Several folks have already mentioned that the real value of screen capture tools is to create assets that can be used by a person whose job it is to explain abstract concepts to an audience. I would go so far as to say that if you're a founder, hiring someone who is really good at product videos is something you should 100% outsource even if you're talented with storytelling and motion graphics. It's a distraction from your key priorities, and you don't have enough distance from the subject matter to be objective about what's okay vs great.
I'd like to add that it's really debatable that a video where someone rapidly zips around an interface that they haven't used is actually something people want to see. I suspect that on its own, such a video is often not the huge win that it might seem.
Also, if a process is really easy (press a button, enter a credit card) then you can bet your ass people will soon be tired of seeing the same presentation with different marketing copy.
Things that were absolutely novel at one point include: agent chat widgets in the bottom right corner, presentations that tween and zoom on every slide, infinite scroll newsfeeds, captchas. All timeless things people love more and more every day, right?
I'm a founder at Yarn (YC W24) – we're building in this space and launching on HN soonish.
We often see teams combining ScreenStudio with products like iMovie, AfterEffects, or Veed. Other products in the space to check out are Tella.tv, Kite, or Descript.
For more advanced motion graphics, you'll often need a freelancer or agency.
Feel free to drop me a message (email in bio) to talk through options!
I really don't like these demos, they are really nauseating to me.
As I generally don't like videos with many/fast transitions like many popular YouTube videos and movies are, I'm probably a minority in this regard.
It's browser-based, but there's a Mac (and Windows I think) companion app that records the screen with click-tracking for zooming (as it's not possible with browser screen sharing just yet). It's somehow limited compared to ScreenStudio, and the interface feels cheaper compared to a native Swift app, but for my needs it gets the job done.
+1 to that being ScreenStudio.
Sometimes people import ScreenStudio videos into Arcade to add branching, annotations, and get analytics about who is engaging with the tool.
We're about to announce a big release on May 17th which will be very relevant - we're going to show how you can capture beyond the browser and get even more powerful analytics (https://www.linkedin.com/events/7189307779977818112).
Happy to answer any questions here as well.
https://tiffzhang.com/startup/
It semi-randomly creates the site of a recently-launched startup. It is nine years old now, and completely nailed the overused style of the time.
The company names are also excellent. I wonder how many accidentally became real.
It was my first time using all these tools. It took me a couple days to make the video. Premiere is a bit of a beast, but by just asking ChatGPT how to do everything, I was able to get up to speed with it pretty fast.
Like Screen Studio, Kite lets you record your screen and automatically zoom in on the action.
But with some key upgrades:
- Combine multiple recordings
- Add text scenes with animations
- Place your recordings on a 3D device like a phone or laptop
- Add music and AI voiceovers
With lots more in the works.
It's still early, but we have lots of startups using Kite regularly for feature-launch videos. We're live on Mac OS and have a waitlist for Windows.
Get in touch if you have pain points in this space. Happy to chat any time!
We use this for really nice terminal only demos. Highly recommend even though there are some minor rendering issues if you are using special fonts.
Examples you may know:
- https://sandwich.co/work/playdate/
- https://sandwich.co/work/auth0-2/
- https://sandwich.co/work/slack-wfh/ScreenFlow is also good.
But it's still a lot of hard work, making these. I suspect that AI tools can help, but, in the aggregate, it still needs a skilled eye and hand, to make stuff look good, and not obnoxious.
One way to do it completely free is OBS + Kdenlive. The interface for both leaves something to be desired but both open source and have all the features you would want (though sometimes buried in menus)
Yarn - Make Videos Like The Best (W24) https://yarn.so Kite - Product Videos Made Easy (S23) https://kite.video
It's sort of crazy YC is backing so many hundreds of companies that there's this level of overlap. I assume one pivoted into this?
Still, crazy to imagine all the YC companies competing with each-other these days. I've even seen YC-backed 'incumbents' being disrupted by new YC-backed startups.
You can do similar with more effort video editing software like DaVinci Resolve
1: https://medium.com/hackernoon/adding-visual-effects-to-your-...
I haven't used Journey, but it seems promising for product Tours: https://www.william-troup.com/journey-js/
For more sleek promo videos, I would work with a professional.
For example this one is probably better for ad etc:
Added benefit is that I think Camtasia is relatively easy to pickup compared to other tools I've tried to use.
https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/atemmini/techspecs...
And some hdmi cameras
Easy to make these videos, edit, match music to it, etc.
But if you want a nice 90s edit of every 1h sales demo meeting check out DemoTime.
smdh.