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Show HN: Filmbox, physically accurate film emulation, now on Linux and Windows (videovillage.co)
658 points by wilg on Feb 8, 2023 | hide | past | favorite | 248 comments
We released Filmbox two years ago, and it has gotten a great response. It's been used in huge movies like "Everything Everywhere All At Once".

It's been a huge rewrite to get this working on Linux and Windows from our original Mac and Metal code.

We also have some interesting uses of cross-platform Swift + Electron in our plugin manager app, and cross-platform Swift generally in the plugin. Hopefully we can detail that in a blog post at some point.

There's a free Filmbox Lite version to try, if you're interested.




On the front page of the site, something that could add to the compelling side-by-side comparison between Filmbox and real film is to show a 3rd image/synced clip, the digital image starting point, without any manipulation. (and hence the value add of Filmbox -- because as it is now of course it looks like the footage is identical, which is your point. But showing 2 basically identical clips doesn't add much).

Maybe show the buildup of layers? That would be really interesting.


This. As a non film person, I basically have no clue what this does.


If you don’t know what DaVinci is then this isn’t any use to you because it’s an industry specific application. It’s a little like how Docker or git doesn’t need explaining to (non-junior) engineers.

I’m very surprised to see DaVinci make the front page on HN but also very glad too.


That's not very helpful... people come here to learn about new things. Maybe it wouldn't be of any use to them, but it's clearly something that piqued their curiosity.


Others have already explained what that product is so I didn’t need to do that however they hadn’t explained why the site isn’t more specific. So I was addressing the GPs criticism about why that site doesn’t explain what DaVinci is.


Anyone that has taken a mild interest in video editing will encounter DaVinci right away in "top 10 list of video editors". You're talking about this as if it's some hidden industry tool.

> I’m genuinely one of the friendliest and most helpful people you’ll meet in real life

I'm also the most modest person in the world.


I wasn’t suggesting it’s an hidden industry tool. If I were I wouldnt have compared it to git and Docker. You’re reading far too much into my comment and I’m really not in the mood for a character assassination today (full of cold) so I’ve deleted most of the detail and stripped my post back to the bare minimum. Don’t expect a follow up reply


I don't think the GP is talking about what DaVinci is, but what the *plugin* does. I find myself in the same shoes as the GP here. Maybe I'm not the target market of course but I was just curious.


I know what DaVinci is and even a bit about film and the film look and I would still like what GP is suggesting.


I'm a senior engineer and I don't know anything about Docker.


I get your point, and maybe as someone who's not part of said industry I'm missing something, but it seems like it'd be helpful even to the target audience to actually show how this plugin can transform video.


> If you don’t know what DaVinci is then this isn’t any use to you because it’s an industry specific application

It may not be of any use but its still of interest to many people that some kind of explanation would be useful


It's a Snapchat filter for videos.


it’s crazy that something that can be demonstrated with a single comparison photo or short clip is for some reason being met with resistance.


There is a short comparison clip on that landing page. Granted not at the top but it’s definitely there.

The complaints I’ve seen have been more around whether that site should explain what DaVinci is.


I'm not resisting, I think.


Stop resisting!


Kind of expensive if you are a Linux hobbyist, $5000 (*$4999) for collection of filters over another proprietary film editing software, which was designed to be a good standalone color&fx software, but apparently isn't.


I'm not surprised they skipped the intro-level demo because it's a pretty niche industry-specific product. I can't imagine even the prosumer market would use Davinci, let alone get excited about plugins for it. Kind of surprised that this is getting general-audience traction here. This isn't my exact area of expertise so I could be wrong, but I'm in a parallel field, and I can't imagine non-film folks would fall into any useful target demographic for them, even accidentally. My guess is they're hiring developers.


Davinci resolve is great for prosumers and hobbyists.

Youtube is awash with Davinci Resolve tutorials for everything from basic non-linear video editing to compositing, sound editing and grading.

The basic version is free, and the paid version is a one-time $300, or 7.5 months of Adobe Premiere+After Effects or Audition.

BlackMagic also produce gear like the atem mini beloved by streamers and the BMPCC (blackmagic pocket cinema cameras) that are very much aimed at prosumers.

If any one needs to edit any video, even just a short recreational youtube video, I point them towards Davinci, because the price is right and there are so many tutorials.


> I can't imagine even the prosumer market would use Davinci, let alone get excited about plugins for it.

For what it's worth: DaVinci has both a free and a paid version - and the paid version is not even 300$. If you're an indie filmmaker or hobbyist, it's certainly a better offering than a Premiere Pro subscription unless your muscle memory is trained too hard on Adobe tooling.

> and I can't imagine non-film folks would fall into any useful target demographic for them, even accidentally. My guess is they're hiring developers.

Many tech people have to deal with video shit at some point in their career - it helps to at least know some basic cutting to make a screen recording for a tutorial way better for the viewers.


Yep, this. We used DaVinci Resolve to cut together a music video for a little between-friends contest, and for some tutorial videos. It's way more than I could even dream of needing, and it's pretty heavyweight, but I found the other free alternatives just didn't work well for me.

It's a lot like how people might use Photoshop both for heavyweight professional graphic design and digital art, and also for making silly mashup pictures for Reddit, except they don't even have to pirate it!


As a non-film person you'd very likely not have a clue how to use a professional color grading solution like Davinci Resolve (for which this is a plugin) to begin with.

As a VFX-person I'd be curious about a before and after on a crisp digital image with multiple settings.


Yes I think comparing film to filmbox is useless without showing the pre-filmbox digital.


Yeah I also don't understand that comparison because... how was it shot? A film camera and digital camera next to each other?


As a photographer, emulation like this is of great interest to me. Like in cinematography, film is often held in high regard in photography with the caveat that it isn't even remotely as flexible as digital options.

Have you considered creating a parallel product as an Adobe Lightroom plugin and/or a standalone app for still images?


You may be interested in checking this out: https://www.dehancer.com/.

I believe they have Adobe + Da Vinci plugins for film & video (and maybe a standalone app as well. At least they used to when I played with the beta, but it may be plugin-only now, I’m not sure).

As far as I remember, they try to do some physically accurate emulation as well. The founder is a big fan of film photography and also runs some interesting gigs (like, repackaging cinema film for use in still cameras) - also blogs about color and film photography.


> [film] isn't even remotely as flexible as digital options

I've pretty much only ever shot film, so my opinion isn't worth much, but colour negative seems to be way more flexible than digital if all you're talking about is the capture. In terms of using film in modern workflows, digital is easier.


I just tried to bend my CMOS sensor around a film spool, and can confirm. Film is more flexible...

More seriously it does depend on your definition of flexible. Being able to switch speeds (ASA numbers) without having to replace the film or carry multiple cameras is a huge flexibility win for digital all on its own.


Hm? More flexible?

Besides dynamic range, that’s a real stretch to say color negative film is more flexible. That sort of film arguably does a better job of preserving highlights, but I don’t see a plausible argument for any other aspect being better. Just getting the white balance right alone…


Film does not have more dynamic range than good digital sensors.

In the end, it's about faithfully recording which parts of the site got hit by photons. Digital sensors do that more accurately than any practically-sized strips of plastic with silver grains on them do. Both in terms of location (resolution) and amount (dynamic range).

It's true film handles blown highlights better, but not that much better, and digital handles underexposed shadows significantly better.


> any practically-sized strips of plastic with silver grains on

Which is quite subjective. I would say that a Mamiya 7, Fujichrome and drum scans easily match today's digital medium format. And I would say that 120 film is 'practically-sized.

