not at the moment. for the kinds of movies Shred Video creates
music is too critical to forego.

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jimboyoungblood
i just purchased it.

was a bit disappointed that it downsampled my 4k videos to 720p. was there
some sort of preference setting that i overlooked?

~~~
mikeshreds
great observation, we don't have a setting for that yet. we do the
downsampling for speed in UX, makes sense to add a toggle to give user that
preference. thanks for the suggestion!

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lcswi
Shred dat dope films tight, bro?

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dangerlibrary
[https://xkcd.com/37/](https://xkcd.com/37/)

~~~
mikeshreds
haha too awesome.

