Filmina vs NotebookLM
NotebookLM turns your PDF into a podcast where two hosts talk about it. Filmina explains the slide in front of you, while you look at it. Both are audio, but they are not for the same thing.
NotebookLM is the Google tool that ran past everything else on campus. You upload the sources, press a button and a while later you have a nine or ten minute audio where two hosts chat about your material, ask each other questions and explain it as if it were a radio show. It is impressive the first time, and it is free.
Then comes the moment of sitting down to study, and that is where the problem shows up.
NotebookLM tells you what the PDF is about. Filmina explains what slide 22 says, while you are looking at slide 22.
What NotebookLM does well
- It's free and it runs in the browser, with nothing to install.
- Many sources at once. One notebook takes dozens of documents: the slides, the course handout, three papers and your own notes, all together.
- It answers with citations. You ask it something and it replies marking which source each thing came from, which is what makes it trustworthy compared to a loose chat.
- The audio is genuinely entertaining. Two voices in dialogue are much easier to listen to than a single narrator, and that is what gets you through twenty minutes.
- It comes with study tools. Flashcards, quizzes, mind maps, study guides and video overviews.
- It's good for dead time: the bus, the gym, doing the dishes.
As a first pass over a subject you have never touched, it is excellent. If you haven't tried it yet, try it.
Where it stops being enough
There is no slide in front of you
The podcast exists on its own. You hear «the key concept here is working memory» and there is no way to know that came from slide 12, or to look at the diagram while it is being explained to you. When the exam comes, what you will have in front of you is the PDF, not the audio, and the bridge between the two is yours to build.
Filmina doesn't exist without the PDF: what you hear is the slide you are looking at, and while it speaks a frame surrounds the block it is talking about. When you open that PDF again in finals week, you recognise the page because you have already been through it.
It picks what to tell, and doesn't tell you what it left out
A ten-minute summary of sixty slides is, necessarily, a selection. The two hosts grab whatever strikes them as juicy, build a narrative and leave out half. It is usually a good selection. But it is not your syllabus: it is theirs.
Filmina goes in the order of the document and covers every block, charts and diagrams included. And not because we ask the model nicely: after each explanation is generated it is verified in code that no block on the page was left uncovered, and if one is missing it is requested again on its own. Coverage is checked, not trusted.
You don't get to choose the depth
The audio comes out as long as it comes out. In Filmina the explanation is complete: everything each slide says, in the order of the lecture. For the quick pass before the exam, the study plan offers a short read with the core ideas. And if something stayed shaky, you ask Mina, Filmina's chat, about it, on that slide or on the whole course, without uploading anything again.
Tools, not a path
NotebookLM's flashcards, quizzes and mind maps are good, but they are buttons: what to generate and when is up to you. Each notebook is an island with its own sources, and there is no structured way to keep your courses, your lectures and your notes together, or anything that tells you what to study today to be ready for the exam.
Filmina is built the other way round: the place first, then the help. Each course is a folder with its lectures, your notes and any material you add (books, documents, audio and YouTube videos). Tell it when your exam is and what format it takes, and it builds you a study plan. And you practice along the way, not just at the end: after each slide Mina asks you a question, and then there are Practice and Review.
Both have quotas, and both need internet
NotebookLM's free plan allows a few audios per day, and each one is generated on Google's servers. Filmina also works in the cloud and also has a cap: the free plan comes with 60 minutes of explanation to start with, then 20 a month, and Pro with 15 hours a month. Listening again to what was already explained doesn't use minutes, and while you listen to one slide the next ones are being prepared.
Your notes get uploaded, in both
For NotebookLM to work, the PDF has to be on Google. For Filmina to explain it, it has to be in your Filmina account: the explanation is also made in the cloud. For a lot of material that makes no difference. For a thesis draft, a report from work or course material that isn't yours, maybe it does: before uploading it, it is worth reading what each one does with it. Filmina's side is in its privacy policy.
