Encode (http://en.co.de/) is an online video converter built for people who don't care about conversion details. I've built Encode as part of November Startup Sprint (although it slipped a bit into Dec). I've written more about my experiences building it here: http://senko.net/en/experiences-building-encode/
First of all, great job! I love the simple design and layout!
I'm a bit tired which might have affected things, but I a bit confused on the initial upload page - I kinda expected the upload to start automatically, and then when I clicked on the video format some kind of magic would kick in.
Personally, I would experiment with the page layout a bit; I'm not sure how well it'd work but maybe something like the user clicks browser, selects the file and that uploads automagically, and when that's complete the buttons for the video format appear, and finally there's a big "ENCODE"-type button at the bottom which kicks off the whole process.
But that's me and a tired, slightly confused mind ;)
Oh, a couple of minor points: I'm using Chrome 8 and the copy link to clipboard button didn't work. Also, the download link for the video took me straight to the video playing in my browser - if you want to change that you can send a (damn, getting old, memory failing...) header that'll bring up a file save box :)
I want to make the service as dead-easy and obvious as possible - it should work for you if you've just been woken up after 2 hours of sleep with a huge hangover and you're totally annoyed that you have to mess around with converting and you just want to get it over and go back to sleep. So your tired&confusing experience is valuable for me :)
I've had the option for automatically uploading the file, but decided against it thinking the files will be quite big and people might not appreciate the upload start automatically (in a different context, I'm really annoyed when web/flash video starts playing automatically, even if I opened the page with the intention of watching it). But since they already selected the file, it might make sense to start the upload "in background" while they can review and select what they want to convert to.
About the video page comments: both good points, will fix, thanks :)
I'd suggest revising/rethinking your one sentence pitch that, "Encode is an online video converter built for people who don't care about conversion details." The "conversion details" would be what exactly? To me, I interpret that to me "what format the output file is". If that's the case, then every single user/person is interested in the "conversion details". If you meant something else, then I didn't get it.
Also, I don't guess that I understand who would use this. When you buy almost any video camera, digital camera with video, or even video phones, almost all of them come with a way to convert/output the video into multiple formats. There are several open source converters as well and even iTunes can do some conversion. Maybe this is what you mean by "conversion details"?
I would also agree with lukeinth that pricing seems "off". But... what startup web app ever gets that right anyway!?!
Enjoy the journey and congrats again for putting it together
By "details" I meant details like video / audio codec combination or codec params. But even "output file format" doesn't neccessarily interest the user. A lot of people might say "I want to watch this file on my iPhone", not "I want to have it in H.264/AVC with AAC sounds, because that's what my iPhone prefers". At least that's my base assumption.
So I'm targeting really the most non-techincal users. This is also why I believe Encode stands a chance besides a host of quality free(ware) software available. Non-technical users (still) have a fear of computers, of installing stuff and having to deal with breakage that often ensues. Encode is hassle free (modulo the hassle of uploading big files and paying).
Okay. I get it - that makes more sense. Have you thought about how will you target people who are (a) not technical enough to want the 'details', yet (b) are technically savvy enough to know that they should find a video encoder?
I think that non-technical gadget-owners are a good (first) approximation of those people, since they (might) have a clear need - they want to watch something on their gadget and it doesn't work. They may not know the tool they need is called "video converter", but that's about what they need.
So, one of my marketing plans is to contact blogs/sites/people that have content / reviews / howtos / tips for gadget-owners and see whether they'd like to cover Encode.
Love the domain name, site looks good too. Pricing seems rather high but I guess developers are not the target audience. I tried uploading a video and it seemed to get stuck 1/4 of the way though 100mb. Thats probably my net connection, not your service though.
The target audience is casual user, who might prefer an online tool (even if it costs a bit) to downloading and using the tool on their computer. The pricing is quite high atm - I hope I'll be able to lower the costs (and thus the price) down soon (as there are rumors of Paypal coming to Croatia in 2011), but I decided to start higher and then lower when possible, instead of being cheap and then having to bump the prices up afterwards.
If it got stuck during the upload, yeah it was probably some problem with the upload (Have you used the flash uploader? I've got ordinary file input field for browsers with no flash (IOS/Android devices), but I haven't tested that as much as the Flash one).
That does bring an interesting question tho: would users want to upload hundreds of MB of video? I don't have a good answer to that. Google search trends suggest people do want "online video converter", so I guess there are some people who would prefer it.
Your comment about prices being too high is echoed by basically everyone I've asked. I've calculated my prices based on pessimistic "how much would it cost me if resources were going to be used to the max" + margin calculation, but it seems they're definitely too high for people.
So I'm going to try with lower prices (this time, based on "probably not everyone is going to use up every minute and every MB and every download available). I've slashed the prices in half ($1.5 for 5 min, $4 for an hour). On estimated average case, I should be doing okay, and in worst case I can adjust the prices again if I start going into red.
Thanks again to you, ScottWhigham and others for the feedback about this :)
Very nice. Worked as advertised. Great domain name, and love your simple design and UI. I won't say anything more, because I don't need this right now. But if anyone else here is interested, I highly recommend you try it out.
Have you considered the possibility that online video encoding is only a partial solution to a greater problem? Why do people want to encode videos? What do they do afterwards?
Have you considered providing an API for developers and reduced prices for "bulk encoding" (on a monthly basis let's say).
Even if you just want to do the encoding part (it's OK to want to do one thing and do it well) others may want to use your service to build theirs. It's another revenue channel for you.
My assumption: Because they either want to watch them on some gadget of theirs (eg. smartphone), or they want to "give" the video to someone (colleague, friend, etc - so not neccessarily sharing in the tweet/post on youtube/vimeo sense). To address this, Encode gives them a video page url they can share / retype in their gadget or use to preview, instead just a download link to the media file.
> Have you considered providing an API for developers and reduced prices for "bulk encoding" (on a monthly basis let's say).
This is exactly what Zencoder does (as well as several others). They're awesome at doing this and have a great API - if you're a developer in need of something like this, you should definitely take a look. Encode is basically a trimmed-down Zencoder for the casual / average Joe user.
I wanted to trim the possibilities to as low number as possible (even in the "advanced" options). To do this, I basically arbitrarily picked up a few resolution - iPhone one because that's what iPhone specs are, Flash one because that's YouTube's Flash SD size, and a few others inbetween.
The conversion process maintains aspect ratio by setting the larger dimension to what's selected. So for widescreen videos, this would mean that you choose based on the width, and the height will be scaled accordingly.
It's not very clear this is how it works tho (it's buried in Video page) - thanks for pointing it out.
I'm a bit tired which might have affected things, but I a bit confused on the initial upload page - I kinda expected the upload to start automatically, and then when I clicked on the video format some kind of magic would kick in.
Personally, I would experiment with the page layout a bit; I'm not sure how well it'd work but maybe something like the user clicks browser, selects the file and that uploads automagically, and when that's complete the buttons for the video format appear, and finally there's a big "ENCODE"-type button at the bottom which kicks off the whole process.
But that's me and a tired, slightly confused mind ;)
Oh, a couple of minor points: I'm using Chrome 8 and the copy link to clipboard button didn't work. Also, the download link for the video took me straight to the video playing in my browser - if you want to change that you can send a (damn, getting old, memory failing...) header that'll bring up a file save box :)