
Show HN: Glitterly – Create and share videos of your app - oskarahl
https://glitterly.app
======
oskarahl
Hi HN,

I’m a big fan of following feature updates for my favourite apps, and I’ve
always wondered how they make videos that have all these nice transitions and
zooms.

And so I wanted to create a product that a non-professional video editor /
solo developer / bootstrapping tech founder can use to edit a screen recording
of your app.

Features: \- Add padding and set a frame from Unsplash \- Gifs \- Highlight
user interactions with a zoom \- Transitions and animations.

Use cases: feature demos, presentations, social media posts, “how to” videos.

Putting my MVP out here, and keen to hear your feedback.

~~~
mrsareen
Looks really nice for such use cases. Shared the same with my social media
team to take it forward.

Hopefully you'll keep it affordable :)

~~~
oskarahl
Thanks! i'm happy to keep it free in exchange for feedback :) would love to
hear their thoughts at oskar.ahlroth@gmail.com

~~~
ivanbozic
Nice, I’m working on creating a demo video of a product we’re launching soon,
will give this a shot!

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transitivebs
Looks really solid.

I built a similar product called Automagical awhile back
([https://automagical.ai/](https://automagical.ai/)) that we exited to a media
agency.

A few notes from my experience:

1\. Using gifs in this way as part of a composite video is unfortunately
against giphy's ToS. We received a cease & desist from them after awhile, so
just be aware of that up front.

2\. If you want to support more variety in your transitions, check out my OSS
project [https://github.com/transitive-bullshit/ffmpeg-
concat](https://github.com/transitive-bullshit/ffmpeg-concat)

Overall, the product looks really polished & I love where you're headed. Best
of luck!

~~~
1f60c
> Using gifs in this way as part of a composite video is unfortunately against
> giphy's ToS

That seems silly, as I don’t think they own/have a license to _any_ of their
GIFs.

~~~
bberenberg
But they do have a license to their API which you are using to access those
GIFs.

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vishnumohandas
Hey oskarahl, as a solo dev working on [https://ente.io](https://ente.io), I
was looking for something just like this!

The MVP imo is the ability to zoom.

What I'd kill for is the ability to add text widgets to point out/explain
features.

Thanks for building this, and congratulations for launching. All the best!

~~~
oskarahl
Thanks! Yes sliding in texts / headers / annotations are on the upcoming
features list. Any specific kind of text widgets that you are thinking of?

~~~
vishnumohandas
I was thinking of a widget where in I can set the font-style and related
properties, along with the background color and padding.

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nmstoker
Hi @oskarahl - I'll give it a go. Two questions:

1\. How does video capture work - does it need local installation or does it
do something clever through the browser?

2\. How well suited is it to recapturing an updated version of a video,
without redoing all the config again by hand?

On the second point, my common scenario is an app gets updated and there's a
new button or slight change in a part of the screen (not the core feature
being captured) and to keep it consistent, I need to re-record basically the
same video with the latest app release. Got anything to help speed that up?

~~~
oskarahl
Thanks for checking it out.

1\. Currently it's a web-based video editor (so no download required) where
you edit screen recordings, so at the moment you'll need to record your screen
and then upload it.

2\. I see, maybe adding a "skeleton" loader overlay over content that's not
affected by the core feature would handle this? e.g. something like this:
[https://twitter.com/SlackHQ/status/1275154148938461185](https://twitter.com/SlackHQ/status/1275154148938461185)

~~~
nmstoker
On point 2, yes that could work. Originally I'd been thinking of it
remembering the same screen capture size/locations etc, so it would just
reapply those to my updated capture but your way would help keep people
focused and avoid distraction with surrounding UI.

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propter_hoc
I've been dragging my heels on doing a new demo video for my company - going
to try this out first thing Monday. Thanks, @oskarahl!

Couple things I'll be looking into:

* the zooming looks awesome

* how easy it is to insert title cards or subtitles

* I don't think I need the borders, so it'd be good if those are optional.

~~~
oskarahl
That's awesome let me know how it goes. The border can be removed by pressing
the "undo" button (perhaps the ui/ux for this could be a bit clearer - i'll
see what I can do).

Currently no title/subtitle support yet (outside of the intro scene), but it's
something i'll start working on asap as it's been requested by quite a few
users already.

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forgingahead
Hi @oskar, looks very nice! What's the pricing on this? Couldn't see anything
on your site.

I know there may be a concern about putting pricing front-and-center in that
would scare off potential users, but highly recommend having some pricing
somewhere to test actual market viability. Many people want cool stuff, but
refuse to pay for it - unfortunately, that indicates the product or service
isn't solving a real pain point (and that that user base is actually lousy for
a business). I don't think Glitterly falls in this category, but you need
paying customers to have a business, and it's best to find out this
information sooner rather than later. You can always raise or reduce prices,
but having something there is the best way to start figuring this out.

Good luck! It's a long journey so congrats on taking the first step.

~~~
oskarahl
Thanks for the suggestion it's a good point of view that I hadn't considered
yet.

Currently it's completely free and open to use for anyone, but I'll run out of
free digital ocean server credits one day :)

Did you get a chance to try out the video editor itself, what do you think?

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jack_riminton
Nice job, this is exactly what I'll be using on my weekend project to show my
other projects! (makers.page, a place for makers to show their projects, blog
etc.)

~~~
oskarahl
Great, let me know how it goes :)

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davidajackson
Are there an pre-set dimensions/settings for iPhone apps? What I'd really like
is just easy exporting of all screenshots and the video thumbnail. I know
there's a lot of tools that do this already but there's always room for new
effects/styles. Thanks

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nakovet
Looks great, I used for a few minutes and it's very intuitive! I did try to
download my video on Firefox and after waiting a few minutes I gave up, maybe
you got an error in your tracker?

~~~
oskarahl
Thanks! The video transformations can be a bit time-consuming (especially
right now as there is quite a bit of traffic from hackernews) - I'll add a
proper loader so you can see how much time is remaining. Admittedly I haven't
tested much with firefox, i'll check if there is an issue with the download
itself.

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mindhash
This looks good. I use screen flow but can see the simplicity of this.