4x5 transparency, good lenses and drum scanning is still unmatched in terms of overall image quality.


What do you mean by "image quality" and how have you measured it?


This is a discussion without many definitive answers.

But there is at least one: the resolution of 4x5 film easily exceeds any commercially available digital sensor, with pretty much any halfway decent lens.

Digital sensors also require collimated light, so digital lenses correct for this, where film can produce a sharp image from simpler lenses.

Additionally, I personally prefer the colour reproduction of film.


>the resolution of 4x5 film easily exceeds any commercially available digital sensor, with pretty much any halfway decent lens.

Theoretically perhaps, but you have to look at the whole imaging system (including the inevitable loss from scanning or optical printing in the case of film). Even five or ten years ago the best digital systems were able to capture about as much detail as you could realistically squeeze out of a 4x5 negative. If you disagree, I'd be interested to see some comparison shots backing this up. I shoot 4x5 as a hobby, but I've long ago given up any illusion that it has practical resolution benefits over the best digital equipment.

It's also worth mentioning that for realistic large format photography, accurate focus and camera shake start to become significant limiting factors. The actual experience of using a 4x5 camera (outdoors at least) tends to consist of taking your best guess at accurate focus while squinting at a dim ground glass through a loupe, and then hoping that you triggered the shutter at the precise moment when the wind stopped blowing.

Finally, one has to take diffraction into account. Typical apertures for 4x5 landscape photography are around f22-32. A good chunk of the theoretical resolving ability of the film and lens is lost once you're stopped down to that extent.


> you have to look at the whole imaging system

Agree 100%.

To match actual resolution of something like a PhaseOne 150mp sensor with 4x5 film, you need to be getting ~55lpm on film. Which is not difficult with decent lenses at working apertures.

Scanning the resulting negative or transparency at that res (~2800ppi) without any loss is also not difficult with a drum scanner. Not everyone has a drum scanner, sure, but then the comparison is between digital sensors and consumer scanners, not sensors and film.

I've measured image detail on drum scans of 6x9 Tri-X negatives I shot handheld, and as far as I can tell 40lpm was the lower bound of detail. So, I'm confident I could produce as 4x5 colour neg/transparency that exceeds any PhaseOne sensor in terms of resolution.


The theoretical resolution of the film itself isn’t the limiting factor, as I explained above. It’s things like camera shake and focusing precision. (Even if your focusing judgment is perfect - which it isn’t - you are going to move the rear standard to at least some extent when you insert the film holder; film holders and cameras are calibrated with a margin of error; and sheet film does not lie perfectly flat.)

I read so many posts online extolling the theoretical resolution of large format film, but these are almost never accompanied by actual comparison shots. I really think you might change you perspective on this if you tried using a 4x5 camera in realistic conditions (which it seems you have not?)

You can google for real world comparisons of 4x5 film and high res digital backs. There are very few such comparisons actually made, for all the confident pronouncements one can read in forums. Even 5-10 years ago, the resolution advantages of 4x5 were marginal at best in comparison to 50MP digital sensors.


See here for a couple of comparisons with 8x10 with differing results:

https://luminous-landscape.com/iq180-vs-8x10/

https://petapixel.com/2020/03/19/8x10-film-vs-150mp-digital-...

Given these results on 8x10, it seems highly unlikely to me that 4x5 film could offer any significant advantage over a 150MP digital sensor in practice.


Yes, well that test puts it to rest then. 4x5 is unlikely to offer any significant resolution advantage. Although, I do think there is an advantage evident in another of Tim Parkin's tests:

Overview - https://www.onlandscape.co.uk/2011/12/large-format-vs-digita... Test Chart Image - https://www.onlandscape.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/mir...

Comparing the 4x5 Provia & IQ180, the digital sensor detail degrades into a blue and yellow maze of perpendicular artefacts as the lines converge, where the film degrades more gracefully (in my opinion). The digital image (in this test) appears to produce an image that is not faithful.

It's reasonable to suggest that the graceful loss of detail on film offers a not-trivial advantage in high-contrast detailed scenes (especially high-resolution black and white films). In overcast low-contrast scenes digital clearly produces better detail.

Perhaps this maze-like tendency of some digital sensors is why people look at their film and think it's sharper or provides more detail.

It would be interesting to see a test of current 150mp sensors, perhaps this has been corrected and the advantage disappears, but maybe digital artefacts like the blue-yellow maze are just moved further right.


Yes, fair points.


> Besides dynamic range, that’s a real stretch to say color negative film is more flexible.

Yes, I suppose you're likely right. And like I said my opinion probably isn't worth much.

At the end of the day they're just different, and have a lot or nothing to do with each other depending on how you frame things.


By flexible, do you mean the dynamic range?


Yes, negative film is very tolerant of overexposure in a predictable way.

But I never shoot low-light scenes, and as far as I'm aware the inverse is true in circumstances where you're trying to extract as much as possible from limited light, ie. digital is more flexible when underexposure is a concern.


> Have you considered creating a parallel product as an Adobe Lightroom plugin and/or a standalone app for still images?

Yes.


While this does answer the plain question, would you mind sharing any more details? Did you come to a decision, is there a planned release date, is there a way to subscribe to updates, etc? I'm saying all of this as a potential future customer of yours, I feel I shouldn't have to, for lack of a better word, try and force this information out of you.


I was trying to be coy, sorry! We don’t have anything to announce at this time.

You can follow us on Twitter or Instagram for updates.


+1 on this as well, been looking for something since VSCO Film sunsetted. Also open to any recommendations from other film simulation for photography too!


If you're down to try new systems you can pick up a Fujifilm xe2 for about 250$, plus a good prime for another 250$, then shoot jpeg + raw and play with Fuji's built in film sims and in camera raw conversion settings to get remarkably film like photos.

It's a whole thing in the Fuji world, see http://fujixweekly.com/

I'm not sure if the xe2 is compatible but you can also edit "on-computer" by having the camera plugged in and using its on camera raw conversion but with the UI on your computer: https://fujifilm-x.com/global/support/download/software/x-ra...

For system agnostic, there's also tons of plugins, profiles, dstyles, LUTs and whatever else you'd like

https://github.com/jade-nl/dt.styles

https://marcrphoto.wordpress.com/

https://onecameraonelens.com/2021/01/12/why-darktable-is-per...

I basically don't edit photos anymore now that I'm with Fuji. It's not like I'm artistically opposed, the extra step was basically ruining photography for me, I simply don't have the time.

I still shoot jpeg + raw though because I may be lazy but I'm not insane :p


I do shoot with Fuji X-T30 sometimes, how did you know?! But mostly shooting with iPhone nowadays since it's always with me. Your links are awesome, I'll try them out!


Yeah fuji is the one to beat for good looking film simulations for photography.


I got an RNI pack and have been very pleased. Especially the slide simulations. https://reallyniceimages.com/


I use the velvia function + artificial grain in Lighttable, though I am very amateur.


Please!


I don't know if it would be good enought for you. But some cameras you can try to simulate film simulations (I own an X100V, but there are many options). It is not perfect but I love the results, one source material that I like is https://fujixweekly.com that have recipes for simulations for fuji, but there are some other resources for Ricoh and Nikon cameras.


My understanding is that you can edit images inside of Davinci Resolve just like video, though I haven't attempted it myself.


I second this, many photographers would be very interested, myself included.


