[HN Gopher] Show HN: If YouTube had actual channels
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Show HN: If YouTube had actual channels
Author : hadisafa
Score : 1370 points
Date : 2024-08-14 15:10 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (ytch.xyz)
(TXT) w3m dump (ytch.xyz)
| hadisafa wrote:
| Channel 1: Science and Technology
|
| Channel 2: Travel and Events
|
| Channel 3: Food
|
| Channel 4: Architecture
|
| Channel 5: Film and Animation
|
| Channel 6: Documentaries
|
| Channel 7: Comedy
|
| Channel 8: Music
|
| Channel 9: Autos and Vehicles
|
| Channel 10: News and Politics
|
| Channel 11: UFC
|
| Channel 12: Podcasts/Interviews/Talk Shows
| ollybee wrote:
| This is what I was looking for, where did you see that info?
| anarcat wrote:
| I think they built it. :)
| hadisafa wrote:
| I made the thing :)
| harshaxnim wrote:
| May be you could put it up in the site too
| mxfh wrote:
| Local 58?
| ks2048 wrote:
| This is a good idea for this app, but maybe the least realistic
| part of the old TV experience. You'd have maybe 3 "premium"
| channels of a mix of tv shows, news, talk shows, sports. Maybe
| a dedicated sports channel and dedicated news channel. A
| channel more biased towards educational shows. A channel or two
| of weird low-budget shows (local access). A few channels that
| don't come in well (static and distortion). And add some off-
| air "colorbars" sometimes. And a channel or two in a foreign
| language.
|
| And then force the user to get off the couch and walk to the
| monitor to turn a knob when you want to change channel...
| hathawsh wrote:
| It's more like SiriusXM than broadcast TV, and I would say
| the SiriusXM model is a lot nicer. I like being able to
| choose a topic.
| pants2 wrote:
| Would love a few more sports channels, a local news channel
| based on your location, and maybe a video gaming channel.
| hathawsh wrote:
| This project is very cool. Amazing execution. Other channels I
| would suggest: - Cooking - Family movies
| (from the public domain?) - Baseball
| pineaux wrote:
| Also diy and maker channel. Just add voidlabs, mitxela, some
| other makers Colin furze, adam savage and some woodworking
| channels, like four eyes furniture. Some metalworkers like
| inheritance machining. Just general creative engineering
| stuff but not documentaries.
| kajecounterhack wrote:
| Thinking back to childhood it was all History Channel, PBS, and
| Cartoon Network / Nick. Would be great to see analogues to some
| of those :)
| dbingham wrote:
| It'd be really awesome to have a link to the channel and video
| that is playing in case I want to find it later. This is a
| wonderful discovery tool, but I'd really love to be able to
| save the content I discover!
| denysvitali wrote:
| On the bottom right there is an ID that looks like a YouTube
| video ID
| Apofis wrote:
| Build that into the TV Guide!
| airstrike wrote:
| I need this as a Roku app ASAP ;-;
| its-summertime wrote:
| One channel I always appreciate wherever I go, is the low
| budget non-profit hobby regional channel.
|
| Would love to see people just working on projects they have
| around the house, not taking things too serious.
| hdlothia wrote:
| This is great, really smooth
| hadisafa wrote:
| Thank you!
| xyst wrote:
| Love how you captured the feel of channel surfing. Seems like
| most videos/channels I surfed through were at the midpoint or
| near completed in their play through (usual if you just hop on
| the tube at the middle of the hour).
| tantalor wrote:
| The best part of this is the channel doesn't pause when you flip
| away from it. It is always "running" and if you flip away you
| will miss it. That builds in a FOMO trade-off which causes user
| to automatically/subconciously decide on channel they most want
| to watch, because they can't watch everything.
| aman2k4 wrote:
| yeah when i noticed this, it blew my mind.
| hadisafa wrote:
| channels are synced so everyone is watching the same exact
| content at the same time, just like TV.
| A_Duck wrote:
| Yep this works really nicely, and psychologically it's somehow
| way more relaxing than having to curate what you watch
|
| I predict this appears as real youtube feature soon. Since it
| will also allow them to do a Spotify-style payola approach to
| scheduling.
| digging wrote:
| > I predict this appears as real youtube feature soon.
|
| I doubt it would. The modern style of binging on-demand
| streaming content seems to be too effective at capturing
| attention. Remember that lots of people get _notifications_
| on their phone the instant a new video comes out for a
| subscribed channel, especially kids and teens who haven 't
| developed resistance to these business models.
|
| YT would be unlikely to spend any effort implementing an
| alternate mode that doesn't capture attention as effectively;
| the old model of live channels is likely a niche preference.
| If somehow this did prove to be more effective at capturing
| attention, I could see it being implemented, but that would
| surprise me.
| Group_B wrote:
| well they already have youtube shorts, which is kinda
| similar.
| bobbob1921 wrote:
| I hate that if anytime I upload a short video it forces the
| video to YouTube shorts. Especially since I'm not making
| content for the public - it's more a demo video or
| something to specifically send to a few people. As with so
| many services nowadays, I like the ability to use YouTube
| shorts when I want, but I hate that it's forced upon us
| with no reasonable and consistent method to not use shorts
| at the users discretion.
| rd wrote:
| Uploading horizontally or >1m should fix this?
|
| Most things or demos I send are horizontal, but I agree,
| the automatic shorts of vertical is annoying
| aa-jv wrote:
| Along the same lines, I have a near-terabyte of videos I have
| downloaded from Youtube, of my own vast and multivariate
| interests, and having it on random, with a simple
| pause/next/prev-style interface, is also a compelling viewer-
| experience equillibrium akin to the sets of yore ..
|
| (cue Buggles..)
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| I have long wanted Netflix to offer this feature. Just give
| me a random episode of a low stakes sitcom. Seinfeld, SVU,
| whatever.
|
| My other wishlist item was that Netflix would offer a
| "shuffle" this series option. For standalone episodic shows,
| ordering does not matter, and it is a bunch of overhead to
| pick something.
| saintfire wrote:
| I didn't realize how much I would appreciate shuffle until
| i started using jellyfin.
|
| I use it all the time for shows that have self-contained
| episodes (e.g. Futurama).
| dustincoates wrote:
| Netflix offered this in France back in 2020[0], but
| appeared to have removed it in 2022[1].
|
| 0: https://www.vulture.com/2020/11/netflix-linear-channels-
| dire... 1: https://www.numerama.com/pop-
| culture/1273686-netflix-direct-...
| dotnet00 wrote:
| >I predict this appears as real youtube feature soon
|
| I highly doubt it. They're going to wait for competitors to
| implement it and have it for several years before they bother
| to poorly copy the idea.
| teska wrote:
| They experimented with it for a bit last year. I think Linus
| talked about it on the WAN show, and for a while LTT had it
| enabled on their channel.
