Show HN: Lorem.video – placeholder videos generated from URLs

by guntis_devon 2/11/2026, 12:18 PMwith 3 comments

At work I have to deal with videos in different resolutions. We're also switching from H.264 to AV1, so I needed a quick way to test our video pipeline with different formats and sizes.

I created lorem.video - a service that generates placeholder videos directly from the URL. For example: https://lorem.video/1280x720_h264_20s_30fps

You control everything via the URL path: resolution, duration, codec (h264/h265/av1/vp9), bitrate, and fps. Videos are cached after first generation, so subsequent requests are instant.

Built it in Go using FFmpeg for encoding. Generation runs in a nice'd process so it doesn't interfere with serving cached videos. Running on a cheap VPS.

MIT licensed, source on GitHub: https://github.com/guntisdev/lorem-video

by cocojambo69on 2/11/2026, 3:22 PM

Very interesting idea, I also deal with similar issues at my workplace. Will ask the chaps from designated team to check this out.

by churljixon 2/11/2026, 7:31 PM

Purrrfect and so easy to use! Lovely cat, btw