Put a DNG into Resolve, enjoy a node based workflow, use this plugin, and export the frame at the same res :)


Oh cool, for some reason I did not expect resolve to support DNGs!


Indeed! A lot of the software is divided at most by 'industry verbiage' than it is genuine interop...

Love your website/blog... Phase deserve pinning every now and then ;)


Thank you! Phase gear is much more affordable these days with the x1d/x2d and GFX series eating their lunch a bit :)

Plus you still get Capture One for free still with them...


It's the fact they're all dog slow that levels the playing field, at least for me! I have a 907X and it's a love hate relationship... Down to the log files being encrypted.


Indeed! I have been really tempted by a 907x… Sad to hear they are so locked down. The IQ series has plain text logs at least! And the IQ4 is linux…gpl… ;)


I definitely bin walked those files! Spent a decade as a DIT and flew around with everything from the p45 to the iq150 over the years!


[flagged]


You do sound a bit rude. It’s certainly not a given. I know probably more than most here about DNGs and other image processing. Check my profile/websites.

I have a camera that shoots cinemaDNG, but I would not necessarily expect resolve to support a single dng frame. Plenty of dumb things out there, and no need to be snarky when someone learns something.


Not usable in hard workflow.


Came here to ask the same question, thank you!


> It's been a huge rewrite to get this working on Linux and Windows from our original Mac and Metal code.

Would be interested to read more about the technical details in a blog post.

Did you end up porting your Metal code to something else which is then translated into Vulkan, Metal, DX12? Or do you now maintain your original Metal code alongside ports to Vulkan and DX12? Or something else?

If you were to start another project today, would you go the same route of Metal first and then whatever else you did? Or would you go directly to the way that you are currently doing it?


> If you were to start another project today, would you go the same route of Metal first and then whatever else you did? Or would you go directly to the way that you are currently doing it?

Forgot to respond to this. We didn’t come up with a write-once GPU programming solution. So yeah, it’s just write it and maintain it two or three times sadly. We would probably take the same approach if we were to do another plug-in for simplicity. We went Metal first because we only made Mac software at the time.


Thank you for coming back to respond to this as well :)


Resolve only supports Metal, OpenCL, and CUDA extensions. Filmbox currently uses Metal and CUDA and we are probably going to support OpenCL to support AMD cards.


Makes sense, thank you :)


I'm an old guy...in my 60s. I grew up with film and love the look of old movies. But this is 2023. Why are we still hanging on to a "look" that peaked in the 50s and 60s? Technology moves on.

I mean, I get it. People are stubborn in their ways. They don't like change. It's SUBJECTIVE that someone may not like the look of something. But it drives me batty when people want their subjective opinion somehow presented as "fact". "Based on empirical data". Okay...so?


My theory as a film person (worked as a DoP, colorist and VFX guy) is that the grain of a film has three main appeals:

1. It simulates detail and depth where optically it may be lacking. This gives the imagination of the viewer some space to operate (think how pixel graphics in video games work)

2. The moving grain makes the glow of time visible. A grainy still picture of a empty room feels different than the very same image without it. The one without grain feels like a photograph.

3. Grain on an image can make the image feel like something you look onto rather than into depending on how it is used in editing. Just like the visible brush stroke in a painting it can be artistically desirable to make the viewers aware they are looking at a picture that has been made.

In the end more often than not it is just a matter of taste. Personally I like the feel film gives


I agree, I'm also usually the one person arguing in favor of high framerates, I find it silly when people pretend that vinyl records are in some way "superior" to digital and so on.

But I don't really see the website going out of its way to say that this look is the way it should be. Maybe a bit of light marketing speak that is talking to people who like this. I don't think there's anything wrong with turning a necessity of the past into a style choice of the present, now that we can do basically anything we want. Pixelized games are a popular thing, cel-shaded graphics even when there's no need to actually draw anything by hand, black and white used to be popular in film making long after color had been introduced.

Also I think the "empirical data" isn't as much an argument for using the style everywhere, rather for the effectiveness of the plugin.


Partly because it looks pleasant, and partly because it “became” part of cinema’s visual language (photography too). The way that light interacts with the film is something that people have positive associations with, and they want to keep and use that look. The reasons are varied but just because the technology has improved doesn’t mean that the old way didn’t function better in certain ways (and, outside of purists who really just want to use it, film still has a place in larger formats which either don’t exist in a comparable digital form or are way too cost prohibitive).

One note: I think you’re reading something that the creators did not intend. When they say “based on empirical data” what they’re referring to is the way that a specific color would look at a specific intensity based on how films actually do.


Because it's a nice look? I like it not for nostalgic reasons but because I think it looks good. I also like guitar music even if that sound can be said to have "peaked" many years ago.


I think to some extent, there is a desire to make period pieces look like they are on period stock. The 70s had a very Kodachrome feel, the 80s were more saturated. The 50s and 60s were Technicolor mostly.

I almost believe that the 70s had that overriding yellow tint to it even though that's really just the film stock. And that was such a grainy film as well, it really fit with the dirty appearance of major US cities of the time.

On the other hand, if you drop the nostalgia, you can make old time periods look fresh. The 70s was a time of vibrant color. Cars, clothes, rooms, signage was all bright, though it got dirty and faded quickly so that in the 80s we mostly saw it as a relic.


It’s not about better or worse. These filters aren’t useful in every film. It’s style. Some styles will work better for some movies than others.

The color palette, the lenses used, lighting, color grading, music and, yes, film grain are all things filmmakers use to subtly guide your experience watching a movie. It’s like the wallpaper in a meeting room - you can have any meeting in any room, but a second date in a corporate white meeting room will feel sterile and bad.

Digital cameras with digital CG have a certain look. If your movie is set in the 80s but it has that crisp modern netflix look, it’ll feel kinda wrong. High quality filters like these prime the audience just as much as 80s costumes and 80s music.


De gustibus et coloribus non est disputandum


Film simulations are cool. While I always take RAW images, I often use the builtin film simulation bracketing of my Fuji X-Systems to generate three JPEGs at the same time. This often gives me nice JPEGs which I can immediately pass on to family and friends, who view them on the smartphones or tablets and are happy without me doing time consuming RAW processing.

Interestingly you can generate those simulations later in camera too while reviewing your images. And Darktable has some Fuji film simulation recipes builtin too for a start.

Last but not least some sites, for example https://fujixweekly.com/, publish and review various film simulation recipes.


I use latest gen iPhone pro and haven’t considered an actual camera to record video.

I’m filming family events, do you find using an actual camera changes the dynamic of collecting memories? (For example the amount of additional attention the size of the device draws?)

Also, I shoot RAW photos on iPhone pro and am very happy with the results and editing capability.

The hardest time I have is making the time to properly edit the originals to something ready to share.

It seems like dealing with another transport method from a camera would add to the friction of a workflow. Do you find that to be the case? For example, does taking on an x-systems workflow mean a greater commitment to the process of producing a finished product?


I shoot raw jpeg on fuji and basically never edit. The workflow friction is high enough to cause month or more delay between taking and sharing pictures. Plus I find it tedious and boring.

All I do when I shoot on camera is plug it into my laptop or PC and immediately upload the good jpegs to Google photos. From there I can download on phone and reupload to wherever (not Instagram, I don't care about it).

I have plans to put a section on my website for my favorite photos.

So no I don't find x workflow to require a commitment to process. It's only slightly harder than just shooting on the phone.

