Launch HN: Cardboard (YC W26) – Agentic video editor

(usecardboard.com)

68 points | by sxmawl 3 hours ago ago

32 comments

  • moinism an hour ago ago

    Wow! congrats on the launch guys. client-side rendering is incredible, really. I saw your product somewhere and have it as an open tab in my chrome for ~2 weeks :D

    I also saw another YC company, Mosaic, doing something similar. But your approach of chat-based editing is a lot closer to what I'm building. Shameless plug: I'm also working on a chat-based media processor. https://chatoctopus.com

    But you guys are way ahead! will be looking at you for inspiration.

    • sxmawl 28 minutes ago ago

      mosaic's approach is also v fresh. curious about the flow after a user q/a with an asset in chatoctopus?

      and ig it's time to revisit that chrome tab :)

  • michaelevensen 39 minutes ago ago

    Love this idea! I built something similar last year https://www.usecrossfade.com and know how difficult this is to get right - I'm rooting for you guys!

    • ishandeveloper 30 minutes ago ago

      Thank you! You're right, there are so many subtle things to get right, appreciate the kind words. Crossfade's landing page looks slick btw!

      • michaelevensen 26 minutes ago ago

        Thanks! Yeah, it can just quickly spiral into this massive product when you take video editing which has a base level of features you sort of expect and add on a whole new paradigm like AI-assisted. But really like your approach!

  • barefootford an hour ago ago

    Really impressive work guys! It seems like YC has funded a few companies attacking this but I think you all might have the best approach so far. Behind the scenes is the agent just editing using text/annotated timelines? I feel like the move is probably text for roughcut/narrative, then a vlm for digesting the initial roughcut, then adding broll and fixing timing issues. Feel free to steal my FCP xml generator. https://github.com/barefootford/buttercut

    • sxmawl an hour ago ago

      happy that you liked our approach! also, i think it's a better idea to just give agent these tools and let it figure out its course of actions than giving it a specific workflow to work on - it seems like the world keeps reminding us the bitter lesson [http://www.incompleteideas.net/IncIdeas/BitterLesson.html] more frequently these days

      will definitely check the XML exports, ty :)

  • popalchemist 3 minutes ago ago

    Impressive UI. I assume you must be doing some kind of RAG + audio/video transcription on all the media. What's RAG architecture did you go with?

  • WaylonKenning an hour ago ago

    Funnily, this was an issue for myself so I built an open source AI video editor - https://github.com/waylonkenning/aidirector

    Cardboard looks really well polished, well done!

    • sxmawl 44 minutes ago ago

      damn that's really cool, you ship fast!

  • moralestapia 2 hours ago ago

    This is amazing (I'll add you on LinkedIn).

    I recently started making videos for a loved one that lives far away, I started using CapCut and this is the kind of thing I was thinking "I wish it did that".

    I'll definitely try it out. Congrats!

    • sxmawl 2 hours ago ago

      that's really cool!

      lmk if i can help in any way :)

  • calebm 3 hours ago ago

    This seems like a great idea. Tools like video editors (and CAD) often impose a big learning curve - there is a big differential between "I want to do X" and actually knowing all the right buttons to press to do X. Good luck.

    • sxmawl 2 hours ago ago

      appreciate your support!

  • jimmis an hour ago ago

    Excited to see AI integrations into more non-text-related applications (coding, spreadsheets, proofreading etc). As someone who only occasionally needs to edit videos for product / feature reels, I'd happily ask an AI to "sync the narration to the video, cut away irrelevant footage, and add transitions". The convenience of being able to automate simple, repeatable tasks in creative software via ai is something that gets overshadowed a lot by the agentic coding discussions. I can only imagine the nightmare it would be for a tool like Premier to integrate effective ai features, so new ai-in-mind tools really feel like a necessity.

    Great website and good luck!

    • sxmawl an hour ago ago

      you understood well what we are building. non-text domains certainly have additionally challenges and we're working on making it reliable without learning curve.

      also, appreciate the kind words on the site — give Cardboard a spin next time you need a product reel!

  • joshribakoff an hour ago ago

    Very cool idea. If your product is about video, please fix your video players. I cannot even seek on my touch screen.

    • ishandeveloper 36 minutes ago ago

      my bad, I didn't test it enough on touch devices. Just pushed a fix, appreciate you flagging it!

    • sxmawl an hour ago ago

      ah, ty for notifying about the mobile player. on it!

  • rd 2 hours ago ago

    Who do you think your target customer is? Curious to know if you think the money is in short form, traditional YouTube videos, or even movie studios one day.

    Great website btw. The onboarding was very pleasing

    • sxmawl 2 hours ago ago

      there's value in all the categories you mentioned — we're not focusing on feature filmmakers right now.

      target customers usually fall under one of these - marketers / creators / founders

  • RobotToaster 2 hours ago ago

    The 10gb file size is going to be limiting for anyone shooting prores or raw.

    • sxmawl 2 hours ago ago

      yeah, i agree. we're actively working on bumping that up. it was 5GB last week

      for now, an intermediate solution is to splice and upload.

  • adboio an hour ago ago

    LET'S GOOOOOOO excellent product friends

    • sxmawl 27 minutes ago ago

      ty ty!

  • deklesen 2 hours ago ago

    Nice demo experience!

  • danieltk76 2 hours ago ago

    We use Cardboard at Vulnetic and it is an incredible product. The founders are easily accessible, and it has definitely made it easier to film feature update videos. I can't recommend them enough.

    • sxmawl 2 hours ago ago

      glad i'm able to help, i really enjoy working with you!

  • jhatemyjob an hour ago ago

    > We built a custom hardware-accelerated renderer on WebCodecs / WebGL2, there’s no server-side rendering, no plugins, everything runs in your browser (client-side).

    Aight imma head out. Holy moly.

    • sxmawl an hour ago ago

      haha xD

  • TimCTRL an hour ago ago

    $60...eh