|
| It was essentially a 24/7 livestream which played from their
| back catalogue, with the ability to add "promo" segments in
| between videos, which they used for products on their merch
| store.
|
| Seemed to dissapear around the same time the whole monoblock
| scandal and production shutdown happened last year, so I'm
| not sure if the YouTube experiment also concluded or if they
| turned it off during the shutdown.
| angry_moose wrote:
| I added ErsatzTV to my Plex setup about a month ago and we
| honestly love it so much. I've got 2 sitcom channels, British
| panel shows, Taskmaster, all Star Trek all the time, British
| sitcoms, cartoons, and a few others.
|
| Its really nice to just sit down and watch "whatever is on"
| (even though I could switch over to the main library and watch
| any episode I want).
|
| Sometimes I just want a 0-effort/0-decision background noise
| while I work on something else or browse on my phone.
| hadrien01 wrote:
| I've done the same thing with dizqueTv for my grandmother. On
| her Android TV, I was able to integrate the IPTV channels on
| the same channels list, so she can simply use the remote to
| navigate between the digital channels and the IPTV channels
| (30 for Hercule Poirot, 31 for classic B&W movies, etc.)
| archon810 wrote:
| dizqueTv, ErsatzTV... these are the "Chinese company names
| on Amazon" of TV app names.
| universa1 wrote:
| No clue about dizqueTV, but ErsatzTV is German for tv
| replacement/substitute :-) so it has a little more
| meaning then the Chinese Amazon names ;-)
| vijayr02 wrote:
| Ersatz is also a perfectly cromulent English word [0]
|
| [0] https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/e
| rsatz
| l72 wrote:
| I've also been using ErsatzTV with my jellyfin setup. It can
| take a while to setup channels how you want them, but I love
| my sci-fi channel which is going through all the Star Treks,
| Stargates, and Twilight Zones.
|
| It is so much easier to flip it on to my Sci-fi Channel,
| animation channel, movie channel, or James Bond marathon
| channel then to decide what to watch. And since I've seen all
| this content, it is often kinda nice to start in the middle
| of an episode.
|
| I also found a ton of old Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, and
| Adult Swim bumps that I use as some filler content if I want
| episodes to start on the hour.
|
| I've been thinking a lot about setting up some kids channels
| with specific hours (like channel comes on at 7am, goes off
| during part of the day, comes back on in the afternoon, and
| goes offline at bedtime) for my siblings kids, as I think
| letting them just browser youtube kids is terrible.
| lackstein wrote:
| > I also found a ton of old Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network,
| and Adult Swim bumps
|
| Where were you able to find these? Recreating one of these
| channels has been a side project I've wanted to do for
| ages.
| l72 wrote:
| I think it was mostly youtube and retrojunk.com
|
| Try searching for "$channel bump"
|
| Personally, I think Adult Swim had the best bumps,
| usually just some nice house music with a nice animation
| and some funny quotes.
| ChadNauseam wrote:
| I'm really interested in this but I'm having trouble
| googling. What is a bump? Is it referring to this?
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bumper_(broadcasting)
| l72 wrote:
| Yup. Here's a playlist for adult swim ones. I just used
| yt-dlp and passed in the playlist URL and it will
| download all the bumps as separate files:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HS8kchdwFPM&list=PL075thq
| iB6...
| vundercind wrote:
| Do you know if that can operate with no transcoding?
|
| I've designed my media set-up around Jellyfin on a weak
| server that can't handle transcoding, and very-capable
| clients that don't need it. This lets me avoid like half
| the bugs on the Jellyfin bug tracker and all the
| instability an Nvidia or AMD video card would introduce to
| the server itself.
|
| I'm very interested in this, but can't use it if it _must_
| transcode.
| l72 wrote:
| No, it must transcode to work correctly, which can be a
| problem for me too (although I just have an intel card
| and use vaapi).
|
| I believe there is a container you can use where it
| doesn't transcode, but it trips up every player I have
| tried, as they do not like having different
| resolutions/codecs suddenly swap.
| vundercind wrote:
| Damn, kinda what I figured. Thanks. Maybe some day I'll
| upgrade/downgrade to a less perfectly-stable server that
| is transcoding capable.
| Saris wrote:
| What CPU?
|
| Intel Quicksync is very capable (even more so than most
| AMD/Nvidia cards) and any 7th gen or newer Intel CPU with
| integrated graphics has it and has good codec support.
| vundercind wrote:
| It's an old used Lenovo workstation. It has a some kind
| of quad-core Intel processor but can't usefully transcode
| from h.265 at all (no hardware support, I assume) and is
| bad at most other codecs at resolutions above 720p or so.
| Even transcoding within its limits seems to tax it, so I
| doubt it could maintain two transcodes at once in any
| case--we sometimes have three streams going, or one or
| two plus someone playing on its Minecraft server, and it
| can keep up with all that just fine, but transcoding's
| out.
|
| I've even seen it turn into a slideshow remuxing original
| video with transcoded audio. It's not very capable.
| Saris wrote:
| Ahh probably a Xeon CPU, they don't have an iGPU.
| Cyph0n wrote:
| ErsatzTV is amazing. It's actually excellent for settings
| up kids channels. You can configure start and end times and
| select a pool of content/shows/movies to pick from.
|
| One nifty feature is that you can configure "filler"
| content to inject randomly between episodes. I used this to
| add short educational clips from a kids TV channel in the
| Middle East.
| enobrev wrote:
| I've been using Quasi TV (android app) to try out the
| concept. I remember having something similar back in the
| boxee / xbmc days. I especially liked that it "just worked"
| without having to set anything up besides pointing it at my
| plex. I'm not afraid of hosting something, but I didn't want
| to go through the trouble if it turned out I wasn't going to
| use it.
|
| I quite like it. Unfortunately, the app's been a bit buggy -
| not always picking up the stream at the "current time" and
| sometimes navigation gets wonky. But it was a good test run
| and that, along with your post, has convinced me to give
| Ersatz (or something like it) a try.
| notfed wrote:
| Another observation: with this setup, you essentially randomly
| jump into the middle of videos, skipping what is usually the
| most grating part of the show: the intro.
|
| In the intro to most shows/videos, there's annoying jingles,
| silly animations, a redundant summary of what's about to happen
| in an already short segment, or just useless chatter "hey guys!
| it's your boy, _. welcome to my channel, remember to smash that
| like button, we have a great show today".
|
| Because of all this intro bloat, I tend to jump a few minutes
| into most YouTube videos by default.
| tantalor wrote:
| The only thing worse than the intro is the 2nd intro. Just
| get to the GD content please.
| ryandrake wrote:
| This was the first thing I noticed, too. It's amazing how
| much better it is, simply leaving off all that "what's up
| guys" introduction.
| recursive wrote:
| I don't see how this is a good thing. It's a totally artificial
| constraint. It's already impossible to watch everything on
| youtube. I don't want software I use to instill fear as a
| design goal, detached from any of the outcomes of user actions.