I disagree with others saying phone is good enough. Lens characteristics (shooting aperture priority to choose depth of field) alone is a good enough differentiator for me to justify carrying a camera.

Luckily there are very portable solutions for those that want better than phone without dropping 2k and 500 on camera and lens. Old Fuji mirrorless are all basically phenomenal and only miss out by having lower rez sensor, slower autofocus, and maybe missing one or two film sims. I shot on an xe2 with the f2 23mm for years to great effect. I hear and see great things coming from Ricoh as well which is point and shoot and very portable, not sure price though.

I think phones take phenomenal pictures but their sensors and lenses are quite tiny.


For my purposes (recording memories plus just a tad of artiness), my phone camera is at least as good as my Fujifilm X series big camera (and actually probably better), except for zooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom. That is a very big exception. There are so many great photos I could never have got with my phone because the subject was too far away.

Another positive is that you can get a big camera that's virtually indestructable, unlike any phone (but then you probably had the phone anyway).

Also, yes, I find getting the photos off the camera does add friction to the workflow.


Even an ancient Mini-DV camera looks... better somehow despite the potato resolution. I think it's the optics, but I'm not sure.


It's the optics, plus the computational photography on phone cameras (done to make up for the limited optics) giving a certain "look" to most phone photos. Not a bad look, most love it! But certainly different to other devices.


Fuji's film sims are lovely and make for great images right out of the camera. I have an X-T4 and X100V and the simulations are one of my favorite parts of the X system. I also bracket the film sims, but I often have trouble choosing my favorite between the three.


I love the film sims when I'm feeling arty, but most of them are so far away from realistic colours that I've ended up almost always using the plain one (Provia) unless I'm photographing someone who's monochrome. (A lot of my best friends happen to be monochrome, and then I can use film sims to change the colours of the background.)


FYI, the provia colors are so rich because it’s simulating low speed, color-rich positive slide film. If you ever have the opportunity to shoot and project actual provia slides, go for it-they’re gorgeous.

Velvia is a slower, even more saturated slide film. Its sim colors probably read as more “unreal” to you. Fuji negative reads colder and more desaturated (to my eye), which is also probably why it may appear more manipulated and “unrealistic” in a digital context.


> I often have trouble choosing my favorite between the three.

Same problem of choice here too, and that's where the somehat tedious manual post-processing in-camera comes to the rescue, if needed.


Capture One also supports Fuji sims natively. It’s an excellent combo of you shoot Fuji. It’s so handy to swap the sim in post.


Fuji's film simulations and hardware are the reason I continue to shoot with their cameras today, so it's awesome to see a product like this extending that awesome output to others in an integrated fashion.

I still don't shoot RAW on my X-E4, weirdly enough.


As pro photographer and video producer, I use grain quite a lot. Subtle, almost non visible. It reduce artificial digital clean look that modern cameras gave us and also deband critical gradients.

BUT... It is not usable for YouTube. Compression basically delete grain just like that. It is visible on vimeo. So it's good to think about it before buying and using any kind of extra grain.


http://www.cinegrain.com/

These guys actually filmed every film stock and offer a similar thing. Think their stuff is used in all the big movies.


And at a reasonable price. Thank you for sharing this.


> Linux support available for Studio license holders.

Apparently using a free OS implies one is doing a “high-budget production” and thus demands 5x cost. Of course the “lite” version does not support Linux at all.


This is a limitation of our engineering bandwidth. Our Linux product is currently focused on big budget post facilities which often use Linux. There is no need to frame it as a slight, thanks.


I should add we do plan to make the Indie license available for Linux this year sometime.


That would be great! I meant it as less of a slight and more of a reflection of disappointment after seeing Linux headlined in the title, only to see a tiny footnote exclude it for many cases.


> Our Linux product is currently focused on big budget post facilities which often use Linux.

What's the value prop for a studio to run something on Linux vs Mac / Windows?

This is interesting to me to hear as the trope for Linux is that it's not used for audio/video work (and couldn't find much online about real world professional usage without pulling up reviews of best video editor / etc sort of results).

Also, congratulations on the release - rewrites are a huge undertaking.


Linux is the main OS at quite a few 2D and 3D animation studios. (I suspect because the industry started out on SGI machines running Unix.)


I think the parent's point is still valid, though? It's unfortunate to assume that use of Linux implies big budget. Of course we know it has a lot of hobbyists too.


[flagged]


This is an astonishing and totally unjustified ad-hominen attack. Please read the "In Comments" section of the guidelines:

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html


The reply was changed after my comment. I stand by my response to the original statement.


We need users to stick to the rules regardless of how bad some other comment is. Please do that in the future.

(I agree that misleading edits aren't good but that's a separate issue.)


Just to counter this, I read the conversation and saw nothing dickish. It's easy to see why they might want to treat Linux differently, given the different audience it entails.


Thank you for your feedback.


Massive production houses use Linux extensively: that's who this is targeted at.


Not sure how many people shoot film here, but I could have one look at the lite version processing and say this is just an emulation, especially in the shadows. The grain is predictable unlike "real" film.

Funny that people will spend so much time, money and effort in making digital photos look like film, but refuse to shoot film. Just sad. :(


The part that I found oddest was showing off the physical film vs digitally altered. Instead of having a neutral comparison.

As a non-Photographer, the film versions looked better in almost every case. I wasn’t sure what the filter was actually meant to be used for. But a comparison with neutral stock would have made it look better, in all probability.


Shooting film is a different skill. You really need to have experience with the medium to understand how it performs and when to use it.

Film has a long expensive feedback loop, with limited exposures, processing time, and associated costs; most users they would be better served using a digital filter.


Exposure latitude is pretty darn good actually, at least if you are using Kodak Vision film. It's just that it's the exact opposite of digital.

The rule of thumb on digital is, "don't overexpose". On film, it is "don't underexpose".


All this effort is likely still cheaper than shooting real film.


That is not a given, at all. Sets push more and more shit downstream to editing, it's not even funny. Because they can. This will cost, a lot.


I'm a colorist. It's dramatically cheaper to emulate than to capture on film. Not even close except for massive productions (tens of millions) where camera dept is a small line item.


As you say, when you get into tens of millions, film vs digital is less important cost wise.

I'd argue somewhere between no-budget and massive, there is a sweet spot to be had.

Everything else being equal, shooting on film is of course more expensive...

however film can be a forcing function, especially if you are on budget. (But not low enough you can't handle the fixed costs of film.)

It's all in the planning:

- you can't get "free" re-takes. That keeps everyone focused, including actors.

- you must have more light, so you are more likely to plan out your light, instead of shooting in different conditions and try to correct later

- film lends itself to a certain look. Shooting digital, you have so many options in postprocessing, you can lift stuff out of the shadows etc. Too much freedom can be a bad thing, film forces some coherence.

- the fact that you can't see the filmed results the same day means you get really disciplined and focused making sure everything works beforehand. When you have many people involved, this is key. (If you trust your process and use a video tap to see if scenes were nailed, you can even skip dailies to cut cost.)

- less raw video data to handle, post process, grade and cutting. The less film shot, the faster everything post shooting takes. There are many films which could have been cut into several completely different movies because there was so much material shot, and the "risk" of this being possible increases with the lure of cheap digital capture.

So to be clear, I think film can in some conditions be cheaper than digital, for social reasons. If someone has the skill to push back and keep such a tight ship on digital set, of course they will be cheaper and faster.

I base this on listening to producers saying they went for film for nostalgic or aestethic reasons, but were surprised to same or less total spend as their digital projects.

