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Ask HN: How do people create those sleek looking demos for startups?

395 points by anandasai ↗ HN
I have been seeing people build product demos or show off their updates via videos - complete with zooming in on the active function and all. How do they make it? Can't find any straight forward tools online for this. Ex: https://x.com/LeapAI_/status/1781001036481613851

177 comments

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verdverm
For a website only, if you record the browser tab, on Mac this is pretty trivial with the trackpad.

You can do similar with more effort video editing software like DaVinci Resolve

jpau
I use screen.studio
ranger_danger
That one is screen.studio
themanmaran
Yup. screen.studio is probably the most popular one out there. And it's nice that it's a one time license purchase instead of a subscription.
brudgers
Outsourcing is the simplest thing that might work. There are probably better uses of your time. Good luck.
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andrewstuart
It's not a technology problem, or at least only partially a technology problem.
gedy
I find it kinda funny that the 'sleek demo' above is just zooming around their landing page.
DrammBA
It's also kinda sad we're at the point where a video of someone scrolling a webpage with an oversized mouse is considered a 'sleek demo', it wasn't even a smooth scroll at that.
nytesky
It’s obv a person manipulating the mouse and scroll. It’s very uneven and jerky.

Do these tools provide HMI automation, where you script the mouse movements/clicks/scrolls during the recording?

pandemicsoul
No, but Screen Studio does allow you to tweak how the mouse appears to move, in the sense that you can make it move more smoothly or quickly.
jonwinstanley
To be fair, I’ve seen plenty of screen recordings which are far worse
petemir
Now I wonder if asking about the tool is a red herring to make us watch the video...
Uptrenda
>my demo would be much better guise --tips fedora--
iancmceachern
Blackmagic Atem Mini:

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/atemmini/techspecs...

And some hdmi cameras

garyfirestorm
not sure what you are proposing here? a hardware device that can zoom on a cursor?
iancmceachern
I'm saying I've used, and seen used, this tool to make very cool investor pitches and videos. It's not specifically the mouse zoom thing, but more generally a great way to make super high quality, professional looking pitches when you need to show things that are live.
radley
The Mini wouldn't make anything like what's in the demo. It's good for multi-camera-angle, one-take videos. But it would also require cameras, lights, mics, etc. And you'd want at least a Mini ISO so you can fine-tune everything in post.
mschuster91
It's a live video mixer that you can use to switch between various sources of input - say, a demo device (or, in my case, a device under test), a front camera (or two) facing the presenter, a top camera showing how the presenter interacts with the device... supports a bunch of transitions, and if you get yourself the ISO variant, it records all audio and video tracks uncompressed together with a bunch of metadata that allows you to import the exact same cut as it was broadcast, and fine-tune aspects of it in post to get a refined video.
bellwether
https://arcade.software is a different solution in the same category.
panqueca
Very good alternative, thanks for sharing
pando11
Happy to answer any questions about Arcade!
lakomen
The carousel on top does some weird flashing on Android Chrome.
pando11
Thanks for mentioning - we're going to take a look into it
pando11
lakomen, can you email me at caroline AT arcade.software with a video with more details? The team can't easily repro this on their Android.
[dead] smgit
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windowshopping
I would prefer the version of this comment that lacked the excessive condescension. You could communicate the idea that you wish tactics like this wouldn't proliferate without denigrating the people you're talking to.
rembicilious
I found the comment to be informative and the condescension thought provoking. I guess it’s because the disparagement cuts both ways. There is criticism for the marketer who uses these techniques as a cheap ploy and for the consumer who lets the Trojan horse enter because “ooh a horsey”. Obviously the post could have been more pragmatic, but then bland? Not everyone enjoys onion even though the flavour is remarkable. But in a way the “denigration” is like the pretty demo effects. It dresses the whole comment up in something that pops out and here we are having been derailed from the op subject
edanm
Calling people "the chimp troupe" with "3 inch brains" is not a good way to communicate your ideas. For sure not to the people you're calling chimps, but also not to anyone else except people who both agree with you and have similar contempt for others as you do.
omeze
I thought it was so over the top it transcended condescension and was firmly comedic. Gilfoyle from HBO’s Silicon Valley could’ve written that.
lukan
You can also read it as ironicaly self mocking, as the commentor him or herself is also included in the chimp group.
ziffusion
I'd like to follow you. Do you capture your ramblings somewhere?
rembicilious
Wow no stranger has ever said that to me before and I really liked it, thank you! /desperate acknowledgment I don’t write, no social media either. Just staying in my place, a lurky digital hermit since the 90’s
throwaway14356
Ah yes, the days when it doesn't even suck was high praise. When men were made of cardboard rather than rice paper.
Gabriel_Martin
I came back specifically for the comment to find it flagged.
jasperstory
That one is ScreenStudio - it's a great product!