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| Because like TV, when you're watching something, you know
| other people are watching exactly the same thing. And that's
| pretty cool.
| TheKarateKid wrote:
| The FOMO would only work if the content was exclusively
| available during that livestream, and not re-posted later.
|
| That being said, I think the last thing society needs is to
| make these platforms more addictive. The algorithms already do
| a good enough job of keeping us glued.
| imiric wrote:
| If only we had a TiVo...
| slillibri wrote:
| > It is always "running" and if you flip away you will miss it.
|
| Throw in some ads and it will be everything I hate about
| broadcast TV.
| langcss wrote:
| That is what it was like in the 90s! Although you could use
| your VCR to record the other channel.
| pests wrote:
| I use Pluto for this. Quick download, no sign up required, and
| tons of topic-specific channels to switch to. I put it on all
| my devices and don't even worry about it.
|
| Google TV also has a "Live" tab that collects all the live
| channels across all your apps and puts it into a TV guide grid.
| I've installed Fubo and Tubi and others just to build out my TV
| guide.
|
| Works pretty well.
| isk517 wrote:
| Each channel displays the video code for the YouTube video its
| playing so if you see something interesting you can easily
| access the video. I really like this as a curated discovery
| tool, there is something up flipping thru channels and catching
| something at just the right time to peak your interest that
| viewing a clickbaity thumbnail and video title just can't
| replicate.
| SuperHeavy256 wrote:
| Haha this is really well engineered, it feels honestly like TV
| and not a cheap iframe embed
| DougWebb wrote:
| I really like how there are only 12 channels, and you don't get
| to choose what's on. The only way to make it even more like tv
| from a few decades ago would be if half of the channels were
| static.
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| Given how full of crap content and intrusive ads YouTube is
| these days, I actually kinda miss tv from back then. About the
| only benefits at this point are time shifting and pause/rewind.
| tracerbulletx wrote:
| I mean you realize there were many more ads per hour on TV
| though right? What makes the youtube ones more intrusive?
| add-sub-mul-div wrote:
| With real TV and a DVR you haven't had to see a single
| commercial in the last 25 years if you didn't want to.
|
| We don't talk enough about how streaming has forced us into a
| much worse experience with ads that are unskippable, privacy-
| invading, and now I hear they're being dynamically inserted
| into programming mid-scene.
| randomdata wrote:
| We talked about it plenty back when the legacy media
| companies were refusing to move online. "The ad spend isn't
| nearly a high online." they would say, with "Yeah, but
| people actually watch the ads online. Give it a few
| minutes." in response.
|
| At some points topics become stale.
| arethuza wrote:
| I've long since concluded that YouTube's ads are merely a way
| of persuading me to upgrade to Premium. Given that they
| actually seem to be pretty good at recommending content to me
| I am mystified by why the ad selection is so awful.
| randomdata wrote:
| 1. If the ad selection is too good, people will fall into
| the uncanny valley. They have to make it terrible enough to
| maintain user confidence.
|
| 2, They may not have anything better to select from.
| Quickly start/stop the ads a few times and it will usually
| (but not always) give up on showing any ad at all, which
| suggests to me that the available ad pool at that point in
| time is being exhausted.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| I got a f'n Trump asking for money ad on YT last night. The
| algorithm should know better than to serve me something
| like that.
| gwervc wrote:
| If the ads are indeed just a way to push for
| subscriptions and you are upset or annoyed by a
| particular add, the algorithm is perfectly doing its job.
| yesco wrote:
| But doesn't it make sense to pay for targeted political
| ads towards people opposed to you? The algorithm allows
| advertisers to do targeted advertising, and you were
| targeted, the subtle implication that targeted
| advertising would only show you "what you want to see"
| was intentional and misleading to get people on board
| with their attention being sold to the highest bidder.
| randomdata wrote:
| Because you are already a donor?
| aAaaArrRgH wrote:
| The ad placements aren't tailored to you. They're tailored
| to the advertiser's wishes.
| dbspin wrote:
| It's still trivial to block these though with a combination
| of uBlock Origin and Sponsorblock. Despite Google's ongoing
| efforts to make this impossible.
| naikrovek wrote:
| have you forgotten how bad commercials were back then, and
| still are?
|
| I haven't watched TV in years and years and years, because of
| the ads. I have a YouTube premium subscription and I am not
| ever going to watch broadcast or cable tv again. ever.
| Baljhin wrote:
| > have you forgotten how bad commercials were back then
|
| Most weren't ' _bad_ ', just noise.
|
| Sure there were some cringy ones:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ts0XG6qDIco
|
| But some were GREAT!
|
| -- Remember 'CH-ch-ch Chia Pet!' ?? ~
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzY7qQFij_M
|
| -- How's about local commercials, like in Philadelphia: "
| _Krass Brothers - Store of the Stars!!_ " ~
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5R4rNxSWFw
| naikrovek wrote:
| By "bad" I mean "commercials exist and are shown on TV".
|
| I don't ever want to see a commercial. I have never been
| influenced by one. I never will be unless they change
| dramatically. There is no sales pitch that does not
| immediately make me dislike the salesperson.
|
| "You don't deserve your money as much as I do." That's
| all a commercial is. "We want your money so here is some
| quick audio and maybe video designed to convince you to
| give your money to us, in exchange for something less
| valuable than the amount you paid."
| zikduruqe wrote:
| Or if they could simulate an antenna rotor and you had to turn
| it towards the station.
| gryn wrote:
| if we're talking about stuff to make it more authentic, how
| about looking up my local weather if there's a strong storm the
| quality drops + more static, and a small (rng) chance of it
| completely breaking if the antenna upstairs got completely
| broken by the strong wind.
| Tiktaalik wrote:
| For real accuracy of tv of a few decades ago they could add a
| 13th channel that takes content from Pornhub, but then adds a
| bunch of filters so you can barely see anything.
| jagged-chisel wrote:
| Even better: make not-porn videos with vegetables, but when
| it's obfuscated it would look like porn. Repetitive motions
| will help.
| newswasboring wrote:
| Is this an American thing? This sounds hilarious
| myself248 wrote:
| Integrate a Kinect / Realsense camera that estimates your body
| pose, so you have to stand in front of the computer and hold
| your arms in a specific way to direct a weak signal into the
| rabbit-ears...
| racefan76 wrote:
| This is neat! Feels just like old cable, the static transitions
| being a good touch.
| aroemers wrote:
| Perhaps you like this nostalgic TV as well then:
| https://90s.myretrotvs.com. It also uses Youtube as a source
| and plays uninterrupted like an old-school channel.
| djeastm wrote:
| This seems like it'd be great to have playing at an old folks
| home. I know my grandparents watch the Johnny Carson/Tonight
| Show channel for a taste of their old culture
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| Also discussed on HN:
|
| - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36906022
|
| - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25973955
| racefan76 wrote:
| Can confirm, I like it.
