[HN Gopher] Show HN: I convert videos to printed flipbooks for l...
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Show HN: I convert videos to printed flipbooks for living
I built this product back in 2018 as a small side project: a tool
that turns short videos into physical flipbooks. After launching
it, I didn't touch it for years. Life and work took over, and it
sat idle. But it kept getting a few orders every month, which made
it impossible to forget. So in December 2024, I decided to rebrand
and revive it. The initial version relied on various local
printing offices. I kept switching from one to another, but the
results were never quite right. Either the quality wasn't good
enough, or the turnaround times were too long. Eventually, me and
my wife bought all the necessary machines and moved production in-
house. Now, it's a family business. My wife and I handle
everything: printing, binding, cutting, addressing, and shipping
each flipbook. On the technical side, it's powered by Next.js, with
FFmpeg extracting frames and handling overlays, and ImageMagick
used for adding trim marks and creating the final PDFs. After many
years of working in IT, working on something tangible feels
refreshing. It's satisfying to create something that brings people
joy. And that is not hard to sell (like dev tools, for example
haha). There are still challenges: we're experimenting with
different cover papers, improving production, and testing new ideas
without making things confusing. But that's part of what keeps us
moving forward.
Author : momciloo
Score : 302 points
Date : 2025-02-03 15:09 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.videotoflip.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.videotoflip.com)
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Love it. There was a service a long time ago that used to make
| fun little greeting card type flipbooks (from their own content).
| They made great gifts, something different that were well-
| received by those I gifted them to. Neat behind-the-scenes
| details. The challenge of production with papers/printing and the
| whole process is real!
| napolux wrote:
| congrats on re-launching!
| crtez wrote:
| Quick heads up, there's a typo at "Create a uniqu flipbooke
| gift".
| momciloo wrote:
| Thanks!
| pimlottc wrote:
| They're olde tyme flipbookes
| AntiEgo wrote:
| It _almost_ looks like something I could make myself, but cutting
| those tiny pages while keeping them perfectly indexed would
| surely be where my diy would go wrong. Good work OP for working
| out that special sauce!
|
| It's a clever idea, and it's encouraging to see that there are
| still clever ideas at the small-business scale still waiting to
| be invented.
| momciloo wrote:
| We're thinking of adding a DIY version where you can buy a
| pattern made from your video, print it at home or a local print
| shop, cut it, and bind it with a clip binder. Would that be
| something you'd find interesting?
| theraven wrote:
| My kids would love that process. I'd likely only have the
| patience to do it once though
| gizajob wrote:
| Pedantic observation - maybe you could get a woman to do the flip
| on your splash demo video? It seems like a wedding flip book like
| that would be better and more aesthetically congruous if
| demonstrated with female hands.
| gizajob wrote:
| You could also print double sided, in order to have a video on
| both sides of your "flip" - kind of a double whammy on the
| product for about the same amount of effort.
| kristopolous wrote:
| probably not worth the manufacturing effort, but if you could
| make a book that flips on both sides, with different clips, that
| would potentially be novel enough to pass virality coefficients.
|
| You'd need some radically different zig-zag binding process ...
| sounds like a lot of effort but might pay off.
|
| Just to be clear I'm not saying duplex print, I'm saying flip
| right and flip left, same side up
| kamens wrote:
| Fun idea!
|
| Building on that: there's a common children's magic trick
| involving a flip book that magically "colors" its pages
| (https://www.magicinc.net/products/fun-magic-coloring-
| book?va...)
|
| It works by moving your thumb to a different position while
| flipping the pages -- every Xth page is cut at slightly
| different lengths, so when you move your thumb to the next
| position, different pages become visible during the flip
|
| Using this trick you could show multiple different video clips
| in the flipbook just by moving your thumb to a different spot
| waltbosz wrote:
| I love that magic trick, but wouldn't that significantly
| thicken the cardstock flipbook ?
| kristopolous wrote:
| would it? I assume the trick is the sheets are slightly
| trapezoidal. Shouldn't that be enough?
|
| Of course you're doubling the page count regardless of the
| approach ... that's likely unavoidable.
| apparent wrote:
| This sounds like a Svengali deck, which just has every other
| card slightly shorter. Then when you flip from one direction it
| seems like all of the cards are different, and from the other
| direction, all of the cards appear the same. Would be easy to
| do, but in one direction your hand would tend to block the view
| of the cards.
| hsuduebc2 wrote:
| Very clever. Love the idea.
| subpixel wrote:
| Really cool, I'd expect to see how much I would save when
| ordering 5, 10 etc (of the same video).
|
| I think it's clear that groups are the winning use case, but if I
| want all parties from a vacation (picking one example of many) to
| get a flipbook, I need to pay less than $25 per.