I may be full of it, feel free to shoot this all down, you are obviously in the industry and I'm just jealously peeking from the outside.

So I'm not saying film is inherently cheaper


I shoot exclusively film and am thrilled to see attempts at this. The medium is far too expensive and need not die in the name of exclusivity


There’s an handful of people Ukraine and Russia who services a specific model of 16mm cameras. I just don’t know how much longer these film cameras will be around.


There's still a ton of Arri 16 for rental out there, even from Arri themselves.

https://www.arrirental.com/en/cameras/analog-film


What you're saying is probably true, and also almost certainly will be false in the long run. Given art AI, etc, it's not hard to predict that this will get to the point where it would be indistinguishable.


The only recent movie which duped me and looked very film-like was "Dark Waters". But Edward Lachman designed it to be as close to 70s film look as possible. It is pointless otherwise.


Most of recent films and TV series has some kind of "film simulation" in post-production. You wont be able to watch raw film footages without any colour grading. Grain is usually added in post as well.


Is there a pricing for students or people who just want to make their videos look cool for their families and friends? Unfortunately I really like the effect but can’t afford this is a hobbyist.


https://license.videovillage.co/buy/filmbox-lite-ofx/non-com...


This is pretty awesome of them. They also have a free version with fewer options but without time limit and watermarks. That’s very generous.


The link you replied to is the free version with fewer options and without time limits or watermarks, aka Filmbox Lite.


No Linux version though.


Those results look excellent. I'm trying to gauge whether something like this could potentially work in realtime, i.e. in games. I know it inevitably depends on hardware, resolution, settings, etc but do you have a ballpark figure for how long it takes to apply this to a frame? (And does it have a temporal aspect which requires access to frame N+k to render frame N?)


It’s real-time and not temporal.


How does this compare to my Filmulator, which basically runs a simulation of stand development?

https://filmulator.org

(I've been too busy on another project to dedicate too much time to it the past year, and dealing with Windows CI sucks the fun out of everything, so it hasn't been updated in a while…)


I remember trying to get this installed on my Mac a while ago. Do you know if it can run on M1 now?


Unfortunately there are no volunteers with Macs forthcoming. Even the far more established darktable project is looking for a new provider for Mac builds.


> It's been used in huge movies like "Everything Everywhere All At Once".

An odd question, but I always wondered how do movie-related product developers learn about where their tool is used.

Can you tell how it happened in your case?

(The product looks fantastic.)


Are there any demos showing a side-by-side comparison of raw footage versus post-processing by Filmbox? I'd be interested to see the difference.


You cannot watch raw footage without some transformation unfortunately.

It's better to think of RAW as pure data, just like infrared telescope capture data needs transformation to be displayed on a screen.

Displaying raw as-is means clipping the data to some range, which is a transformation in itself (and a pretty bad one).


Last time I posted someone asked this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25368352

The TL;DR is that "raw footage" is sort of meaningless with video. You could make the comparison look as good or bad as you want.


It’s most definitely not “meaningless”. Your point is a semi fair one if you’re talking objective data; however, we have a general reference point and neutral space to refer to.

If you want to continue to be obtuse, you can use the same colorspace/LUT that any generic phone camera is tuned to.


You may download Filmbox Lite for free and compare it in any way you wish. We have an opinion on it based on our deep understanding of this subject matter.


> We have an opinion on it based on our deep understanding of this subject matter.

It doesn't sound that deep nor that well reasoned of an opinion. For that reason, I won't try your software nor will I recommend it to anyone.


OK!


Damn you just came in here and lost people to your product. Perhaps a good time to get off HN?


> any generic phone camera is tuned to

That's not how it works lmao


That's exactly how it works. Take your source digital image/video, run it through a neutral DCI-P3 output LUT and you have exactly what people are asking for as a "before" video.

Pretending image mastering and color correction is incomprehensible doesn't make it so.


Out of curiosity, is it normal for the Mac-only (until now) software in the film industry to get any traction like this one has?


Arguably the most popular software in the industry is Mac only, Final Cut Pro


Which part of the industry are you talking about? Final Cut Pro is most definitely not the most used by television and film studios.

The Avid/Nuke/Maya stack is far more popular, in that realm. Followed up by Adobe’s stack on the lower end.


yup. the Nuke -> Avid -> Resolve pipeline probably covers at least 80+% of post-production in film and TV.

on the VFX side, Maya -> Mari -> Clarisse is still overwhelmingly common unless it's a studio that has their own custom tools. Throw Houdini in there for good measure (starting to replace Clarisse more and more for lighting and scene assembly).


As a photographer I am very much interested. I have enrolled in the license, then got a link to download a separate software, which then requires my password to install something into launchd. And it's not yet the Filmbox itself.

So, at this point I had to abandon the installation which sucks because I really wanted to try it.


Very light on detail. Is it different than just processing raw footage with already available fully free, high quality film emulation CLUTs and adding some grain? (Also I can't believe anyone would use everything everywhere all at once as a selling point, easily one of the worst movies I had to endure lately)


This is cool, technologically speaking, but not sure I'd ever want movies to use it. I particularly don't want film grain, motion blur, low 24 FPS framerate, depth of field, chromatic aberration, etc in the movies and shows I watch.


You might be surprised to find how many movies you've watched that do use some film emulation, mainly film grain. Most of the time it's just about imperceptible. I look out for it and notice it when it's there, especially on 4K displays.

In fact, for Dune they shot it digitally, copied it to film and digitized it again just to get "real" film grain as opposed to digital approximations.


Oh I notice alright, I use a big OLED TV and it's very visible.

The Dune example and others (Nolan films especially) are particularly annoying, so much that I literally use software to scrub the film grain off, like Topaz Video AI.


That is the most unusual opinion I've come across so far this year. Salutations! Topaz Video AI is great, though


The entire image looks like it's shimmering, when it has grain on it, which looks very bad on a large 4k TV, especially when you sit closer.


"Depth of field" is neither a defect, nor anything to do with the sensor/ film, yet I have seen this misconception repeated all over the place for years! (why?)


Because it shows up in video games where it's an artificial effect and many including me people turn it off.


I agree actually! It’s not the only valid look for a movie and people should explore others! Some people want to make movies look like film though for various reasons, which is fun and so we made a product for it.


It's such an interesting dilemma. I've been photographing things since I was 8 (which, for the record, was the early 80s). I know what certain Fuji and Kodak and, more recently, Ilford films look like, how to shoot with them, and what looks good to my experienced eye. I have spent a great deal of time trying to find an excellent film simulation workflow in linux because my "headcanon" of a photo is very clear.

But I don't try too hard, because there's a hell of a lot of merit in either (a) just whacking some sliders around until I hit an unexpectedly great look for the shot or (b) just letting the camera give me a JPEG that is better than just about anything I'll end up with and spending my time shooting. I still use emulation, and probably always will (and someday I'll find a good emulation of the VSCO A-series iphone filters) because of that easy headcanon situation, but the fear of getting stale is real.


I just love the overall tone and grain of movies from the 60s even from 80s and 90s. Those movies have a way better, more pleasing look than today's blockbusters.


Neat product. I know I'm asking in the worst possible place, but it'd be really cool if someone made some ShaderToy demos that do the same thing as a post-processing step.


Can you discuss the technical details of how this was implemented? From a high level perspective, I can imagine it involves creating a 3d LUT from a color chart.


Thank you for making it work with Davinci resolve


As an artist and shader geek, I just want to say that this looks awesome. I'd love to see that blog post on Swift + Electron.