| DougWebb wrote:
| You should make the channels change the video they're playing on
| a schedule, and link to a tv guide listing that shows the
| schedule.
| ProllyInfamous wrote:
| I understands what you're trying to replicate, but I believe
| this would distract from _the charm_ since users could then
| just visit YouTube [directly] and search for things scheduled.
|
| The randomness and uninterrupted playback is why this is so
| cool =D
| hadisafa wrote:
| The channels are on a schedule, everyone is watching the same
| exact video at the same timestamp!
| EcommerceFlow wrote:
| Wow this is really cool. I'd love to have specific channels for
| Ai, NBA highlights, etc, all of which are readily available on
| Youtube.
| milanhbs wrote:
| Are we going full circle from TV to streaming back to TV?
| Probably not, but I do really enjoy the discovery aspect as well
| as reducing the overwhelming options of streaming down to a few
| channels.
|
| This has a super smooth feel and throws you directly in, really
| well done.
| whoiscroberts wrote:
| Now we need a TV Guide.
| theginger wrote:
| Is there an open source code repo for this?
| OwseiWT wrote:
| By what I understood there's only front-end code. Ignoring the
| file server, of course.
| justanotherjoe wrote:
| Can't you just embed the youtube videos?
| yadaeno wrote:
| I'd love something like this where I can configure channels to
| have podcasts, music, movies and it all streams to my tv.
|
| Is there something like this? I've heard of other users
| mentioning side projects like this.
| zehaeva wrote:
| There's a project called DizqueTV[0] that lets you set up
| "channels" of media to be streamed to a Plex server, which then
| lets you send that onto a TV.
|
| It's not quite the same as straight TV channels. But it's
| pretty close!
|
| [0]: https://github.com/vexorian/dizquetv
| ibizaman wrote:
| I know of https://ersatztv.org which I used a while ago. With a
| Kodi frontend you can play on TV. Not sure it does podcasts and
| music though but I used it successfully for movies and TV
| shows.
| al_borland wrote:
| For music I setup a micro pc at my place connected to a radio
| transmitter. I have a music library on it and set it to
| shuffle. I can have normal radios around my house, tune to my
| station, and it's always something I like with no commercials.
| I don't have multiple stations to flip to, but that's ok. I
| like the simplify of turning on a radio without having to pick
| what's playing. I can also turn on multiple radios and it works
| just like those fancy setups for multi room music streaming at
| a fraction of the cost/complexity. Something like Sonos or
| AirPlay requires a lot to do what a radio could do decades ago.
|
| The transmitter seems pretty weak, to maintain a legal status
| with the FCC, so some days it works better than others. I
| probably need to experiment with placement or other
| frequencies. I'm in a pretty congested area from that
| perspective. I found a website that suggests the best one based
| on the city a user us in and just went with that.
|
| I wish there were reserved frequencies for personal use that
| would make home transmitters better to use. I have 0 hope for
| that now, but during the era of FM transmitters being popular
| in cars, it would have been nice if it had gotten some
| attention.
| add-sub-mul-div wrote:
| I download videos and schedule them as channels with
| https://ersatztv.org/ to watch through Plex locally to get the
| same effect. I usually want some noise on the background and in
| that mode I can't be stopping frequently to choose the next video
| or mess with playlists.
| stavros wrote:
| This is great, but the static doesn't seem random? It just bugged
| me a tiny bit. Otherwise, I love this.
| soneil wrote:
| It looks like the static is tiled. So it's random (enough)
| within a tile, but you can perceive the tiling.
| TomK32 wrote:
| Must be my crappy internet connection that lets me watch the
| white noise for an unbearable amount of time. It's a very
| annoying white noise. Also, I wonder if some channels send a
| sign-off sequence once they run out of content.
| myself248 wrote:
| Oh I love that idea, a signoff message followed by an image of
| a test pattern for several hours, until they sign back on the
| next morning.
| FrequentLurker wrote:
| Wish it had video settings like captions, video quality etc
| hadisafa wrote:
| I'll add more control options soon :)
| johnmaguire wrote:
| Closed captions would be really awesome so I can watch
| without sound.
| lucasoshiro wrote:
| This is something I always wonder... Something that I really miss
| from TV on internet content (YouTube, movie streamings and so on)
| is turn it on and watching what's being transmitted without
| thinking about what I wanna see.
|
| Three reasons:
|
| 1. Picking something to watch takes time. Sometimes I only want
| to see something in the 15 minutes that I'm dining alone. My meal
| gets cold before I start the video
|
| 2. Choosing something to watch is stressful. If I'm tired and I
| don't know what I want to see makes me more tired and frustrated.
| These are the times that I don't want the freedom to watch I want
| because they are the times that I don't want to think about what
| I want
|
| 3. The random factor of watching something that I would never
| watch by myself it's something that makes me go outside my
| bubble. I can't say how many good movies (or songs, etc) I found
| by that randomness
|
| I'm not against the freedom of streaming services but there are
| moments that I just don't want that freedom. So, thank you!
| Almondsetat wrote:
| Why can't you pick randomly from your home page and let auto
| play do its thing?
| lucasoshiro wrote:
| The recommendation algorithms suggests things that are
| related to what I watched before. And I still need to choose
| one of the options that it recommends.
| Almondsetat wrote:
| They recently introduced an anonymous mode
| Mathnerd314 wrote:
| Yeah, for me loading the homepage and clicking the top-left
| video is almost an automatic reflex at this point.
| lukas099 wrote:
| I wish my YouTube recommendations were anywhere good enough
| to do this.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Agreed, my recommendations are extremely narrow. Usually
| videos from the same three content creators, and ones that
| I've already seen or in there chronological queue that I
| already plan to watch.
| digging wrote:
| This works pretty well for YT when it knows your preferences,
| but for streaming TV services like Netflix I find it's a box
| of chocolates full of shit. It's just going to be whatever is
| being "promoted" at the time and has the most widespread
| appeal, not something interesting.
| asveikau wrote:
| > Sometimes I only want to see something in the 15 minutes that
| I'm dining alone.
|
| I think the YouTube recommendation algorithm you get from
| opening the app or viewing the front page is good for this.
| They have a lot of random content and when the algorithm gets
| to know you, it will suggest things of interest that can be
| consumed this way.
| Suppafly wrote:
| I have so many subscriptions on youtube that the home
| recommendation is actually a quicker way to find something
| interesting if I have limited time, since the subscriptions
| are full of shorts and 'reruns' now where creators try to
| monetize old videos in new ways.
|
| The only issue is that my youtube is the one on the main tv,
| so sometimes the suggestions get messed up when my kids
| watch. Youtube probably has a really confusing set of
| conflicting beliefs about who I am.
