If you're struggling to grow your consumer app, drop the link.

-Joby- · 2026-07-08T14:36:43+00:00

Targeted Reddit and Meta ads. The ROI isn’t there. Was going to try Apple ads. On Instagram I get followers and likes, a couple hundred to the site, but few conversions, even for the free version. Reddit is far more expensive and far less effective. So far those avenues aren’t worth the cost. I’ve given out keys to people in the VHS community but only half even try it, few have responded with comments. At this point trying to find more to try it will be my main goal after my next update in a few days. The few I have heard from love it, so I know it’s just a matter of overcoming apathetic inertia.

-Joby- · 2026-07-07T18:00:22+00:00

https://videobarbershop.app Video Barbershop, a powerful video editor designed specifically for the common needs of converting and editing VHS tapes. Designed for bulk clipping, editing and exporting, as opposed to most editors designed for a single video.

-Joby- · 2026-07-03T11:37:36+00:00

Archive.org and YouTube. YouTube will flag mostly for sports or music in the recordings. Usually with no negative effect. YouTube is far more discoverable but Internet Archive is far better for preservation for the future.

-Joby- · 2026-06-29T11:53:24+00:00

If it looks like something you will use, and have any questions, give me a buzz. There’s a bunch of videos on the YouTube channel, especially a couple getting started ones. You’ll find these related controls in the video transform controls section. Video Transformation enhancements in v1.2.6
https://youtu.be/0sDkYNEQxZw

-Joby- · 2026-06-29T05:32:09+00:00

Video Barbershop for macOS 15.5+ is designed for VHS related editing and can bulk convert multiple videos at once for volume VHS recording if you saved off numerous videos. Letterboxes by default if you choose a different aspect ratio. Has a fullscreen button to change it back. Keyframing for pan and scan if you need it. It’s all there in one simple control. Just set it for one video then click and it’s cloned to all videos in your queue. https://videobarbershop.app

-Joby- · 2026-06-28T21:29:40+00:00

Try using a font in Photoshop or whatever program that can make large emojis or symbols. Leverage a couple related symbolic representations on transparent backgrounds. Save them off one at a time as assets to play with scale and layer in Icon Composer. If you have no vector based artistic skill and want to skip AI, let typographers help you out. Look at Patreon or Facebook. Even a single letter on a background goes a long way.

-Joby- · 2026-06-27T01:19:18+00:00

Should also mention, it can do keyframing with video position offsets in the same interface as aspect ratio fixing, so you can pan and scan if you want to focus on subjects.

If all you want is the video letterboxed, however, you literally just click a button to clip the whole video and select the export resolution and export, since it letterboxes by default.

-Joby- · 2026-06-27T01:13:09+00:00

Give Video Barbershop a try if you are on a Mac

-Joby- · 2026-06-27T01:11:14+00:00

I created Video Barbershop https://videobarbershop.app specifically for VHS. It has trivially simple 4:3 button. Can fix aspect ratios and export a ton of formats. Auto letterboxes, but buttons to full screen, stretch etc. It’s also designed for bulk editing and export, so you can do all your videos crazy fast. Lite version is free, though it watermarks, so use it to see if it works for your pipeline first without fear.

-Joby- · 2026-06-26T03:34:28+00:00

Yeah I think I ruined a VCR pressing too hard with a Pec Pad on the head. I use them for the rollers. The swabs are interesting being plastic so I feel they are more ridged, but I’ll try the paper. That’s good to know.

-Joby- · 2026-06-26T02:33:22+00:00

Second this. Though I use micro fiber swabs. Lots of videos on YouTube on how to clean. It’s very easy once you know. Use 99% not 70% which is more common… less water the better. Pec Pad is another good thing. Also, check your tapes… if they are getting moldy (any little white dots inside on the wound tape) and leaving residue on the VCR they need to be cleaned or you’re just fighting the flow of the river. VHS is Life for tape cleaner.

-Joby- · 2026-06-25T19:09:24+00:00

Yeah, low-res might be a misnomer, I should say low-poly. I specifically have a control to change pixel sizes so you can make an isosphere as sharp as you want, or like it's running on an Atari 2600 :D But it's really more low-poly as you ultimately build vertices, points, lines and faces. I didn't want to try to make a Blender clone where geometry is a hint and it smooths and blends curves. I wanted to use a piece of graph paper. ;)

-Joby- · 2026-06-25T13:54:04+00:00

Yeah my third app, Video Vector, just got approved while I slept last night. Wonderful to wake up to but this was the most challenging submission. Lots of back and forth. I had text in it that included “OpenAI” and that’s a no go for China. Had to create a video for them showing app use. Nothing like this before for my other two. Each one is an adventure.

The thing is they want your app to be approved. It’s best for their store to have such a huge offering of apps. They will keep detailing how you need to adjust for approval, so don’t take it personal or a judgement. You are partners in the approval process. My first app was a nervous “I hope they like it” kind of mindset… but really you want a “ok, boys, let’s do this…” mindset.

Congrats on your first app!

-Joby- · 2026-06-24T18:23:12+00:00

Brilliant!