Filmina vs NotebookLM, point by point
| What matters | Filmina | NotebookLM |
|---|---|---|
| What you hear | The explanation of the slide you are looking at | Two hosts talking about your sources as a whole |
| Relation to the page | A frame surrounds the block being explained | None: the audio goes its own way |
| Coverage | Every block, verified in code | A selection, at whatever length comes out |
| Depth | The whole slide, plus a quick read before the exam | Whatever the model decides |
| Several sources together | For questions, yes: Mina draws on the course's lectures and any material you add. You study one deck at a time | Yes, dozens per notebook |
| Asking it things | Yes, and it tells you which slides it comes from | Yes, with citations to the source |
| Organizing your courses | A folder per course, with its lectures, your notes and your material | Separate notebooks, each with its own sources |
| Study plan | Per course, up to the exam date | No plan built around your exam date |
| Practice | A question at the end of every slide, plus Practice and Review | Flashcards and quizzes, when you ask for them |
| Where it runs | In the cloud, from the browser | On Google's servers |
| Usage limits | Free: 60 minutes to start, then 20 a month. Pro: 15 hours a month | A few audios per day on the free plan |
| Pricing | Free to start, and Pro as a monthly subscription (see pricing) | Free, with paid plans for more quota |
Two different uses of the same PDF
The honest comparison is not which one is better, but which moment each one is for.
NotebookLM, for the first pass
You don't know what the course is about, you are on your way to class and you want to arrive with a general idea. Or you have five different sources and you need to see them together.
Filmina, for the pass that counts
You already know what it is about, you are sitting with the slide in front of you and what you need is someone to explain that slide, skipping nothing and pointing at the part they are talking about.
Using them together works well: the podcast on the commute, Filmina at the desk.
My take
Ignacio Prados
@ignaprados
I use NotebookLM and I think it is very good for research and for studying. I turn the lecture into a podcast and listen to it while walking, travelling or with my hands busy on something else. For revising it is great.
But when I had to learn a slide deck, listening was not enough. I wanted someone to explain my lecture slides out loud while I looked at them, and I could not find that in any product. That is why I made Filmina.
I came from five years of keeping all my material in Notion, organized but with no help, and from NotebookLM, with help but no structure. Filmina ended up being both together: my courses in one place, a plan up to the exam and practice along the way.
What NotebookLM has and Filmina doesn't
- The podcast. Two voices in conversation, to listen to without looking at anything. Filmina explains with a single voice and the slide in front of you.
- Dozens of sources in a single notebook, with citations. Mina also answers from every lecture in a course and from the books, documents, audio and videos you add, but the spoken explanation goes one deck at a time.
- More use without paying. A few audios a day, for free. Filmina's free plan comes with 60 minutes to start with, then 20 a month.
Frequently asked questions
What's the difference between Filmina and NotebookLM?
NotebookLM is a toolbox for working with your sources: podcasts, citations, flashcards, quizzes and mind maps. Filmina is a place to study your courses: it explains each slide out loud while you look at it, makes you practice along the way and builds a plan up to the exam.
Is Filmina an alternative to NotebookLM?
For studying a deck with the screen in front of you, yes. For a podcast you listen to without looking, or for a notebook with dozens of sources, NotebookLM does things Filmina doesn't.
Does NotebookLM make audio in languages other than English?
Yes, it is no longer English only. Some options, like choosing the length of the audio, are still English only.
How many audios can I make per day?
In NotebookLM, on the free plan it is a few, and it goes up with Google's paid plans. Filmina doesn't count audios but minutes of explanation: the free plan comes with 60 to start with, then 20 a month, and Pro with 15 hours a month. Listening again to what was already explained doesn't use minutes.
Does Filmina also make a podcast out of the PDF?
No. It is one voice explaining the slide you are looking at, in the order of the document, marking on the page what it is talking about.
Are my notes uploaded to a server?
Yes, in both. In NotebookLM the processing is Google's. In Filmina the explanation is also made in the cloud, and your slides stay in your account until you delete them. What is stored and where is in the privacy policy.
Keep comparing
- Filmina vs SpeechifyThe best known text-to-speech reader, against an explanation.
- Filmina vs ChatGPTWhat happens when you upload a sixty-slide PDF to the chat.
- Why I made FilminaWhere it came from: an exam, a hundred slides and no tool that did the job.