| asveikau wrote:
| My kids mostly watch on tablets which are their own. On the
| TV, they have separate profiles on all the streaming apps.
| We don't do YouTube much on TV but when we do, I've always
| been sure to give them a different device that is not
| logged into my account.
|
| If I lend them a device to watch YouTube I usually do it in
| the browser in incognito.
| cuanim wrote:
| My youtube recommendations on my laptop are just short
| videos(all are below 3 mins with a few exceptions ;-;) I get
| so much better recommendations by using youtube tv but it
| sucks that they don't let us switch preferences. But well
| results in me spending less time on youtube so a win heh
| Suppafly wrote:
| The solution to a lot of those is to just have a goto show that
| you watch. Before netflix removed The Office, that is what I
| always did when wanting something to watch while eating a snack
| on the couch or to have noise on in the background. I'd just
| fire up netflix and resume whatever episode it was last one.
|
| We ditched cable forever ago, but I do find that I miss just
| watching 15 minutes of some random show like I used to. I
| usually forget about it until I'm at someone's house or a
| doctors office and catch a snippet of some random car show or
| cooking show.
| lucasoshiro wrote:
| > The solution to a lot of those is to just have a goto show
| that you watch.
|
| Cool! I have a list of movies to watch that I write from
| several recommendations sources, so I can try focus in
| watching instead of choosing. I can't say the same about
| music, I'm stuck for years hearing almost the same bands,
| which is kinda sad...
|
| > I usually forget about it until I'm at someone's house or a
| doctors office and catch a snippet of some random car show or
| cooking show.
|
| Another good point, watching something that I don't need to
| pay too much attention because I don't care about the
| subject, but can entertain me while I do other things... Here
| in Brazil that kind of shows that "we watch, we like but we
| don't know why" is a recurring joke, and we have three main
| ones: one about farming (Globo Rural), one about fishing
| (Pesca Alternativa) and one about trucks (Siga Bem
| Caminhoneiro)
| Suppafly wrote:
| >Here in Brazil that kind of shows that "we watch, we like
| but we don't know why" is a recurring joke, and we have
| three main ones: one about farming (Globo Rural), one about
| fishing (Pesca Alternativa) and one about trucks (Siga Bem
| Caminhoneiro)
|
| Are those public access type shows that are meant to be
| somewhat educational?
| massysett wrote:
| > I can't say the same about music, I'm stuck for years
| hearing almost the same bands, which is kinda sad...
|
| I like SiriusXM for this. I'm often finding new channels to
| listen to, and once I pick a channel I don't have to pick
| out songs.
|
| Apple Music has some features that can work similarly, such
| as radio stations (though a lot of theirs are really more
| like podcasts) or they have lots of playlists of
| recommended hits from different genres and you can shuffle
| them.
| butlike wrote:
| WHY is there not an "I'm feeling lucky" button for streaming
| services. Akin to "give me anything," though, I suspect the
| answer is the more time spent scrolling, the less data has to
| be streamed over the wire, so it's cheaper.
| randomdata wrote:
| More likely it is the inverse: Selecting a random video at
| scale is the costly problem.
|
| You can certainly fake it as a workaround. For example,
| you'll notice that "I'm feeling lucky" on Google simply
| follows the first search result. Streaming services could
| take what is already computed as the first result on the
| "Home" page and use that, for example.
|
| But at that point why not just click on the first video?
| Unlike Google, which doesn't give you much until you enter a
| search query, all of the streaming services I know of have
| already given you your "lucky" matches by the time a "I'm
| feeling lucky button" could be presented. Two buttons side-
| by-side that do the exact same thing doesn't offer much.
| rubslopes wrote:
| I hadn't watched actual television for years. Then, in a visit
| to my parents house, I randomly got to watch a band in a
| talkshow that later became a band that I love.
| archon810 wrote:
| What I am really missing is a "Play random episode" or
| "Randomize episodes" button on TV shows. I want to just flip on
| Seinfeld or Family Guy and watch random episodes, not in order.
| Such a missed opportunity for Netflix, etc.
| ksynwa wrote:
| Jellyfin has this. Very nice feature for comedy shows.
| langcss wrote:
| Sitcoms solve this. Just watch your favourite one again.
| slig wrote:
| For Seinfeld fans, there's one site streaming it 24/7:
| WatchSeinfeld.net.
| xk_id wrote:
| How strange, I'm the complete opposite. I'd never go back to
| letting corporates dictate how I engage with content; I even
| avoid recommender algorithms for the same reason. Being able to
| choose is so valuable to me.
| llm_trw wrote:
| >I'd never go back to letting corporates dictate how I engage
| with content
|
| You do realize that the search function is literally that?
| 1-6 wrote:
| It just needs upvote and downvote buttons and it would be
| perfect.
| al_borland wrote:
| What would that do?
|
| It seems flipping away is effectively a downvote, stating to
| watch is effectively an upvote. I'm not sure why we feel like
| everything needs to be actively voted on these days.
| shprd wrote:
| Really cool with great execution.
|
| Out of curiosity, I'd love to know more:
|
| - how the backend look like?
|
| - Are the channels are based on a static pool of videos by
| category?
|
| - Is there a "schedule" for a channel or picked at random?
| hadisafa wrote:
| - There is no backend, just html, css, and js
|
| - yes channels are based on categories(science, travel,
| documentaries, etc.)
|
| - yes there is a schedule, each video is scheduled to play at a
| certain time, so everyone is watching the same exact thing.
| brandon272 wrote:
| I love that this is a small amount of plain html and js, as I
| think the instinct for a lot of folks these days in creating
| this would have been to invest a lot of time in using the
| frameworks du jour.
| shprd wrote:
| Well done. Do you've plans for further development to grow
| this?
| hadisafa wrote:
| Definitely yes! Will add more features very soon.
| wooly_bully wrote:
| Two requests!
|
| 1. unique urls per channel so I can send it to a friend and
| say "check this out" 2. up + down keys for changing channels
| mayormcmatt wrote:
| Also really enjoyed it and echo these execution questions.
| tambourine_man wrote:
| You're showing your age there, hadisafa, with that static
| simulation :)
|
| Awesome work.
| frabjoused wrote:
| Awesome! But please remove the static fuzz it's really
| unpleasant.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| It's unpleasant because of the repeating patterns, IMHO. If it
| actually looked like NTSC or PAL snow it'd be quite nifty.
|
| That's probably one of those things that's harder to generate
| dynamically than it sounds like it would be, though. Perlin
| noise might be the right approach.
| georgeecollins wrote:
| This hooked me right away! I wish it had pause though because I
| discovered a show I wanted to watch and had to work. :(
| prmoustache wrote:
| you can record it though. OBS Studio becomes your VCR.
| hadisafa wrote:
| you can copy the video id (below the controls) and watch it
| later on youtube
| qingcharles wrote:
| Is there a reason it's not a direct link? I just right-
| clicked "Search Google for..." but still...
