Show HN: Video Hub App – like YouTube for videos on your computer

by yboris • 8 years ago

198 75 8 years ago

yboris21• 8 years ago

I created this software using Angular, Electron, FFmpeg, and angular2-virtual-scroll.

All proceeds go to Against Malaria Foundation (GiveWell's top-rated charity).

Currently not open source, but am trying to figure out how to set a license that encourages people to tinker with the code, but not to clone a copy and sell it.

Trump2020MAGA• 8 years ago

A GPL license might be good

phoe-krk• 8 years ago

GPL doesn't prevent commercial usage. It requires source code to be released under the same license whenever you release a binary, though, which is what the OP might want.

gpm4• 8 years ago

Currently not open source, but am trying to figure out how to set a license that encourages people to tinker with the code, but not to clone a copy and sell it.

Seems like either GPL or the creative commons by-nc-sa (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/) to me.

Probably the latter because the GPL allows commercializing as a website.

(Disclaimer: IANAL)

nathcd• 8 years ago

creative commons by-nc-sa

Creative Commons discourages using its' licenses for code: https://creativecommons.org/faq/#can-i-apply-a-creative-comm...

Probably the latter because the GPL allows commercializing as a website.

If you want your copyleft to apply to over-the-network users, you want AGPL: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.en.html

kowdermeister• 8 years ago

encourages people to tinker with the code, but not to clone a copy and sell it.

What I usually see happening is that they release two versions. One under GPLv3, MIT or whatever very permissive licence and a Pro version with many advanced features with a proprietary licence.

If you want to prevent forking and copying then I either suggest to keep it closed source or make sure that you maintain the best version of the app so users will have no motivation to switch to a fork and be loyal to the original creator.

ktta• 8 years ago

You can always reveal the source code, without giving it an open source license. Of course, this will mean some people might not contribute, but you take what you get.

Another way is giving it a 'non-commercial use only' stipulation, which might not be lawyer proof.

Any of this won't prevent people from trying to profit off of it though.

PS: Remember to have an CLA so you won't have any problems with selling it.

giancarlostoro2• 8 years ago

I'd just GPL license it and charge for a MIT licensed version for commercial use. Be clear when you relicense it for commercial use though, like if MIT is only for a specific released version or set of versions up to a point or what. Of course technically you can sell GPL software, but they'd have to be willing to provide the code back, which means you benefit off of it to some degree.

peterburkimsher3• 8 years ago

It looks nice! I like the browser view.

One feature I need (and would like to tinker with the code to add it) is support for subtitles in multiple languages at the same time. http://voicetube.com does this to help people learn English; I'm trying to learn Chinese.

uvu• 8 years ago

Ah, voicetube idea is nice :)

yboris21• 8 years ago

VoiceTube looks cool! But my app doesn't play the videos -- the videos open in your OS's default video player.

eganist• 8 years ago

You're getting a lot of legal advice from non-lawyers.

Reach out to the EFF and see if they can give you some pro Bono consulting on how to license it for your needs. Alternatively, @buu700 and I have worked with and can recommend https://twitter.com/falconred (Jim Rennie). I get no commission for the rec—we last worked with him two years ago.

JoshTriplett2• 8 years ago

Currently not open source, but am trying to figure out how to set a license that encourages people to tinker with the code, but not to clone a copy and sell it.

By definition, any such license wouldn't be open source. However, as others have mentioned, putting it under a copyleft license would make it unlikely that others would do so, since they wouldn't be able to distribute their version without providing source under the same license themselves.

pinum• 8 years ago

Not everyone treats "open source" as a political term. The OSI doesn't have any special right to define it. Many just use it as a catchier alternative to "source available".

Kiro• 8 years ago

A bit OT but seeing that it seems hard to find a license that applies to this use case, would it be possible to just define your own custom license?

thinkingemote• 8 years ago

If I remember correctly by default a repository on GitHub with no licence means you have the full copyright. People can clone it and if you have a CLA you could accept changes, but they cannot really do anything with it. So perhaps just showing the code and not putting any open source license could work in this case?

yboris21• 8 years ago

This is excellent! I'll look into that -- it would be awesome if the default setting (with no extra work on my part) will suit my needs!

otterpro• 8 years ago

I'd go with GPL as many comments mentioned here. If you are slightly paranoid about someone stealing the code and making a commercialized version (which happens a lot with VLC), then I suggest you separate some of the functionalities into modules, in which parts are GPL'ed, and others are made private. Perhaps the UI and basic functionalities (aka lite version) could be made OSS, but some more advanced features are not included in the source, such as filter or scrub view. It would make it virtually impossible to make a clone, but you also get the benefit of people contributing and learning from the code from the OSS version.

yboris21• 8 years ago

Thank you for the advice.