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!

heyarviind2
ScreenStudio looks amazing, thanks for sharing
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TheFreim
How long is the Yarn wait list?
jasperstory
Not sure. Hopefully next 4-6 weeks. Building as fast as possible with current teams – but lots of tricky webGL, Swift, and headless Chrome involved.
ImHereToVote
Mac only?
jasperstory
Many of the apps are macOS only unfortunately. For Windows, there's Descript or Camtasia. Linux not sure, but Descript and Veed are browser-based.
darou
Yes, I use Camtasia for over a decade. It not only solves screen recording but also most other tasks you would need cutting video and sound.
xrd
I chuckled when you said you weren't sure about Linux tools. Real Linux users code all their sleek demo videos inside emacs in hex.
snide
Unfortunately this is one of the places where Linux really doesn't have any good options. While there are definitely raw capture options for Linux, there isn't anything as nice as Screen Studio or Screen Flow or Camtasia for quick, short videos with basic editing.
djbusby
On Linux I've used SimpleScreenRecorder. Can invoke ffmpeg to screengrab too.
bawabawa
I work for https://www.canvid.com, and we recently released a beta version of our product, which is similar to Screen Studio but designed for Windows. If we see enough interest, we may even release a Linux version around Q3.
shafyy
+1 for ScreenStudio, use it and love it.
victorbjorklund
ScreenStudio looks nice. And thank god a pay once app.
jasperstory
Yep although to be precise it's a pay-for-a-year-of-updates model, and the underlying macOS APIs in this space change significantly between minor and major macOS releases, so ymmv in terms of "pay once forever". (For upcoming features like shareable links, they'll presumably move to a part-subscription pricing model.)
vunderba
Agreed, as far as I can tell, this is the only one in the space that doesn't insist upon a monthly payment.
mavsman
A lot of fragmented promise for video editing amongst these different apps. Hopefully someone will make a comparison chart for these. Good luck on your launch!
jamesbfb
I’m a dev lead who is a rusted on Linux user, I’ve always hated that ScreenStudio is Mac only since it’s a great product. Any plans for Linux support? I would love the ability to dem stuff and have it actually look pretty.
jasperstory
The problem is that a lot of the details requires macOS accessibility permissions (identifying active window, measuring cursor movements), so there's non-trivial platform specific code.

For product demos specifically, best bet might be a Chrome-extension-based product like Arcade!

duckmysick
This would be difficult because mouse and window controls are different in X11 and Wayland.
rrrx3
Another +1 for Screen studio. I use it legitimately daily in my Product Design job, and not just for customer-facing demo videos.
bcjordan
ScreenStudio is really good, I use it for all of my capture. Main feature I find missing is ability to reorder or combine multiple recordings into one clip, or add audio from within the app.
yodon
I'm baffled why you'd name your product in a way that conflicts with a heavily used front end tool.
shymaple
When I started creating demos for our startup, I started with Shotcut, it is pretty awesome and simple to start with. VN editor is also a good option if you are just starting your journey. And combine your screen recording with some animations and images. Hope this may help you.
danenania
I made the demo video for https://plandex.ai myself using CleanShot X (https://cleanshot.com/), Adobe Premiere Pro, an effect I bought in Adobe's marketplace, some AppleScript automation, and music from SoundStripe (https://soundstripe.com/).

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.

marban
CleanShot is also included with SetApp
bluelightning2k
I know you are talking about a one off demo

But if you want a nice 90s edit of every 1h sales demo meeting check out DemoTime.

theden
Anyone know an app that does this for mobile devices? Specifically iphones
city17
Screen.studio can also record your iPhone’s screen if you connect it to your Mac with a cable.
pando11
Hi everyone! I'm the CEO of Arcade (who a few people have already mentioned...thanks!).

+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.

destraynor
Thanks for featuring Intercom in your site :-)
smarri
Hello Des, I recently watched the intercom video series that kicked off about AI. I thought it was absolutely terrific! Great production and content.
purple-leafy
Hey mister Arcade CEO, from a fellow entrepreneur and extension developer (there are dozens of us!), have you found any pros/cons of building in the extension space versus a typical web app?

I basically exclusively build extensions because I strongly believe most startups and devs overlook the space

pando11
Sorry for the delay here. Extensions are great. There's plenty of examples in this space that have become big companies (Loom, etc.) Chrome also has the highest market share, and even upstarts like Arc Browser are built on Chromium so they work on those platforms. The only real downside is that they're difficult to test and deploy frequently (there's always a lag between pushing a new update and it being deployed, unlike when you own your own release schedule) so it's annoying to constantly have to discover when your extension was updated.

P.S. It's ms. ceo ;)

jwr
I use Camtasia and it's pretty good. It also does a lot of things related to audio/video, not just recording.
nprateem
How do people make those animated videos like AWS use for their products?
sangeeth96
Sorry to be that person but are there any free/OSS alternatives to the ones mentioned here? Mainly for macOS?
monetus
Not a direct alternative per se, as it is meant for coding, but https://syphon.github.io/ - I used to use this years ago and it worked great then for screen captures.
salzig
Free like QuickTime to Record/Capture Screen contents and iMovie to modify the material?
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freedomben
I'm linux-only so can't say for macos, but I use OBS to record and Kdenlive[1] to edit. It will take a bit more effort to get some of the effects like the zoom as Kdenlive is full video editing software, but it's a skill that IMHO is well worth the 45 mins to an hour it takes to get comfortable.

[1]: https://kdenlive.org/en/download/

meiraleal
Remotion is the best alternative imo