| momciloo wrote:
| We rarely get 3-10 identical orders, so there's no calculator
| for it. For 10+, people contact us directly, and we offer
| custom options like branding and photo covers. But maybe we
| could add a page specifically for bulk orders, with some
| pricing adjustment visualisations. thanks for suggesting it!
| mhnthrow wrote:
| Bulk orders would be great. I just sent you one of my kid
| starting to crawl, it'll be a birthday gift for my wife.
| These would make great gifts in general - if you end up doing
| any more personalization like names embossed on covers or
| something, you can probably double the price.
| rectalogic wrote:
| Interesting. Back in 2007 my company Motionbox partnered with
| flipclips.com to sell themed flipbooks very similar to these.
| Both companies are defunct now. Demo at a trade show:
| https://youtu.be/FIiLsyeAM_I?si=BQHt5Q4Q80y3Il5f
| momciloo wrote:
| wow!!!! true pioneer! amazing!!
| DHPersonal wrote:
| There's also lenticular cards: https://gifpop.io/
| bazzargh wrote:
| Is that not very dead? I remember trying to order some gifpop
| stuff back in 2021/22 and they were gone by then. I see the
| "make your own" page on the site is broken, the blog entries
| are from 2017 (hover over the bottom of each one). The
| copyright's updated but I think that's automatic.
|
| I only wanted a couple of images. From what I remember of
| gifpop, they originally did this using a machine that was
| intended as a wedding entertainment, guests take a moving
| selfie and it's printed for you, they repurposed it for
| selling art gifs - seemed like a great idea.
|
| The fallback - IIRC you could buy preglued lenticular sheets
| in packs of 50 off amazon, and there was a site explaining
| how to preprocess your images (but it's not hard)...but it
| was going to take a bit of effort, I don't even own a printer
| - so I lost interest.
| tombot wrote:
| Neat, how did you build the live preview? Green screen with
| numbered pages?
| shawabawa3 wrote:
| The live preview is literally just the uploaded video dropped
| to like 10fps
| jsat wrote:
| The flip demonstration video needs to be redone. Very poor
| execution by the person flipping.
| cwmoore wrote:
| True, makes me question the paperstock and dimensions.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| Right? It reminds me of those game ads where they intentionally
| fuck up in an attempt to get you riled up.
| gus_massa wrote:
| If it's too perfect, it would look fake. Perhaps make a first
| poor run and then another nice run, as if the person learned
| how to flip in the middle.
| jkkramer wrote:
| Great little product! Seems like this could actually make good
| money with the right marketing.
|
| Are you doing anything special to leverage TikTok or Instagram
| Reels? I notice you had a few sample posts. I'd go hard on that
| if you're not already: post yourself, hire micro influencers,
| etc.
| momciloo wrote:
| Not really. I'm probably overthinking it like most developers
| do and holding back more than I should
| suyash wrote:
| Nicely done, what are the most popular use cases for this
| service? I guess weddings?
| momciloo wrote:
| We thought weddings would be big too, but we've only had one
| wedding order so far haha. Most orders are gifts for various
| family occasions
| ggambetta wrote:
| This looks pretty great, seriously considering ordering one!
|
| The length is fixed at 72 pages/frames, but you support uploading
| up to 30s of video. How does this work? You sample 72 frames from
| a video of any length? Is there a recommended frame rate (and
| therefore duration) that is somehow optimal? What's the natural
| frame rate range of humans flipping flipbooks? So many questions!
| momciloo wrote:
| We evenly sample 72 frames from any video length. No required
| frame rate, but 12-24fps works best. Most people flip at around
| 10fps, so short, clear-motion clips work best. When you upload
| your video on the order page, you'll get an accurate preview of
| how it'll look in hand!
| escapecharacter wrote:
| What if you converted video essays to flipbooks, by only taking
| the frames that a new subtitle appeared on?
| HarHarVeryFunny wrote:
| Is this just supplemental income, or are you actually making a
| living from it?
|
| Isn't it a bit of a risk to tout the success of this idea among a
| tech crowd capable of going off and creating competitors?
| momciloo wrote:
| It's supplemental, but it's enough to make living where we
| live. When I first started, I worried about creating
| competition by sharing too much. But after 6 years of refining
| production, I've realized this product isn't easy to replicate
| at all
| j45 wrote:
| It's almost always the case that anyone who thinks something
| is easy to replicate will realize the product is the
| marketing, sales, creating/building, delivery, billing, and
| not just any tech.
|
| Happy for you having a family activity.
|
| Binding is a good skill to have, remember it from my school
| days.
| rhubarbtree wrote:
| I used to think tech was a small part of a startup. Now I
| think it's a _very_ small part.