In my case it feels like it would take quite a bit of effort to pull out features from the software and make a stripped-down version available.

My primary reason for wanting to share the code is that perhaps it will be a useful place for others to learn some things (though I don't think my code is stellar / exemplary and I know it has some serious shortcomings).

I guess it isn't a big problem if someone releases a clone of my app for free as long as I somehow can require (request) they always link back to the original on their website and in the app itself. But I'm not eager to chase people around and pester them if they don't comply.

I'm thinking I might wait for a full year since release (until February 2019) and just put out the whole code on GitHub with a 'free to do anything' license and a personal request that people always include a link to the original in the compiled app and on/through whatever websites they share it on.

toomuchtodo2• 8 years ago

Thoughts on using YouTube-dl as an importer of videos to the local library?

Otherwise, looks awesome! Take my money!

yboris21• 8 years ago

I'd rather relegate importing online videos to another software. Video Hub App should just use whatever is already on the computer (or external hard drive) ;)

toomuchtodo2• 8 years ago

Fair point :)

voltagex_• 8 years ago

What about consuming metadata provided from things like youtube-dl, though? It can dump thumbnails and other info as JSON.

yboris21• 8 years ago

I also gave a short talk about some of the technology behind the app at AngularNYC Meetup: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gv7IfU78vxw

Bulk70• 8 years ago

Looks great, can you explain how it differs from say PLEX?

yboris21• 8 years ago

Primary goal: preview inside the video on hover (scrub). I may be mistaken but I don't think PLEX has it. Video Hub App also has a filmstrip view and a quick and advanced search capabilities (by folder, file name, exclude, etc). PLEX has many features that my app isn't trying to replicate -- I think the two are aimed at different use cases.

Firerouge• 8 years ago

It isn't immediately clear to me, but could someone throw an nginx proxy in front of this and use it like Plex, either over the internet or local network?

thanatos_dem• 8 years ago

I’m not sure it does the exact thing you’re talking about and I don’t think it’s enabled by default, AND it’s computationally a beast of an operation to do with large libraries, but thumbnails while seeking are supported: https://support.plex.tv/articles/202197528-video-preview-thu...

giancarlostoro2• 8 years ago

So is this meant to be an alternative to XBMC? I've tried some pieces of software that just sucked, any comparisons between this and similar software? :)

yboris21• 8 years ago

I've not found good alternatives, though of course it doesn't mean my version of what I think the software should do is the best fit for everyone ;)

mzz• 8 years ago

Awesome! What inspired you to connect effective altruism with your project?

yboris21• 8 years ago

I've been part of the Effective Altruism movement before it got its name ;) I made a video about it in 2011: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZKh0M9x8s4 It features Nick Beckstead, current Open Philanthropy's Program Officer of Global Catastrophic Risk!

mintplant2• 8 years ago

Cool! Peanut gallery suggestions:

- The default black-on-dark-grey in the primary pane looks amateurish. Switching out the background color for something lighter (maybe a light beige?) would make a world of difference for first impressions.

- I'd appreciate if the screenshots adapted to my platform, so I could see what the app actually looks like on Windows. But I understand that it'd consume a lot of effort to re-take everything two extra times and keep them all up to date. The Windows/Mac/Linux image at the bottom at least ought to use a platform-appropriate screenshot for each segment.

yboris21• 8 years ago

Thank you for suggestions!

After I finished making the app, it ended up being very consuming making the promotional materials (website, screenshots, YouTube video, etc). I'm studying Machine Learning at the moment, so this project isn't the only one I'm juggling.

I'm also not thrilled about the color scheme, but I couldn't come up with anything I liked more. It's not a challenge to update the color scheme a bit, though it's hard without explicit spec from someone stellar with UI (as we have at work).

bo1024• 8 years ago

If we're giving suggestions ... I strongly recommend against a website that requires javascript to view anything.

markdown• 8 years ago

The key word being requires. Adding polish with js is always appreciated.

yboris21• 8 years ago

I grabbed a free online template without too much thought -- but I really should keep this in mind!

My goodness! My website is useless without JS at the moment!

hateful• 8 years ago

I would say to also include a dark theme. I'd prefer to customize the colors manually, but if that's not possible, at least have a light/medium/dark theme choice.

The main reason, at least for me, is that on the TV, lighter themes are very bright.

mintplant2• 8 years ago

One of the animations on the website shows off a dark theme.

Brajeshwar• 8 years ago

I know this may not be important 'yet' to your app but please change the name to "Video Hub" without the "App".

yboris21• 8 years ago

:) reminds me of the movie "The Social Network" when Zuckerberg was told "Drop the 'the' from 'The Facebook'" :P

I'm afraid without the word "app" it would sound as generic as "rename files" ... also I needed an available domain name.

