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Show HN: SplitScreen – Create dual-video content for TikTok, YouTube, Reels (splitscreen.studio)

26 points by mjacques ↗ HN
I wanted to share a side-project we’ve been working on: SplitScreen – a tool designed to simplify the creation of side-by-side videos for social media platforms like TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and Instagram Reels.

What is SplitScreen?

SplitScreen is a straightforward tool that allows you to combine two videos side-by-side in just a few clicks. We built it because we needed a simple, efficient way to create these dual-video posts without the usual hassle. It's made for content creators who want to focus on creativity without getting bogged down in technical details.

Key Features:

Effortless Merging: Combine two videos side-by-side easily, ideal for reaction videos or other dual-content formats. Intuitive Interface: No complicated steps, just the essentials to get your videos done quickly. Optimized Exports: Fast exports tailored for TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts. What’s Coming:

Custom Split Layouts: Soon, you'll have more control over the layout, with options like 60/40 and 70/30 splits. Direct Uploads: Upload directly from your phone and export content ready for any platform. Speed Enhancements: We’re working on making the process even faster.

If you’re interested, check out splitscreen.studio.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

42 comments

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tejonutella
How did you guys end up choosing those price points?
DonHopkins
Would love it to synchronously scroll through a web page with a transcript, two-way linked so when you scroll the transcript, the video scrubs too. Maybe you could embed timecode anchors in the text so it could calculate where to scroll. Extra credit: Clicking on a word seeks to just before that word in the video.
aio2
bro is the creator of brainrot
bluetidepro
That's wildly expensive for how easy it is to manually do this.
antimemetics
What is an easy way to do this manually? I can’t think of any, but then again u don’t use TikTok etc
sohzm
Aren't you just cutting the screen and playing a subway/gta/etc video below?

It can be done in any editor in a few clicks

Auto captioning will surely help, you can also provide styles for captions.

I remember revid.ai does similar stuff you can take inspiration from.

qingcharles
Download CapCut for free, drag both videos into your media panel, now click + on them both to drop them on the timeline. Make sure the ratio (under the preview window) is set to 9:16. Click on each video and move it around until you have it lined up where you want it. Export.
out-of-ideas
i was impressed with the features which kdenlive provides; had a small learning curve for some of the basics but went in expecting that
dockerd
Price seems decent for lifetime which is 20$. Also it's processing on server side rather than client machine so user can do it from mobile, old laptop and don't need to use any other software.
1oooqooq
for that flat price, i bet they are already working on ffmpeg via webassembly. otherwise they will go under or dishonor those early clients pretty fast.
rafram
I think this is bound to lose out to a plugin for video editing software (e.g. Premiere or FCP) that creators already use. Single-use online utilities like this might catch on with consumers, but professionals are going to want something that fits in with their existing workflow.
ilrwbwrkhv
Creators who create this type of videos are not editing on premiere. They are usually editing on their phones manually stitching content on the tiktok editor. They will gladly pay 5 bucks.
rafram
I’m surprised that the TikTok editor can’t already do this.
johnwheeler
Oh right, The old, it’s not even worth trying kid give up. Let the big boys do it.
rafram
I said plugin. Anyone can write a plugin.
ilrwbwrkhv
This will work. Just target through tiktok the most degen creators who are just chatting on their videos.
tzm
As funny (or interesting) as it looks, I have to stop and ask do we really need this type of content vying for attention? Watching these videos feels like TikTok on steroids. I instantly ignore this type of content. It's mind-numbing with little substance.
Rendello
One of my family members rarely lets her daughter watch TV, and when that kid is in front of a set, she's so catatonic she can't remember her name. I can't imagine if she was an iPad kid with TikTok in front of her, kids especially eat up these splitscreen videos. Educated, working, adult HN readers aren't the target audience for these sorts of things, but even I got caught in the TikTok trap for a year and still watch hours of YT and FB shorts in a stupor. I'm glad HN hasn't introduced short-form video content yet ;)
rchaud
Most social media marketing tools are sold with the express intent of spam acceleration. Before TikTok, there were numerous tools for FB/Twitter focused on scheduling posts, or auto-generating posts based on [[current hot topic]].

This tool is tame compared to those. It just centers a 16:9 video and crops it to fit better in portrait mode, while showing the uncropped video below so people can see the full frame as well.

KaiserPro
From my casual observations, split screen stuff is either reactions, or a way to beat copyright detection.
jaimehrubiks
Is this proven to work? Like, I assume this might work for retention right? but will probably reduce attention on the content?
mariocesar
This pattern, I think, is called “Sludge content,” and there are papers about how prevalent and effective it is.
kgraves
So this is what the best engineers in the world are working on then.

Great.

sohzm
AI generated slop is the future :(
dylan604
What makes you say this person is a best engineer?
deskr
I get a headache when I see stuff like this. I couldn't scroll past the demo video.
noman-land
The two question FAQ says to email and then provides no email address.
connormon
I was also wondering this. If you click the support button it links to their email. Not very intuitive.
atum47
Not to dismiss your work but this is the worse type of videos like these. I hate when people get a genuine funny video and add reactions to it; or a interesting video and people insert them commenting on top of it.
adenta
this should be an API. Closest thing I’ve found is IMG.LY, and it’s kinda meh.
sunnybeetroot
If some one knows how to interact with an API, chances are they could achieve the same thing with FFmpeg. API users are not their target audience.
Xeoncross
I've been seeing content that has some adult vlog or podcast content mixed with a random video game. It seems like very disparate content is being combined. Does this work well? I've never really liked it and wondered why a more interesting video isn't used instead of some tiny portion of a random game.
asynchronous
It’s because there’s a subset of people with a boiled enough attention span that they need something visual to watch (like a speedrun challenge) while listening to a podcast clip. 8 seconds is apparently the upper limit of the attention span now.
explodes
This looks like you pay a company to put their ads on your content, under the guise of "increasing engagement."

Correct me if wrong here, but this would be something I would expect to get paid to do with my social media content.

spaceman_2020
Good God, the comments here

Some of you don’t have teenage kids and nephews and it shows!

ksp-atlas
Wasn't there a whole meme about putting subway surfers under everything mocking this practice?
finger
When pricing pages use keywords like “popular” for one of the options, is it just pure marketing tactics or is there any truth behind it?
reeturaj542
I've noticed this split-screen video gaining a lot of traction, even though the content in both videos isn't good.