| mrkramer wrote:
| Are those livestreams or videos? They seem like videos but if
| they would be livestreams it would be cool if you could speak to
| a livestream and then it would speech to text type it in the
| streamer's chatbox.
| hadisafa wrote:
| These are just youtube videos but they are synced so everyone
| is watching the same thing at the same time.
| mrkramer wrote:
| I like UIs like this when just one thing is in the focus....I
| think few years ago here on HN someone did something like
| this but for Twitch; where you could switch back and forth
| between live streamers which had only 1 viewer. This format
| is definitely good for fast and easy discovery.
| bob1029 wrote:
| This is what makes the experience for me. You can tell
| someone "check out channel 12" and you'll both be watching
| the same thing just like we used to do.
| ProllyInfamous wrote:
| Yo Peter, just out Channel 9!
|
| _[It 's the best exam, kind of looks like Anne]_
|
| --Office Space (1999), the movie which inspired me to drop
| out of graduate school and become an electrician
| asdfkhafs wrote:
| I worked at Google ~ 2010 and I distinctly remember playing with
| a TV like experience like this that Youtube was working on (it
| was part of the Google TV efforts at the time). I don't remember
| if it made it to the public but it's probably in the large
| graveyard of cool products Google killed.
| petejodo wrote:
| So neat! I've been thinking of something similar to this where
| content creators would join their content to form channels in the
| original sense of the word and users would browse much like how
| they would on a normal TV
| 93po wrote:
| this is phenomenal, i love it, it genuinely feels like flipping
| TV channels. really excellent work!
| hadisafa wrote:
| Thank you :)
| metadat wrote:
| This is cool and really well done, I'm kinda blown away. Would
| love to hear from the creator on what inspired them and how they
| designed and made it retro yet also minimal and so smooth. It's
| been awhile since I saw something so well polished!
|
| Imagine if it also included to an index channel like the old
| Cable TV Guide programming schedule screen, with the blue
| background and time slot cells. Some versions of this even had a
| PIP (Picture-in-Picture) sort of capability.
|
| E.g. https://i.redd.it/ygxao2bj0jz81.jpg
| kajecounterhack wrote:
| +1 would love to read a writeup about how this was made. Very
| cool.
| lukas099 wrote:
| This is awesome! How are the videos being chosen? Without any
| monetization, I guess we shouldn't expect anything more than a
| loop of the same videos, right?
| hadisafa wrote:
| The videos are hand-picked and are scheduled so everyone is
| watching the same thing at the same time.
| lukas099 wrote:
| I guess what I'm getting at is, we shouldn't expect this
| hand-picking to continue indefinitely, since this isn't a
| paid service. I'm guessing the playlists will start to loop
| before too long?
| hadisafa wrote:
| This is still an experiment at the moment, we'll figure it
| out.
| lukas099 wrote:
| Cool. Even if it never updates, I think it's awesome.
| Thanks for building and releasing it.
| tobiasbischoff wrote:
| This is awesome since it removes decision fatigue completely. It
| turns YT into a TikTok with quality content. Great.
| slazaro wrote:
| I'd echo the sentiment that this is amazing, and that a TV guide
| would be awesome.
|
| I'd also suggest maybe adding the channel names (like the comment
| you posted here) to the app itself (although i think it's cool
| when it's unnamed and you get the old-school feeling of channels
| just being numbers).
|
| Also, I'd love to have permalinks for the channels. Not for the
| individual videos themselves, but just a link that when sharing
| would bring somebody else to the same channel you're watching
| right now.
|
| Another thing, although probably outside your control, is that I
| use a Firefox extension called "SoundFixer" that I use to force
| the youtube audio to mono (since a lot of channels are annoying
| to me using headphones, they pan the audio sources too hard
| left/right and it's super distracting), but it doesn't seem to
| work on this website, probably because of the way they're
| embedded. I don't know if this can be changed somehow, or have a
| mode to force mono audio (which would be also oldschool like old
| TVs with one speaker only!). It's probably too niche and hard to
| do though.
|
| Also I don't seem to find any volume control except mute?
| hadisafa wrote:
| Thank you for the feedback, I'll see what I can do regarding
| the mono audio issue, and I'll try to add more features as soon
| as possible.
| myself248 wrote:
| You can probably do the audio fix systemwide with EasyEffects.
| Kiro wrote:
| > since a lot of channels are annoying to me using headphones,
| they pan the audio sources too hard left/right and it's super
| distracting
|
| I find this interesting. Are you oversensitive? I've never even
| considered that this could be an issue. Do you experience the
| same problem with other things like music and games?
| eCa wrote:
| Not the parent, but with similar view on panned audio. If
| it's music where it's done on purpose, no problem. But
| talking with audio in one ear? I'm out. Not sure why exactly,
| but it's very jarring.
|
| For me, it's one of the worst audio quality issues a video
| can have.
| opan wrote:
| If you have mpv+yt-dlp set up you can fix this with an
| audio filter to mix to mono. mpv --audio-
| channels=mono 'urlhere'
|
| Somewhat related, I've used
| --vf=lavfi="hflip"
|
| to fix videos which are annoyingly mirrored to avoid
| copyright. You could also bind these options to keys in mpv
| to use on the fly. Some videos will only mirror some parts
| of their footage.
|
| Another fun one I bind in input.conf
| ctrl+shift+r cycle_values video-rotate "90" "180" "270" "0"
|
| Lets me rotate the video. I sometimes also just open a web
| image in mpv and rotate it like that to avoid tilting my
| head.
|
| I also have these binds for unbalanced audio, mainly used
| with 5.1 audio to sound better on headphones or stereo
| speakers, and the \ bind one seems to make normal stuff
| slightly louder also, so sometimes I hit it when I don't
| wanna turn up my speaker knob for one video.
| \ af toggle lavfi=[dynaudnorm=f=100] |
| af toggle lavfi=loudnorm
| brightball wrote:
| This is incredible and I want this on my TV, hooked up to my
| remote for exactly this experience.
| gowld wrote:
| Need a larger "static" sprite so it's not obviously a sprite.
| OwseiWT wrote:
| Maybe an atlas, or a selection of (larger) sprites to choose
| from, displayed in random order
| energy123 wrote:
| Feels way better without the likes, comments, ads and
| recommendations.
| CTDOCodebases wrote:
| Awesome. Now I can just flip between channels constantly. "Doom
| scrolling" the kids call it.
| jprd wrote:
| Well done, bravo!
| hadisafa wrote:
| Thank you.
| mncharity wrote:
| TIL alternative front-ends are a thing.[1]
|
| I wonder what an alternative commercial culture might look like,
| to enable a monetized FRAND ecosystem of UI diversification and
| evolution.
|
| [1] https://github.com/mendel5/alternative-front-ends
| silisili wrote:
| In Brave, even disabling ad blocker, all I get is static on all
| 12. Did we kill it?