Coincidentally https://videohub.app/ was also free :)

tjoff• 8 years ago

First impression: The use of mac images and screenshots and including "App" in made me absolutely positive this was a mac only thing. Only by chance that I stayed long enough to realize it was multi-platform.

That was also the same time I realized, oh this is probably electron. Should state that somewhere as well.

weisser• 8 years ago

Looks great. I suggest charging more!

yboris21• 8 years ago

Great to hear you think it may still have customers at a higher price point! I made the price pay-what-you-want-with-a-minimum (I'm gonna need about tree fiddy :P).

I'm unsure how well the app will do in the international market, but in many countries even $3 is quite a bit of money.

A nice feature about the price, is that each purchase of the app equates to a purchase of an anti-mosquito bednet (since I'm donating proceeds to a charity that provides them to communities affected by malaria) :)

thirdsun2• 8 years ago

Quick related question: Is there a lightweight video player that also acts as library management tool? It seems there are either lightweight players that simply open and play files you throw at it (MPV, VLC, ...) or heavy server-client solutions like Kodi, Plex and others.

I'm looking for something inbetween. Basically VLC or MPV with a persistent library I can point to my film/tv shows folder and it will let me browse, play content, keep track of progress, etc. Is there such an app for macOS?

dufferzafar• 8 years ago

I have similar needs as well and have been trying to find a decent solution (but haven't yet.)

I never looked for macOS apps though (since I use Linux.) To be honest, there's a decent chance that you would find something for Mac. Doubt it would be cross platform though.

walterstucco• 8 years ago

Have a look at VLC media library

https://wiki.videolan.org/Media_Library/

It's very basic but it works

BTeam• 8 years ago

It's on the roadmap for VLC 4.0, the new medialibrary (C++11) is in the process of being added as a module. The interface is also being reworked in QML.

This medialibrary is already used in VLC for Android for music album classification in an SQLite database.

nolok• 8 years ago

Doesn't answer your question since it isn't mac OS, but it's the closest one I know of: windows media player. I used it for a bit, until I switched to using the video server-side software on my synology nas.

cypherg• 8 years ago

Tried Plex yet?

thirdsun2• 8 years ago

Briefly. But as a long time Kodi user (since early XBMC / XBOX days) I'm probably quite familiar with the concept and while it certainly fits into my living room setup, it's way too heavy for casual use alongside other activities on my iMac. There I'd be fine with something slightly better than the file system: List shows, build a library, add some meta data, track progress.

There are countless music library management apps (iTunes, Swinsian, MusicBee, Roon, Foobar, Vox) - something similar for video is needed.

amelius• 8 years ago

What is the performance/memory footprint? E.g. can I run this on a Raspberry Pi connected to my TV?

yboris21• 8 years ago

I'm unsure how a Raspberry Pi would handle it. It's an app built with Electron, so it's basically running Chrome (Chromium) under the hood. Here's an old build running as a website: http://dev.yboris.com/vh/ -- I suspect the app will run just fine.

If you try it out -- please report back and let us know how it goes! :)

therobotking• 8 years ago

I like it. Nabbed a copy for $5 - feel like you should charge more than $3.50!

yboris21• 8 years ago

Thank you for paying more!

Charging more is a balance between larger sales volume (importantly -- more people using the app), and possibly higher revenue (in my case donations to my favorite charity).

I'm leaning towards having a lot more people enjoy my work (though I'm still unwilling to go "pay what you want" with no minimum at this time).

kennyadam• 8 years ago

I agree that giving people the option to pay $0 will probably result in less sales. I've been thinking about it over lunch and I'm liking the $3.50 price more and more. It was certainly low enough that I didn't have to give the purchase much thought and also low enough that I felt you deserved a bit more - and was happy to pay it.

No doubt you can see the stats and know what's gonna work better than some random on HN :)

One thing: I found the contrast of the video name text and the bg a bit tough when using the light theme. IF it's possible, custom bg colour or something would be great. Anyway :) thanks for a cool app

edit: ha was logged in to my old acccount when i first posted, a downside of password managers if you're not paying attention!

bstchn• 8 years ago

Very nice. I was recently look for something similar, but with support for markers (eg. add marker "explosion" to video XY at 2:14). Do you plan to implement such feature?

yboris21• 8 years ago

I didn't expect to put in markers ... though if adding tags is to become a feature, perhaps tags that correspond to time might be easy-enough.

The trickiest part would be the UI -- making it usable and elegant.

Perhaps those markings would visually fit nicely inside the filmstrip view.

yboris21• 8 years ago

Thank you Hacker News! Thanks to you I just had my 100th sale of the app -- and that means I was able to donate $350 to GiveWell's top-rated Against Malaria Foundation: https://www.againstmalaria.com/MyNets.aspx?DonationID=395198 Cheers!

Show HN: Video Hub App – like YouTube for videos on your computer

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