Sharing a video tool I've been building for Mac and Windows

[rompstar]

I wanted to share a project I’ve been working on.

It started out as just a simple way for me to handle FFmpeg conversions, but over the last 6 months, it’s evolved into a much bigger video editing platform.

I’ve put a ton of time into getting some specific features working that I couldn't find elsewhere, like: Black and White "Filmic" conversions for any footage. Built-in yt-dlp downloading. Proper GoPro and iPhone imports (getting the iPhone import to play nice with Windows 11 was a massive headache compared to Mac, but it’s finally stable).

Since I've put so much of my own time into the development, it is a paid tool, but I’ve tried to make it handle the stuff that usually requires three different apps to get done.

If you’re interested in the "why" behind it or how it works, I’ve put the guides and the philosophy here:

https://ffmpegcommander.com

Build by a Gen-Xer / most of my clients are also in that age group and they better understand what I have build.

Happy to answer any questions if anyone is curious about the tech behind it. Thanks!

[Alwyn]

Thoughts:
You've put a huge amount of work in there, well done!

Is it a non-linear editor?

IPhone imports: would be nice to have imported files named by date and time, aka Photosync, not "IMG_XXX.MOV". Helps massively with file management.

I couldn't see a Trial. In today's world, I think more people would have a go if it could be trialled. There are a plethora of very good NLEs out there already and you've got some stiff competition. You need to reach as many as you can; a Trial version would help.

[rompstar]

It actually has both non-linear and linear.

The Holding-bin works at the Metadata level, it can take clip copy references from the original video and then you can assemble however you want, text overlays or effects there...

The Director's Workbench applies video effects on top of existing videos, but it has some really cool effects that I designed one by one. It does all the other things like IPhone imports - it actually uses a pymobiledevice3 library for direct and fast import from Iphone's.

I guess it becomes linear when you export the final Project to be clear.

Right now I don't have any free-trial anything, thanks for feedback.

Most of my clients or customers are Gen X / so far, I have sold a few dozen copies so far, so hopefully this will turn into something in the future, because I would prefer to do this than a real job everything it listed on the site, of what it can do.

Win 11 or Mac / I have a custom versions working on Linux as well, but I havn't had anyone ask me, most Linux users expect everything for free, so not sure haha

[Alwyn]

Also, a suggestion: wind back the Gen X references. There are plenty of video people who are not Gen Xers. You want as big a market as possible, and stigmatising other groups won't help.

[rompstar]

ya, good idea, it just that most of my customers are in that age group, but I will update the page to make that clear

thanks for feedback!

[dellsam34]

Is this one of those apps that re-encode everything? A lot of people want to know if the app would give a message if the process is going to be lossless or lossy based on the parameters chosen, This is very important, Otherwise there are other free apps that can do lossy conversion.

[rompstar]

The main thing to understand that this is not just a encoding tool, that is 1 of many things that it can do, to answer your question... this is a toolbox...

FFmpeg Commander does not re-encode everything. In the editing workflow it gives you an explicit choice:

Fast (keyframe) mode — uses stream copy (-c copy), completely lossless, cuts at keyframe boundaries, very fast
Precise (frame-accurate) mode — re-encodes to cut at the exact frame you choose
For audio, there's a "Copy (passthrough)" option that passes the audio stream through untouched.

That said, there's currently no automatic pop-up warning that says "this will be lossy" — you choose the mode explicitly. That's good feedback and I'll look at making it more prominent in the UI.

What the app handles:

Format conversion & remuxing (stream copy where applicable)
Compression & encoding (H.264, HEVC, ProRes, VP9)
Hardware-accelerated encoding (VideoToolbox on Mac, NVENC on Windows)
Video editing — trim, cut, arrange clips in the Holding Bin with special effects, B&W and Color LUTS
Director's Workbench — special effects, color grading, transitions, text overlays
Audio extraction, conversion, normalization
AI transcription & subtitle generation (Whisper)
Batch processing queues
Video downloading (yt-dlp)
iPhone HEIC/HEVC import workflow and also there is GoPro fast SD card reading and imports, both with previews
B&W Filmic conversions

probably forgetting some stuff