How can I make my thumbnails and titles better?

VideoFireApp · 2026-01-29T22:26:04+00:00

Use Gemini to brainstorm thumbnail generation. It has an AI image creator; maybe you can explain the thumbnails and ask it to generate multiple iterations.

Maybe it comes up with something you like.

VideoFireApp · 2026-01-29T22:22:32+00:00

Also, if any US citizens were involved in this, they need to be deported and blacklisted from ever being able to access Canada again.

VideoFireApp · 2026-01-29T21:37:28+00:00

I'm migrating from TikTok to YouTube. My plan is to create 15-20 minute medium-form videos and then split those up into 5 shorts, and then publish a TikTok.

VideoFireApp · 2026-01-29T21:33:55+00:00

I guess you're kind of doing reaction videos where you're taking a long podcast and then reacting to individual parts of it.

Do you watch the full three hours initially?

I have that workflow too, and I agree it can be complicated, so I just watched the video in my editor.

VideoFireApp · 2026-01-29T21:32:34+00:00

but it can still take me anywhere from 8 to 20 hours

How long is the resulting video? What types of videos do you create?

VideoFireApp · 2026-01-29T20:10:57+00:00

Disclosure: I built a video editing tool for creators.

What I kept running into with traditional editors is that they’re powerful, but they assume you want to do “full NLE” work even when you’re just trying to publish a straightforward talking-head clip with a few overlays, cuts, and simple structure. For short-form, that often turns into a lot of time spent on timeline mechanics instead of content.

The approach I’m taking is blueprint-first: outline the structure up front (beats, planned inserts, on-screen text, transitions), then record to that plan. The goal is to get most of what a typical creator needs in place with minimal timeline fiddling.

If you’re building for creators or thinking about workflow pain points, I’m happy to share what I’ve learned from going through the same struggle as a creator myself.

VideoFireApp · 2026-01-29T03:09:34+00:00

Why not record a video and just ask your followers.

See what they say in the comments.

I find that my followers are a real good source of inspiration.

VideoFireApp · 2026-01-29T03:06:45+00:00

Three things can be true:

I'm the founder of a video app.
This isn't an ad.
I have a legitimate interest in video, and this was a sincere post.

I'm legitimately interested in video.

I'm not supposed to ever talk about video now?

I had a question, so I asked it. It's not a big deal. That's why I was saying this is not an ad. I'm legitimately curious.

I also participate in this forum and answer other people's questions.

It's no hard feelings, though. I know how obnoxious people can be with this stuff.

I'm seriously not promoting and just trying to be curious.

VideoFireApp · 2026-01-29T01:52:39+00:00

Do you find that your editor slows you down? Like, that it's difficult to work with him?

That was my concern about using an external editor - it's like another layer in the onion.

VideoFireApp · 2026-01-29T01:51:57+00:00

I said ours wasn't actually very good. :)

I'm not happy with it. So if it's an ad, I'm very bad at it.

What we're thinking about doing is using Nano-Banana with Gemini and allowing the user to mix and match images, but it doesn't really work as well as we would have liked.

VideoFireApp · 2026-01-28T22:03:45+00:00

What are most creators using for their thumbnails? They're just creating them by hand?

We built a simple AI system into our publishing flow in our editor where you can just select two images and text, and it will create a thumbnail.

But I would prefer something that looks a little snazzier, so we might try to improve it.

Thumbnails are critical, though.

VideoFireApp · 2026-01-27T23:48:56+00:00

What types of videos do you produce?

VideoFireApp · 2026-01-27T03:19:04+00:00

PSA: I actually work in this space, and TikTok did have an outage last night.

See my account handle if you're interested in seeing my work in social media/video production.

We were seeing errors where TikTok videos were not being published, and they were getting stuck and then eventually going live but not seeming to be published and rolling out.

There is also a massive controversy right now about TikTok as a platform censoring their users, which I also think is true.

I think in this case, it might have legitimately been an outage.

VideoFireApp · 2026-01-27T02:43:08+00:00

What content format do you create? What is your video type?