|
| *edit - oops, I have an extension to stop autoplaying html5
| videos. Disabling that did the trick.
| odo1242 wrote:
| It does take much longer than I expected to load (~15 seconds),
| but it does work for me
| Baljhin wrote:
| Similar experience using Firefox. I don't have extensions or
| userscripts specifically blocking html5, but I'll check my
| user.js settings.
|
| Til then, still getting the static.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| I see channels 1-12 = static. The status of each says Unstarted.
|
| Same experience with a different browser. Also same after
| shifting location.
| noboostforyou wrote:
| Wow this is really cool! Such a simple idea but very well
| executed and definitely hits the nostalgia factor too. As others
| have mentioned, I do miss the "stress-free-ness" of not having to
| pick a specific content to watch and how everyone is getting the
| same stream at the same time.
| katspaugh wrote:
| This is amazing! I want this on my TV as the default firmware!
| hadisafa wrote:
| Thank you!
| complianceowl wrote:
| Absolutely love this.
| Eduard wrote:
| even the mainstreaminess is well-captured
| gramakri2 wrote:
| Incredibly well done! Great execution
| lnauta wrote:
| I love this! This is how I want to watch stuff sometimes, very
| relaxing to take away all the functionality and (mental) noise
| that comes with it. Thanks.
| hliyan wrote:
| In a similar vein: https://radio.garden
| _sidewalkchalk_ wrote:
| this is great but I wish I could customize or disable the
| flashing between channel changes, it's really strobe effectish
| when changing quickly and hard on my eyes
| 999900000999 wrote:
| This is amazing. Let's hope youtube doesn't block it.
|
| I already pay for YT Red and would love this to be an official
| feature.
| timnetworks wrote:
| What a different experience than default UI. Are you making the
| source for this public, and/or is it based on an existing
| project?
| hadisafa wrote:
| There is no backend, just plain html, css and js. The source is
| public.
| strangecyan wrote:
| Amazing! Are you generating the list.json and just pushing
| new data when it's due to run out? Or is there some logic
| that loops it?
| nexuist wrote:
| Hey, this is great! Could you make it so clicking on the video ID
| in the bottom right corner opens the full video in a new tab? It
| would be nice to be able to like / save the whole video for
| later. Kinda like DVR.
| perryizgr8 wrote:
| So amazing and so well executed. Brings a tear to my eye. I'd
| love this app on my tv. I hate deciding what to watch.
| HL33tibCe7 wrote:
| This is the kind of brilliant idea that seems so completely
| obvious in hindsight that it's hard to believe no-one has done it
| before
| Nicholas_C wrote:
| Encountering this reminds me of the earlier days of the
| internet when finding novel things like this was a common
| occurrence. Reminds me of something you'd find using
| StumbleUpon.
| theGnuMe wrote:
| [delayed]
| milkers wrote:
| I attempted a similar one 3 years ago actually
| (https://tv.istasyon.app). It was a weekend project and I left
| it as is since then.
| cryptonector wrote:
| Oh no.
|
| (This is great. Just... it's too easy to get lost in this!)
| ben_ wrote:
| Very cool, I like the old school feel of watching whatever is on.
| That said I immediately noticed the lack of volume control, which
| IMO is essential.
| hkdobrev wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/tv used to be this, but they closed it
| down.
| smusamashah wrote:
| This is perfect. Can it be customized (with custom channels and
| schedules)?
|
| I was looking for exactly this to control my (and my kid's) TV
| habbits. My TV is only for YouTube. Everything we like watching
| is on Youtube.
|
| But with remote in hand, it NEVER STOPS. We (and my kid) keep
| jumping from one video to another. When I watched TV as a kid, I
| only had to be in-front of TV on a schedule. I would be doing
| something else in other times.
|
| THIS is the YouTube TV that I need.
| mrweasel wrote:
| This is awesome, it really gives you the feeling of flipping
| through channels and stopping up and just watch something random
| that you might not have otherwise.
|
| Much of YouTubes potential is pretty much wasted, because of the
| monetization policy. It permeates the platform, even if you're a
| "Premium" subscriber. Rather than optimize for "engagement", it
| would be nice, even if it was a Premium feature, to be able to
| say: "I want to watch content that will help improve my health,
| teach me to become a better developer or "On Friday evening, I
| want long format retro computing content".
| SirMaster wrote:
| What about commercials?
| shafyy wrote:
| This is amazing! It brings back old school feelings. Just turn it
| on and let it run in the background. The limited choice is sooo
| freeing.
| willband wrote:
| To everyone saying this needs this feature or that feature: it
| really doesn't, it's perfect as it is. Please don't complicate it
| OP!
| callamdelaney wrote:
| If youtube had channels you'd need a TV license to watch it.
| jagged-chisel wrote:
| In the UK. I'm sure the US would create something similar but
| more obnoxious.
| jodacola wrote:
| Goodness. I never realized how nostalgic it would feel to flip
| channels. Your project took me all the way back to being a kid in
| the 90s and clicking through channels on the TV at my
| grandparents' house after school.
|
| I love it when I unexpectedly encounter something that turns on
| the nostalgia in such a deep way. Awesome project.
|
| Do I love it because of the nostalgia, or is there something
| novel here worth exploring further?
| sonofaragorn wrote:
| Loved this. Would it be possible to add subtitles?
| qwertox wrote:
| This blew my mind, it's such a different experience. Currently
| watching the music channel (8, _The Lumineers - Full Performance
| (Live on KEXP)_ ).
|
| Since the author is reading here, one feature request: Please put
| a volume slider on it and also make a mouse wheel scroll on any
| part of the page change the volume.
|
| I think it's the lack of timeshift which triggers me so much,
| since it's a somewhat standard feature on TVs. No way to pause
| makes me a bit anxious. I have a bad habit of nesting YT videos,
| where I pause one, watch another, pause that one, watch another,
| when it finishes I go back to the previously paused one and so on
| until I end up watching the first video to the end.
|
| Theoretically you could add a per-client timeshift feature.
| colecut wrote:
| If you really like a video and want to watch it later, it
| displayed the video ID.
|
| I really like the no pausing / everyone being in sync aspect,
| it's maybe the best feature
| archon810 wrote:
| Why not add a link to the video instead of just the id?
| pineaux wrote:
| Because you want it to be a hurdle. The hurdle nudges you
| to not go to the YouTube experience and stay in the YouTube
| tv experience. So to the creator: the way you did it now is
| perfect!
| krabat wrote:
| plz add subtitles, if they exist
|
| Brilliant - and if the channels are actually broad in content and
| varied... Yeah!
| alericbdent wrote:
| Great stuff, I really like it! As others mentioned, channel
| names, a channel list or a guide would help. Also, if you're
| looking for new channel ideas: (british) game shows or talk
| shows!
