

Show HN: Instafilm -- it's like Instapaper for videos - mahipal
http://instafilm.com

======
mahipal
I had this built to scratch my own itch: I would always find videos that I
wanted to watch and bookmark them. And then I'd lose them in a sea of
bookmarks. Whenever I wanted to watch something, it was hard to find something
that fit how much time I had. So this solves both those problems.

I say "had this built" because it was my little experiment in management. The
whole thing was put together by a team of 4 (including me) and now we've
launched it without me writing a single line of code. Since I'm the guy who's
usually coding nonstop to launch something, it was a refreshing change and a
fun experiment.

~~~
mattdeboard
Do you plan on writing a blog post about this? I'd be interested to read it.

~~~
mahipal
Good to know. It was my first such experiment, and it does boil down to a few
core principles I wanted to apply. I'll write something up once things calm
down a little bit.

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jsb
I was just about to make something like this for myself. Thanks for making it!
Looking forward to an iPad app.

One quick bit of feedback: I notice when I'm logged in and try to refresh my
saved videos (say to refresh to see whether the video I just hit "Watch Later"
would appear), the app logs me out. Everything else appears to work great -
including leaving the page and coming back to it. Just when I hit refresh.
When I log back in, the video appears in my queue like I'd expect it to.

It's probably on your radar, but being able to save TED Talk videos and
Mixergy interviews would be great.

~~~
mahipal
Thanks! Glad you like it. The iPad app is coming soon, but in the meantime the
site should work on your iPad without a problem. Mixergy and TED will
definitely be coming soon to the list of supported sites.

As for the error, you might've caught us while we were frantically rebooting.
:) But I'll check it out.

~~~
rudasn
I assume you already know about <http://embed.ly> but are concerned about
security, like embedding unknown/untrusted html on your site?

I find your idea great and I have built something similar my self. I focused
mostly on the interface and the fact that many times when watching a video you
want to be able to switch between videos and make them fullscreen without
interrupting their download. For example, when you have a long video on
youtube that is split into many parts.

Playlists and ratings for videos is also quite useful in my opinion.

If you want some ideas check it out: <http://lideo.me> \- you don't have to
register/signup to start using it. You can do that later.

------
chrishenn
Consider adding a ``Login with Facebook'' button. While I personally hate the
login everywhere with Facebook idea, it can be pretty useful.

Most of my friends are discouraged by having to create yet another account for
a website they haven't found useful yet. It's a shame because so many services
become useful when they have the social element---there would be no point to
Facebook if none of your friends used it. I know that the login with Facebook
option helped me coax a few people on to Convore to talk with me.

Also, consider making that picture of the time slider bigger and more friendly
looking (centered!) It's an awesome feature that works really well with video.
You could even advertise it something like ``Take a break! Watch [n] minutes
of videos you've saved.''

I'm getting a few 502 Bad Gateway errors.

~~~
mahipal
That's a very good point. I'm going to move fbConnect way up the list. Thanks
for the tip.

------
Inspirit
I've been using Radbox ( <http://radbox.me> ) for a few months, much better,
far more video sources, works on my Android phone, lets me create playlists.
What's new?

------
mattdeboard
I randomly got a nginx bad gateway error a couple times in a row. Don't know
if you were resetting/restarting but just FYI might wanna tail your error log.

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tobylane
It works well, but I prefer the internal features, Youtube's Watch Later (and
private playlists), and Vimeo's Watch Later. I think it will work better when
there's more overlap between the sites it supports, or maybe it just doesn't
support my habits. I'd love to come back in a month and look.

I'd be interested in an iphone app that plays the hd audio of youtube
playlists, is this related enough to be a feature?

~~~
mahipal
The HD audio stream is a cool idea. I've been using YouTube as my main source
of music lately, so I'm willing to call it a related feature. ;)

What do you mean it doesn't support your habits? Can you describe your video-
watching habits?

~~~
tobylane
Clicking watch later on Gawker/etc to watch, searching and subscriptions to
listen to (music remixes). Separate private playlists for each. Eventually I
will work through the 20 20-90min videos I have bookmarked, but subject
matters more than length.

edit: I do see a point in what you do, it's for medium immediacy. I watch
quickly to keep up with trends/memes, and before copyright holders delete
music.

------
fascinated
That's a pretty interesting management experiment.

By the way, have you seen vhx.tv?

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thinker
I like the how-much-time-do-you-have slider. But why would I use this over
YouTube own "watch later"?