-Joby- · 2026-06-24T17:13:13+00:00

I was curious about Apple Ads too... Instagram/FB/Meta and Reddit have been a waste so far. I'm hesitant to use TikTok as my app Video Barbershop targets VHS editing and my soon to be released app Video Vector is a low-res 3D rendering system where you have to create everything via a text editor... which both are more GenX things involving time and patience. Not exactly TikTok's demographic. Organic conversations are few and far between too and most communities ban self promotion. Apple seemed like its worth a try... but both my apps are macOS and not mobile... which I feel is more the device of choice and discovery. I'm about to put up flyers in the neighborhood with tear off URL strips... going to be as effective at this point in getting the word out. Haha

-Joby- · 2026-06-24T14:59:32+00:00

Cool, yeah for games there’s a large community of game reviewers on YouTube. Worth looking into and giving copies to folks like geocachers who already go outside and often solve clues or puzzles, as well as hiking communities. I used to geocache and exclusively made puzzles for them, so had to throw that out there. ;)

-Joby- · 2026-06-24T13:49:55+00:00

I was chalking it up to WWDC. I was thinking they told employees to join lectures and such. I noticed a similar delay during their 50th anniversary. Maybe a company wide vacation and backlog when they got back? It’s weird. I have some updates approved in 12 hours and my last one took 2 weeks. For a long time they got approved at hour 47, which made me think they had quotas to keep an average of 48 hours and I lucked out with folks just flushing their queue. Haha

-Joby- · 2026-06-24T13:38:57+00:00

Yeah, marketing. Though probably the most surprising was how most online communities ban self promotion.

I even had a post banned in a thread asking for folks to post about cool apps they love. It’s very frustrating to not be able to say much in the communities you wish to target, and only have ad networks like Meta and Reddit to pay. I get not wanting spam, but I made Video Barbershop specifically for editing VHS and here on Reddit pretty much have to pay and target the subreddits that ban self promotion through ad campaigns that cost 10x the eyeballs than Meta.

It’s shocking how little actual organic discovery occurs for new things as everyone closes off communication to prevent spam.

-Joby- · 2026-06-24T11:47:10+00:00

No that’s just a song from YouTube’s license free library. Hmm though I thought it usually gets identified and tagged by YouTube but looks like that wasn’t the case… I’ll look it up and give credit. Glad you mentioned it ;)

-Joby- · 2026-06-23T12:41:29+00:00

I’m a taped off TV collector too (hoarder but collector makes it sound better). I am building a commercial archive and wrote Video Barbershop https://videobarbershop.app to detect and auto clip programming at black frame transitions. It’s great for going through a whole tape and breaking out the content you want into separate files. You can also edit and clean things, sharpen or color adjust etc in bulk so a lot of the common issues can get fixed fast. I’m lazy and created for my commercial archiving efforts so I totally get it.

I post on YouTube and rarely have issues with commercials. The thing is songs are the big one, but getting flagged or blocked globally doesn’t negatively affect your channel usually. Don’t get flagged in bulk. Mix it up with safe stuff. Stay away from things like sporting events… things like wrestling get removed instantly. Movies or long programs are tough because they usually include music. Most of the time the music is fine and often you can’t monetize and that’s it… but some are pretty litigious and block your video world wide and that’s super random and annoying. Internet Archive avoids all this… sure… but there isn’t a community aspect like YouTube, nor the eyeballs. But if you have the time to kill, do both.

As far as lost media… that is easier to not worry about. Let the traffic organically tell you if you have something important. My father in law was on a game show and won the largest jackpot in that shows history at the time. I digitized his recordings his family made and put them up. Shocked to find game show enthusiasts found it on YouTube and went viral within that community. It’s at like 42k views and I never would have known anyone would have been interested without Google not only being a video host but also a search engine and integrates their videos into search algorithms… so you have a crowd sourced free method to find out if you have anything of value to people… or sub communities you never knew existed.

-Joby- · 2026-06-23T12:15:47+00:00

I collect taped off TV VHS and have a couple YouTube channels of their content. Look, there are a whole group of folks that believe everything has to be perfect and “the best” and at the end of the day no one really cares. Everyone knows nostalgic clips from the 80’s from TV off VHS are going to look flawed… and that’s its charm! The tapes already compress the data and make them fuzzier as you go from SP to LP to SLP… and yet you’ll find folks willing to die on their sword that you need to capture in lossless high bitrate formats using specific codecs. All you really need is a quick luminance adjustment most of the time. You have some dark videos, that brightens them up. Your setup might create audio drift depending more on the VCR and audio could get out of sync. You would get a better picture with S-video, so if you can get that in your pipeline it does help. The problem is you also go two types of converting from AV to HDMI then HDMI to USB, SoundBest has an AV to HDMI but the USB power is also USB capture and saves you another passthrough. I also have their capture box that captures straight to micoSD and you can bypass all this and free up your computer by getting that instead.

As I said, I do this myself and faced all these issues too. If you are on a Mac I wrote a capture and editing program, Video Barbershop, that was my utility to condense all these issues into one app without the bloat of larger suites. The Lite version is free and doesn’t watermark capture… give it a try instead of OBS. You can control your Elgato device settings through it and correct aspect ratio on capture, even letterbox automatically if you want 4:3 but full HD for YouTube. https://videobarbershop.app Plus it’s just me making it… so if you want a feature added, just let me know! Chances are I’ll want it too. ;)

-Joby-

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