Always loved your software, glad to see you here. Polished and on point for 99% of my DIT use cases.

Lattice being particularly close to heart. Thanks!


https://i.imgur.com/fTySVgd.png

Is it just me or are the expressions shown in these comparisons not identical? The top one looks like a smirk to me. The bottom looks more somber?

Maybe the comparison videos are not synchronized perfectly? Or is it something more technically concerning?


They look different because they ARE different. One was shot on film and the other was shot digital and then they used Filmbox to apply the film effect. It's two different pieces of source material, which means they had to act/film the scene twice.


I did the same "wait these are different source materials" double-take.

I think it's deliberate that they are different enough to notice. It reinforces the point of the comparison, because it would be impossible to do the comparison correctly using the same source material. It makes you consider what you're looking at.


Ah, oops. Thanks.


I presume the stills are taken with two different cameras, film and digital.


Marketing trick. Make the film version more somber so filmbox is perceived as the better, happier choice.


Something like this, but for VHS (aka something better than a simple filter), would be amazing


Related:

Filmbox – Physically accurate motion picture film emulation - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25367371 - Dec 2020 (49 comments)


Wonder how you differentiate yourselves from others in the space like Dehancer (which I find excellent, and is half the price), or older players like FilmConvert?


The skeuomorphic user interface below "A tool for purists and mad scientists alike" is really nice, but I doubt that is really how the app looks like.


Have you all been hugged to death by any chance? No luck with email for the lite version. Seriously impressive results, can't wait to give it a go!


I'm getting "Main.Sudo.Error error 1." when I try to install Filmbox Lite on Windows. I didn't try using it on my Mac yet.


What's the difference between this and Dehancer?


Filmbox looks better.


I like things that look better


Does anyone the source of the movie sequences from the Filmbox presentation page? Thanks!


I would also be interested in this! A reverse image search didn't bring up anything.


Please please please please make something for CaptureOne


This is awesome!


Sujauddin Roy


"Whatever you now find weird, ugly, uncomfortable and nasty about a new medium will surely become its signature. CD distortion, the jitteriness of digital video, the crap sound of 8-bit - all of these will be cherished and emulated as soon as they can be avoided. It’s the sound of failure: so much modern art is the sound of things going out of control, of a medium pushing to its limits and breaking apart. The distorted guitar sound is the sound of something too loud for the medium supposed to carry it. The blues singer with the cracked voice is the sound of an emotional cry too powerful for the throat that releases it. The excitement of grainy film, of bleached-out black and white, is the excitement of witnessing events too momentous for the medium assigned to record them."

- Brian Eno


Are you saying loading spinners will be the signature of our time?


It might be a function of my age but I find the lottery app in Europes ability to scan the barcode so fast from the camera on my phone that I don't trust it. It's almost as if I don't trust things that happen too fast with my 20+ years experience with IT


I feel the same way about the one here in Australia -- I always double check it's scanned the correct numbers. Haven't been cheated out of millions yet, unfortunately.


just this week, I put a minimum 200ms wait time on a loading spinner, because otherwise we thought it felt "buggy" because it was completing too quickly!


There should be a short delay (200ms to 500ms) before showing a loading spinner, and if the operation completes in that time you can avoid showing it at all. But if it takes longer than that, the spinner should be shown for a minimum of 500ms or so, to avoid a sudden flash of the spinner.

I wrote a React hook called usePending[1] for this once. It's surprisingly difficult to get right.

[1] https://gist.github.com/cmmartti/4f7833292b9d277685fc0813532...


wow, wait, this is awesome. I think I might drop this in instead. thank you!


The alternative is to show no spinner at all when something is that fast, of course...


haha you're not wrong

but it's an async process that could take longer, so then you get into "well if it's <200ms we won't show a spinner, but if it takes longer we will..."

it's a settings page where you're clicking toggles, and each toggle saves automatically when you hit it. so when you click one, you get a short spinner, then a check mark when it succeeds. feels right to me when I'm using it


Monsters!


y'know, I felt like a monster doing it, but it weirdly is way more satisfying to use

it goes from "wtf just flickered on my screen" to "wow, that loaded really fast!


Surely, you're not saying that the system is rigged to say "You're Not A Winner"?


People are nostalgic about bad 90s web design, but I don't think anybody is arguing that it's superior to anything newer. I can't imagine that people will look bad fondly on cookie banners, intrusive ads, janky page layout shifting, or anything else that I consider a hallmark of modern web design.


There will always be bad things people look back on and hate but that doesn't mean there won't also be bad things people look back on and get nostalgia for. Non-media query adapting layouts, janky scrolljacking pages, an over-abundance of CSS transition/animation effects come to mind. I'm sure there will be plenty to look back on. E.g. people don't look back at the 2000s web and only think pop up ads, flash vulnerabilities, and browser crashes.


Look at the people talking about how they're finding the weekly release schedule for HBO and AppleTV is a welcome relief from binging, which everyone loved when Netflix started doing it. But a weekly release schedule was largely an artefact of the limitations of broadcast TV.


Isn't it also partly because a weekly release puts everyone watching the show on the same page? This fosters better discussion and group culture, and creates a shared sense of anticipation.


<blink>Maybe!</blink>


I'm sure loading spinners will be used to some aesthetic purpose in the future


Waiting for the day in AR when you get loading spinners above people's head as they are trying to remember who you are and why they know you before giving up and just saying "Hey man! Good to see you again!"


I think this is broadly true, but not as true as the quote would imply.

For example, people like 8-bit pixel art and chiptune music, but I don't think anyone misses the 10+ minute load times of the Commodore 64 (or even the 3 minute load times of the PS1). People like the goofy 90's internet with marquee and blink tags, but most people don't miss eight hundred popups happening with every website. People miss the pops and ticks and hiss of vinyl, but I don't think most people miss how expensive and risky music was pre-Spotify[1] (Youtube Music, Apple Music, etc).

I think this quote is being a bit selective with what they're choosing to remember. Yes, there are certain idiosyncrasies and limitations that people grow fond of, but I think there are just as many things that get supplanted and that rightfully get left in the history books.

[1] There were multiple times where I would end up paying upwards of $20 for an album because I liked a single on the radio, only to find that the rest of the album is completely awful. Piracy was honestly made this experience measurably better, and Spotify and its ilk basically made something superior to piracy, completely supplanting it for me.


Cool software though not something I would pay for.

If you're interested in getting most of this effect for free I highly recommend using the venerable Hald CLUT library found here: https://github.com/cedeber/hald-clut

These are lookup tables made using film scans and do a damn good job of emulating the film "feel" especially when used with HDR input without burnt highlights or crushed blacks.

I personally recommend RawTherapee for photo editing, which includes native support for these.

To further emulate the effect you can use a film grain overlay (hundreds available one google away) and a color-weighted bloom filter.

ffmpeg and OBS also natively support this LUT format, I'm sure there are ways to use them in the FOSS video editing suites as well, but I basically do everything in ffmpeg commandline nowadays so I don't have firsthand experience.


Our value proposition is doing this all correctly for you. The LUT is not the biggest thing here, as we attempt to describe on our marketing page.


Yes, I get that. I don't think I can describe how to replicate your process in an HN comment (I probably couldn't replicate it even if I wanted to, though I am no stranger to DSP, film simulation and characterization, and I believe I am most of the way there). I care about this field and find myself working on the same problems, it's frustrating to know that I'm replicating work that's already been done (and done well!) because our economic system necessitates the use of artificial scarcity to extract value from information.