| throw_away32 wrote:
| Small part of _successful_ startups.
|
| Those that focus more on technology instead of the
| product often fails, unless technology is the actual
| startup (database companies, PaaS etc.). Even then it is
| often a good choice just to select something "boring"
| that everyone knows.
| cptskippy wrote:
| How does your product differ from the Flipbook Photobooths
| that people have at their weddings? They're able to create
| flipbooks on demand that are very high quality.
| momciloo wrote:
| I haven't held a flipbook like that in my hands, but the
| main benefit of ours is that you can upload any video from
| your phone anytime - you don't need to be at a wedding. The
| downside, of course, is the delivery time
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Ideas are a dime a dozen. Guaranteed that others have thought
| of this. Execution is where you succeed or fail.
| anticorporate wrote:
| It strikes me as odd that so many people think a business has
| to be _unique_ to succeed. 99% of businesses do something
| that another business already does. For that matter, almost
| by definition, most businesses are not the leader in their
| niche. That doesn 't make them unprofitable.
| echoangle wrote:
| > Isn't it a bit of a risk to tout the success of this idea
| among a tech crowd capable of going off and creating
| competitors?
|
| Yes, this feels like perfect bait for people thinking they can
| do it better and stuffing a video into ffmpeg shouldn't be that
| hard. It's actually starting to make me want to try it myself
| too.
| cwmoore wrote:
| Print and bind a few copies of YouTube for a serious carbon
| sequestration opportunity.
| mynjin wrote:
| It would be nifty if, when you squeeze the spine to flip it, that
| it played audio from the clip and maybe an audio message.
| momciloo wrote:
| haha! actually yes, like musical greeting cards! would be a
| nice experiment to try it out
| mcsniff wrote:
| The site has a weird mixture of case.
|
| Some headings are capitalised while others aren't, doesn't seem
| to follow any specific reasoning -- might want to take a look at
| that.
| phmagic wrote:
| How do your customers find out about your business?
| benuuu wrote:
| I uploaded a vertical video and it was a little unclear to me
| where the binding would be. I'm assuming it's on the left. It
| might be helpful to have a ui element to the side of the video
| container that looked like the binding so it was clear that would
| be the end product.
| jacksonrgwalker wrote:
| I agree - this is also an issue for me!
| talkingtab wrote:
| A _very_ long time ago there was a program on the Mac. You drew
| one picture (macdraw maybe), just lines, then a second picture.
| You could then watch as pix 1 morphed into pix 2. Anyone know
| where something like that is. A flip book for that would be
| great.
| latexr wrote:
| That is an animation technique called "tweening". Using that
| term you should be able to find some software to do it.
| echoangle wrote:
| I would start with OpenToonz:
| https://opentoonz.github.io/e/index.html
|
| It's used by Studio Ghibli for making Anime and I know for
| sure that it supports tweening. And it's free and open
| source.
| apparent wrote:
| How long of videos do you recommend this for? How many flips are
| the books good for? Any tips on keeping them in good flipping
| condition, in your experience?
|
| Also, your title is missing an "a" before "living". Love the idea
| and execution!
| throw03172019 wrote:
| Is our video deleted after the book is created?
| momciloo wrote:
| Yes, all videos are deleted regularly.
| flog wrote:
| How do you actually do the manufacturing? What machines does one
| need to do something like this?
| illwrks wrote:
| I studied design and visual communication. Around 2005/2006 I was
| doing a short animation but didn't have a suitable way to show it
| when my project was being assessed. I did the same, I manually
| printed and trimmed each frame of animation and then blind them
| into a little flip book. It was such a pain to do but the
| lectures loved it! I can't imagine how cumbersome it must be if
| you're doing it for hundreds of orders!
| karaterobot wrote:
| This is weird, but I make my living by digitizing old flipbooks
| into MP4 files!
| oniony wrote:
| Kiss!
| kylecazar wrote:
| OP is single-handedly keeping you in business
| mosselman wrote:
| I love the website design, it looks great!
| elevatedastalt wrote:
| How do you bring users to your site? Is it through organic
| search, ads, or is it entirely word of mouth?
| livando wrote:
| love this post, congrats.
| andresgottlieb wrote:
| If you're into flipbooks, check-out these 6-in-one marvels. I got
| the Apollo 11 collection and love it: https://flipboku.com/
| worldhistory wrote:
| Beautiful. I love this. I hope you sell millions.
| jacksonrgwalker wrote:
| Love the idea, sounds like a very fun and rewarding project. I
| just purchased one- I used a vertical video so I am hoping the
| binding is on the proper side (didn't see anything about that on
| the site).
| natas wrote:
| What is your revenue? and profit?
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(page generated 2025-02-03 23:00 UTC)