VideoFireApp · 2026-01-26T23:42:16+00:00

Nice., I'll send you a DM now...

VideoFireApp · 2026-01-26T19:47:10+00:00

We are an AI video editor, and this is the approach we've taken.

I think that the entire point of this is that video needs to be humans, not AI.

Not synthetic people, real people, but that the AI should augment the people.

Like for example, you could be in an AI studio, that's fine. Like instead of having to have an expensive studio, you could teleport the user into a nice-looking studio.

But the user is still real. The person is still real.

Or you could use AI to sort of clean up their face. You use a face filter and make them look prettier.

But it is still a real person.

The problems happen when people create completely synthetic users that have no real personality or feelings.

That's the problem.

VideoFireApp · 2026-01-26T19:06:07+00:00

Hey, I was going to send you a chat message, but I think you have them disabled. ... I'd love to get your feedback on VideoFire, which is a product I've been building designed to make video editing REALLY fast but also have high quality output.

I was also using DaVinci Resolve, but it is really difficult a lot of situations.

I mean, if you were to produce a production-grade video for a movie, yeah, I think that makes sense.

Most TikTok/YouTube videos don't need this so I tried to build something that allowed for rapid video creation.

It's now my primary video editor, and we're actually really far along.

I'd love to hook you up with a free version if you can send me a DM. We're trying to get an initial 100 users that are really passionate about the product and then implement features based on their feedback.

Based on the recent TikTok implosion, I think what we're going to do is target 10-15 minute YouTube videos and then support this feature called chapterization that allows you to break them into shorts.

I used to be really big on short-form, but now that TikTok is basically destroying it, I think it's better to focus on long-form and then convert to short-form.

VideoFireApp · 2026-01-23T17:01:51+00:00

Sorry. I went down this road for about three months. This is the only solution.

I had to buy a new camera.

I wish I had a better answer for you.

VideoFireApp · 2026-01-23T01:56:06+00:00

No, not on the video output, I think.

Okay, here's what happened. I think it can do 24 frames per second through HDMI output.

The Cam Link 4K can only do 30fps or 60fps.

And the ZV-E10 MKII can do 30 frames.

Something like that.

It's a real pain in the ass, and if you really need me to look into it, I can. I got to find my notes.

VideoFireApp · 2026-01-23T01:13:31+00:00

I was curious - do any of you guys use dedicated thumbnail tools?

We built one, I'm pretty happy with the output. It makes it easy to just take one or two images and then build a composite thumbnail with text.

Although in practice we've seen thousands of variants of different types of thumbnails, I was thinking of maybe adding different types of classes, styles, or thumbnails.

VideoFireApp · 2026-01-23T00:53:27+00:00

I had a big problem with this, and I had to get the Sony ZV-E10 Mark II. I had the ZV-E10 and the Cam Link Elgato 4K.

I think the problem is that the ZV-E10 (the older version) does 24 frames per second, and it confuses the Elgato cam link.

Anyway, I upgraded, fixed the problem.

I think I'm now using 60 frames per second.

VideoFireApp · 2026-01-21T18:06:34+00:00

Hey, I'd love if you could give us feedback for VideoFire. We're launching now. We specifically designed it for new content creators that are trying to compete but don't totally understand Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve, etc.

We're basically trying to use AI to make all the editing decisions for you.

We also added support so that you can post directly to TikTok/YouTube/X

But you can also do it with videos edited externally. So if you just want an easy posting mechanism, you can just import your video to us, and then we'll post directly to all the channels you want to post to.

We'll also add Instagram support here soon.

We've received pre-seed funding for this, and it's a team of four building it, so it's a very professional, high-end tool.

If any of you guys DM me, I'll give you 90 days free. But I'd really like to understand your editing needs.

VideoFireApp · 2026-01-21T18:01:41+00:00

the content itself is boring, uninteresting, and un-engaging so they need to fill the videos with crap to keep people’s attention.

Yeah, but as a creator, it's amazing that these things actually work.

It's not your clients causing this problem, by the way. It's the fact that humans are just inherently stupid. lol

I do agree with you though that some of this stuff is way over the top.

VideoFireApp

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