The things I mentioned will get people close, or at the very least set them on the right track. Perhaps some of them will be inspired push the envelope and contribute their research back to the commons instead of guarding it in order to collect rent.


> Perhaps some of them will be inspired push the envelope and contribute their research back to the commons instead of guarding it in order to collect rent.

I swear to god, this website is so infuriating.

If you would like to learn more about this topic you can look at Steve Yedlin’s discussion of the matter https://www.yedlin.net/index.html or look at some of the technical documents linked from our website.


Don't you know? You should work for free and give it away for free and if it doesn't work the way I want you should fix it for free. But also I have a job at a company that sells software that also pays me and you should pay them for it, or at least visit the site so they can sell ads.


Didn't you hear? If an open source version of a thing exists, they have a permanent monopoly on that thing in perpetuity, and you should never be allowed to charge for anything remotely similar. Famously, both macOS and Windows stopped existing after Linux was released.

I sadly don't do anything with video editing anymore, and $129 per quarter to play with is a bit rich for me as a result, but I think what you're doing is pretty cool! I have always loved the "film look", and have found a lot of (though not all of) the film filters in the past to have a sort of "artificial" look to them. This one looks decidedly better.


Feel free to play with our free Filmbox Lite version!


> I swear to god, this website is so infuriating

I posted elsewhere that I thought this would be cooler if it was open source. My comment fell flat and was modded down a lot, I felt a little bad about it. Now I see this and I'm glad I posted. You post an ad for your paid software, in Show HN, then you get upset when people point out open source alternatives and criticize you for your business model. OK


I’m not upset that someone points out open source alternatives! But I do think your don’t have a criticism of our business model, but business models in general, which is silly and off-topic.


Is is, in fact, neither silly nor off-topic to discuss the politics, economics or ethics of the product being advertised. The fact that this makes you uncomfortable or annoyed is disturbing. As you well know there are plenty of different business models available that do not keep code secret and proprietary but even if it was a criticism of "business models in general" it still would be neither silly nor off-topic to discuss this in the comments. This reads like an attempt to silence discussion of perceived problems with our society and how they relate to innovation and software development in the context of your product and makes both you and your company look bad.


Jesus christ, man. We just spent a lot of time, money, and labor to make a software product and I posted it to Hacker News on a lark. It really sucks to have a bunch of people complain that we are asking people to pay for our work. We even have a free (as in beer) version you can use to make non-commercial projects!

We are hardly the first company to sell software, nor post about it on this website. Proprietary software is ethical.

Responding to your post is not "an attempt to silence discussion of perceived problems with our society". Such nonsense!


> Proprietary software is ethical.

I don't believe this is true. I can't square creating something that can be duplicated essentially for free to provide value to people with denying that value to people in order to enrich myself.


Would you say selling movies, books, music, art, or games is unethical also?


Digital copies, yes, I would.

I also take issue with the practice of software as a service specifically, and while I see that you provide a perpetual license, without pro-rating monthly payments toward a perpetual license you're creating a psychologically abusive system to extract value from people with that model same as most SaaS.

I'm not sure what you're doing is bad on net, probably the world is better off for the solution you've developed despite the aspects of it that I find problematic. I understand how hard it is to make "good" choices with regard to this stuff on a personal level, and I place most of the blame on the systems that surround us.

I think the ideas/memes I'm sharing/championing here are deeply important to the continued freedom/growth of the human race in concert with computers. I'm not trying to be mean to you or put down your product or belittle your effort. I understand probably deeper than most what it takes to do this and what you have done is impressive. That doesn't make it right. I don't have the answers, I'm not even trying to tell you "stop selling your shit and open source it immediately". I live in the real world too.

I'm very worried that most people are not even thinking about the questions/implications of artificial scarcity and how tacitly okay we are with it as a society, that's why I'm so loud about this.


I’ve of course heard all this before, and I think I understand where you're coming from. I just reject that angle. For me, what we’re doing is not even in sight of a grey area.

But it’s so interesting to imagine a world where it’s unethical to release a film for purchase on your website, or for HBO to make an original show, or an independent journalist to publish a newsletter on Substack. Or where the only way to access music is by unnecessarily creating disposable petrochemical discs.

If we were to imagine a future society where our basic needs were met, with UBI or some other form of welfare for all (which I thoroughly support) — selling all these things would be even less unethical!


“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” ― Upton Sinclair

In such a world people who enjoy the physicality etc. would get petrochemical disk based music, most people would just download a file or stream. The unethical thing is denying others the right to copy and modify, the unethical thing is intellectual property.

Yes, I too support UBI but I think your conclusion is wrong, it becomes much much LESS ethical to try and deny people access to data if you don't need to make money to be alive/healthy/happy. Why try to create inequality in a situation where it's so unnecessary? What's the point?


I suppose you could argue that intellectual property is privacy and self-determination. All else being equal, I shouldn't have to share my ideas, thoughts, writings, diary, code if I don't want to. Nor should I have to give it to you under terms I don't agree with. Try to make that enforceable and you get IP.

That said, IP laws are too strong. Exclusive IP rights should probably only last about 20 years, among other changes. I think someone who was alive when Star Wars came out should be able to create their own Star Wars movie before they die. I had a very interesting and stressful conversation with David Simon, creator of The Wire on Twitter about this, where he vehemently disagreed.

Re: UBI "happy" is doing a lot of work there. It relates to the "basic" of UBI. Where's that line? IMO, an optimal target is to guarantee the approximate lifestyle of someone making perhaps $100,000 a year or so. Something comfortable but you're not buying yachts. Maybe a canoe or two. We should start at literally any number (probably somewhere around the poverty line) and raise it as politics allows as quickly as possible. I'd imagine that would take about 100 years. In that situation, I still think market effects would be useful to encourage and incentivize people to create new things and improve the world. Obviously we'd have a lot more information at that point to decide on the details!


Would you mind sharing a link to your discussion with David Simon?


Unfortunately I deleted all my old tweets, or I would.


Thanks. I appreciate you taking the time to answer anyway!


Is there a license akin to AGPLv3 for something like this?

As in, one where you'd release the source under a modified GPLv3, but any project created with it would also have to be under GPLv3 or CC-BY-SA? That'd allow your project to have a truly free software version for people who create free media projects (e.g., blender open movies).


> criticize you for your business model

Hardly a criticism, more just a complaint about capitalism in general it seems. Which I don't expect a software shop to be the ones to solve...


This is why I hardly visit this place and will never post a personal project or anything I'm working on. Because people will just complain about it if it costs money, or smugly brag that they could have created the same thing in a weekend. Regardless, this looks like a very cool plugin and I look forward to playing around with the lite version. Thanks for sharing.


Every time I see a project that's paid where people comment "I could create the same in a weekend", that's exactly what I do. By now most of the apps I'm using daily are written by me. It's (a) fun, and (b) gives me the satisfaction not to pay for something that's not worth it. For open-core projects, I usually just fork and rebuild all the paid features ontop of the free version. That's actually surprisingly easy most of the time.

(Obviously I then release everything I create under GPL, so others can use it freely and expand on it)


Or you just pay for someone else to do it better, like every good product on earth, and stop circle jerking about it.


You can say that about literally everything for sale. Most software packages have a much lower value proposition than this one. Why use gmail when you can just run your own smtp server? Etc.