~~~
rjb
I too like the feature, but the language, "How much time do you have?",
confused me until I actually had saved a few videos. Something along the lines
of "Show me videos longer than.." would better reveal the feature's purpose.

~~~
mahipal
I definitely struggled with that bit of copy. Thanks for the suggestion.

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hackerku
I use <http://www.squrl.com/> for this

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caseyf
I've been wishing for something like this for a while.

...except that I'd need it to be able to queue up things that I can watch
later on a mobile device, possibly while offline. That's what makes Instapaper
awesome.

~~~
mahipal
Thanks!

The site works on your mobile device since it uses HTML5 embeds. A native app
is in the works.

Caching is more difficult since it violates the TOS for some web sites -- but
not all. So I'll have to sort this out on a case-by-case basis, but it may be
added at some point too.

------
thisisblurry
Another similar website was just launched: VHX (<http://vhx.tv>). It's
currently in a closed beta, but they're slowly sending out invites. I've been
using it for a few weeks now and it seems really nice, allowing you to choose
things to watch later in addition to cataloging every video you watch on the
internet (it spans tons of sites, way more than just Vimeo and YouTube).

Fun fact: Former Vimeo developer Casey Pugh is one of the people behind the
site.

------
JoshTriplett
This looks awesome. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to support HTML5 video for
YouTube; it complains that I don't have Flash (which I don't).

~~~
jsb
The videos I've saved work for me when I browse Instafilm on my iPad. It may
depend on your specific video - if I remember correctly, some YouTube videos
are unable to support HTML5.

~~~
JoshTriplett
Not talking about an iPad; I used Firefox 4. I confirmed that the particular
video supported WebM on YouTube. However, I just tried again with some other
videos, and it worked this time. Perhaps YouTube just randomly decided that
that video shouldn't work for a while. _shrug_

------
orky56
Awesome stuff. It's like my own personal, curated video channel!

In your slider bar for how much time you have, I would recommend having some
dynamic text above the dot displaying how much time I have selected. It's a
bit confusing trying to discern the exact number between the discreet
quantities (e.g. between 5 and 10 minutes, is it 7 minutes or 8 minutes).

~~~
beseku
I didn't realise I had to scroll this up to see videos I had sent, and so I
thought it was broken. From a usability point of view, starting the bar at the
right hand side, showing everything, and scaling the list back when you slide
left would be much better in terms of educating your users.

Also, Instapaper nailed it with the "Saving ..." > "Saved!" language in the
book mark. If you are using the name, go the whole hog and copy that - the
feedback to the user that it is safely stashed on the Insta~ servers is
invaluable.

~~~
mahipal
Good points on the UX. Thanks. I'll make sure that gets fixed.

~~~
beseku
My post was very negative. Apart from the above, minor, details, its a great
service that I hope I can use as much as I do Instapaper.

(Be even better if it could work with embedded Youtube/Vimeo on other domains,
like devour.com).

~~~
mahipal
Glad to hear it. Feel free to email or post any more thoughts. Good critique
is always valuable.

It will work with embedded videos _very_ soon. We're tracking down some errors
in a JS DOM parsing library that the web app uses.

------
wmboy
This is actually a really good idea. I use Read It Later and saving videos I
want to watch later just doesn't work.

Big problem: Copying the "Insta" prefix just isn't going to work (unless
you're Instapaper). You're using their branding and marketing efforts to your
advantage, so if your site happens to take off you'll be up against legal
issues.

~~~
Dramatize
I don't see why he would. What about Instagram etc?

~~~
wmboy
Hmmm fair point, also looks like Instapaper isn't registered as a trademark,
'Insta' is probably too generic, and paper is definitely too generic to
trademark.

Perhaps I should stand corrected.

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agilo
You can probably answer that question on quora with your new service
[http://www.quora.com/Why-isnt-there-an-Instapaper-or-
ReadItL...](http://www.quora.com/Why-isnt-there-an-Instapaper-or-ReadItLater-
for-YouTube-on-the-iPhone-or-iPod-Touch)

~~~
chime
I've used <http://rewindle.com/> in the past for this.

~~~
johns
I've used <http://wacchen.com/>

~~~
muggy
I've used <http://reeplay.it/> (and <http://wacchen.com/> too)

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SeoxyS
I have been working on a similar project for a while, but for lack of time
it's going nowhere. I've been wanting this forever though. Great to see these
guys took it seriously and shipped. Woohoo!

Excuse me while I go sign up and watch shit, now…

------
tuhin
Similar: <http://www.squrl.com/>

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voidfiles
But, do you say it's like instapaper for videos On your website.

<http://wacchen.com> says it right on the box.

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pyninja
Great idea. To me, it's useless without an iPhone/iPad app though, looking
forward to that.

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bvi
Great app. Very simple, with one focus. Elegant design too. Hope this takes
off!