(I promise this is going to pay off to your point, because at first it won't sound like it.) I started fiddling with self-hosting around the time the pandemic started. I didn't try email, but I tried everything else, from cloud file storage to password management to home automation. I kept at it for a while. Then a docker image needed to be updated. An SSL cert wasn't autorenewing. Nextcloud was dog slow, though I could spend time tuning it.

Now I still self-host a lot, but it's stuff that requires absolutely zero maintenance overhead. I admire people who are into self-hosting the whole stack, but it's not what I want to be doing. So I never moved off gmail, and I pay someone to host my cloud files. Life!

(Now ask me how many hours I spent getting a tiling window manager into a usable state. The number is a lot, and I feel bad about it, but now I have SUPER POWERED PRODUCTIVITY.)

/s obviously. But at least it's more like a really involved interior decorating project than reinventing power delivery to the home.


To be clear, i dont think there is anything wrong with self-hosting. I've tried my hand at a few things now and then. It can be fun and a great learning experience. But its totally understandable why most people don't especially over the long term.


That's correct, it seems the op was making at least an adjacent argument of critique of capitalism and how it affects people's access to information (or technology-as-information, such as "guide on how to get a filmic look when editing video").

I support people undercutting businesses in their marketing post comment sections with Free as in beer or freedom solutions to achieve whatever's being sold. I believe in the ethicality of Free as in Freedom software, for one thing, but also in general information freedom. I feel gross about knowledge hoarding.

If you're a fan of capitalism, I think you should agree with me. Capitalist minded people can try to use Free software to extract labor for no cost (jokes on you, we extract your engineer's labor at cost to you when they get frustrated and start making commits at work), and Free software comes with other advantages. Furthermore, if you're investigating solutions to your business need to do filmic solutions, isn't it nice that there are hordes of us weirdos ready to help prevent you from spending money unnecessarily? If you're trying to sell filmic solutions, isn't it nice to be challenged on your business model publicly and specifically rather than scratch your head at poor sales with no idea how to add value?

Sidenote I was reminded of this comedy video: https://youtu.be/9kaIXkImCAM "Interview with an FFMPEG Enthusiast"


> Sidenote I was reminded of this comedy video: https://youtu.be/9kaIXkImCAM "Interview with an FFMPEG Enthusiast"

As an aside this is one of the funniest videos i've seen in a while, and totally captures the open source ux experience (i say in a loving joking way)


While I can see people thinking a LUT a film emulation, it’s just the starting point. Many emulation tools only focus on color which is fine for most people.

For an authentic look, halation, grain patterns, diffusion, highlight roll off, detail resolve and other imperfections are needed to complete the look, of varying qualities for each film stock. Not to mention lens choice as well. Modern lens with software correction may not look right.

Also this software is not specifically for photographers, it’s for motion picture.


You can get a lot of the way there with RawTherapee, grain simulation, halation, and accurate highlight roll off are all well within RT's wheelhouse, and while not fast, I've absolutely used RT from the command line to simply process a set of frames. If you want the thing but you don't want to pay, you can get most of the way there. I stand by my claim.


Thanks for sharing this. Ths product seems cool, but it would be a lot cooler as an open source project, I could never condone a business model like this for an image effect software


Call me crazy, but I fully support a business model that lets people get paid for the hard work that they do that provides value to others.


I’m genuinely baffled that selling software is controversial. What profession would you recommend we switch to instead of professional software development so we can become amateur software developers and have less time and energy to work on it?


It's particularly surprising in a place where people who create software gather. You'd think we'd all know better...


Your comment is surprising. People who create software are very often interested in open source and free software, and I think it's a relatively common view within the tech community that trying to enforce artificial scarcity is a kind of rent seeking and not a desirable or sustainable business model. I know there is also a "you wouldn't steal a car" crowd that confuses imaginary property with real, but certainly other views are common. I'm basically a die-hard capitalist, I just don't believe in rent seeking.


What are you talking about with "rent seeking"? We made software. We offer that software for sale. Why is selling software rent seeking?

I love open source too, I just don't think proprietary software is problematic.


What's surprising is people pretending to be surprised to find pro-FOSS opinions on a forum called "Hacker News."


A part of me think this is great, I love how film look.. Another part of me hates the idea, that something merely _looks_ like a thing, rather than _being_ the thing.. Can't explain why.. Especially since I can't watch film anywhere anyway, not even in cinema anymore..


Not sure why you're picking on this particular simulation of film when everything you view on a screen (computer, TV, movie) merely _looks_ like a thing, and is not, in fact, _being_ the actual thing?


Even a physical film photograph just looks like a thing and can’t ever fully represent a moment in time since it’s a 2D slice of a 4D reality.


I think you're confusing the subject and medium. Media are things too.

Consider a glass of wine. That could be described as a physical thing.

Now, consider some pictures of that glass of wine. The pictures of the glass of wine is not the glass of wine, there, we agree. But the pictures of the glass of wine is not nothing either, they are their own things.

Let's consider a fully-analog picture, it could be described by the following properties: Lens particularities, camera particularities, film particularities, development particularities, photo-paper particularties, storage particularities. Together, these make up a the analog picture. It is a thing, and those particularities are part of the identity of that thing, in addition to the subject (a glass of wine) and the other particularities surrounding the actual scene that was portrayed.

Now, change one parameter, and it's a different thing! You can change something about the scene (a different table for the glass of wine to stand on) and it becomes a different picture, obviously. You can change lens particularities, it becomes a different thing. Anything you change here, it becomes A DIFFERENT THING.

If we scan the picture, it becomes a different thing, added to it's identity is the particularities of the scanning process.. For sanitys sake let's assume we store it losslessly, exactly the bits we get from the scanner. If we have such a scanned picture, it's _NOT_ the same picture as the one we had on the paper, it's a different thing.

If we took the picture with a digital camera, changing nothing else, we still end up with a different thing, it's a picture of a glass of wine, and part of it's identity is the particularities of the lens, and the sensor and if it's a good camera it's stored in raw and nothing more is changing the information, and so that's what makes up that pictures identity.

Consider the fully analog and fully digital pictures, how may they be experienced? The analog picture could be framed and hung on a wall and viewed by the human eye, this is the only way that particular picture can be seen, if you scan it, you can see a scan of the picture, but not the picture itself. What is the true representation of the picture ? Probably there is not one, it depends on the light reflecting off of it.

The digital one can only be shown on a screen, it's identity will change if we print it, or develop it on photographic paper.. But the screen also is no true representation, it depends on the particulars of the screen.

It's the same for projection of pictures.. There is a physicality involved when a piece is captured on physical film, it's part of it's identity, along with development particularities and the particularities of the receiving medium, physical or digital. So it's simply NOT THE SAME THING.. I'm not saying it's worse or better, only that it's different, and that I know it's different, and my knowing it's different makes.. a difference.

So as I said, I love the look, but _part_ of why I love it because I know it's there for a very real and physical reason it looks like it looks.. And if that's faked, then at least that part of the love for that aesthetic is gone for me.

A physical lens distortion is significant for me not only as a purely visual aesthetic, but because my brain recognizes that this is an artifact of light going through glass. A digitally applied lens distortion may look the same all day long, but it's not real to my mind in the same sense, it's simply something added later.

Now, don't get me wrong, the simulation is _AWESOME_ and I'm happy it exists, and I'm going to play around with it.. But I do reserve the right to both like love and hate it at the same time.


There're still a few cinemas in London screening 35mm


Monsieur Baudrillard would like to have a word with you...




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