| rcarmo wrote:
| This is mesmerizing. I zapped twice, landed on an interesting
| channel and... Moved the window to another monitor and full-
| screened it. Well done.
| slazaro wrote:
| I have an extra suggestion: Maybe some keyboard key mapping, like
| up/down for switching the channel. I'm imagining having this
| perma-running in a small PC connected to a TV and the small
| wireless remotes have mappings for the arrow keys and up/down for
| channel would be perfect for that. (maybe other mappings as well)
| newsbinator wrote:
| Seconding the keyboard mapping. Up/Down or Left/Right would be
| helpful.
|
| I love this OP. Well done!
| bprasanna wrote:
| Please make this an Amazon Fire TV Stick App! Would love to
| simply switch on and keep doing my work.
| notThrowingAway wrote:
| This is just delightful. What would make it perfect is the white
| noise that you get while switching channels.
| andyfosh11 wrote:
| this is the best thing ive seen in a long time! instant pmf
| justanotherjoe wrote:
| This is brilliant. Great for my old TV where browsing youtube (or
| the internet) is a chore.
| bni wrote:
| boomer.tube is not yet taken
| quadrature wrote:
| I love this, it would be perfect for my parents. The algorithm
| tends to send them down weird rabbit holes and echo chambers.
| seydor wrote:
| This is what will replace tiktok: Television. Having to scroll
| down or swipe is just so tiresome, it leaves marks on the screen
| and ... who cares if i have to wait for a crap video to end ,
| maybe there s something good after that. We are going to come
| full circle
| popcalc wrote:
| I reckon TikTok will just scroll for you.
| nashashmi wrote:
| It seems like random videos are being played from many years ago
| and/or getting live feeds of some stations. Does everyone get the
| same selection of channel feeds?
| hadisafa wrote:
| Yes everyone is watching the same content at the same time just
| like an actual TV channel.
| baobabKoodaa wrote:
| This reminds me of Neverthink tv, which basically did the same
| thing except (recycling youtube videos into "tv channels") with
| heavy manual curation of content.
| mudiadamz wrote:
| I know it's no way possible to add any Hollywood Movies, but if
| it's possible it would just look like a real TV
| atum47 wrote:
| cannot get past UNSTARTED or buffering... Am I doing something
| wrong?
| tumidpandora wrote:
| This is simply awesome, but apologies, I don't follow, what's the
| source for all the content?
| hadisafa wrote:
| The content is hand picked, no algorithms :)
| ProllyInfamous wrote:
| Incredible. Thanks for your dedication; today's reaction
| should either inspire you, or _result in a Cease and Desist_
| (I hope it 's just the former).
| herrvogel- wrote:
| I would love to see this with my feed. Like personalized but
| always running. Seems like a good alternative to clickbait
| thumbnails and titles.
| wuliwong wrote:
| I love this. I've often thought about this type of interface for
| youtube and also beyond. Also, the same thing with audio,
| bringing a terrestrial radio type of experience to internet based
| audio content. Very cool to see someone taking actual steps and
| not just day dreaming. :)
| jeffhuys wrote:
| Also works on localhost, run these commands:
|
| `wget -r -np -k https://ytch.xyz` - downloads the website
| recursively
|
| `wget https://ytch.xyz/list.json` - download the list of what
| every channel plays and will play (I'm not sure if this ever
| really changes. The real website adds ?t=<time since epoch in
| ms>)
|
| Then for instance run `python3 -m http.server` and visit
| localhost:8000
|
| :)
| hadisafa wrote:
| When a channel reaches the last video, list.json will be
| fetched to get an updated list of videos.
| jeffhuys wrote:
| I see that you're the creator, I absolutely love what you
| made :)
|
| I'm curious, do you generate that list on-the-fly, based on
| the current time/day? Or is it more static?
| newswasboring wrote:
| How are you making this list? The thing I surprisingly miss
| about tv is that what to watch was someone else's problem.
| YouTube overwhelms me with choices, TV was simple, I liked
| maybe 4-5 channels and (I later realized) I was implicitly
| trusting them to have something good on.
|
| If I was allowed to dream, I imagine a world where that
| specialization is brought back. People curating a feed, which
| was on average good.
| rnewme wrote:
| JSON looks like tinydb
| apineda wrote:
| I've put it on for 2 hours now, this hits the spot.
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| It's surprising I've never heard of anything like this before!
| domatic1 wrote:
| Just like https://80s.myretrotvs.com/
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| This is genius.
|
| Keeping the number of channels limited (<50?) is important to the
| experience, I think.
| IamLoading wrote:
| Funny, how we are slowly attracted towards the thing that we were
| planning to revolutionize away from.
|
| 1. Cable is expensive, pretty much majority of streamming
| services bumped up their $$$, if you add 3-4 of them, the cost
| will be the same as cable.
|
| 2. When i used this, cant lie. I missed the nostalgia.
| sambeau wrote:
| I thought this was stupid.
|
| Then I tried it. It's awesome. I can't tell you why, but there's
| something about it that, I guess, has been programmed into my
| brain over decades.
|
| Great work.
| emiliobumachar wrote:
| Very cool concept, congratulations!
|
| I do have two bugs to report.
|
| 1) I only see static until I fiddle with the mute button, which
| makes the image work besides working as expected. As soon as I
| change channel, all static again until I hit mute. I'm on Chrome
| over Windows using a corporate network.
|
| 2) The info button shows a reasonable email address, and, under
| "Support", the string
| "bc1q4s2f6df2cqa8stenwp8y5tlmd5pywy8dwqqxvh". I have no idea what
| to do with that string.
| hadisafa wrote:
| Thank you for the feedback.
|
| 1) The static shows when the video is buffering, maybe it's a
| slow network problem?
|
| 2) The string is a bitcoin address :)
| andrewstuart wrote:
| Add an "upload video" link and YouTube suddenly has competition.
| m348e912 wrote:
| Maybe you realize this (or not), but each channel is comprised
| of YouTube videos streaming from Youtube. This website is a
| very well done, clever front-end. But it doesn't host or stream
| any video.
|
| Copy the ID of any of the channels and you can bring up the
| source video on YouTube by adding it to the YouTube URL after
| the ?.
| fawnzworth wrote:
| This scratched the right itch for me. Deciding what to watch is
| so difficult and this limits options in just the right way. It
| really does feel like TV. Good job!
| alonsonic wrote:
| This is such a fun idea, great execution too.
|
| In a way I feel TikTok taps into this type of TV-like discovery,
| where you are not overloaded with options but instead just swipe
| through channels until you find something you want to stop and
| watch.
| HugoDias wrote:
| Why I f*cking love this? Congrats.
| golergka wrote:
| Thanks, I love it. When I open YouTube homepage, I often have
| decision paralysis, but jumping right in the middle of a video
| glues my ADHD brain in.
|
| Also, this really highlights how better is modern YouTube than TV
| that I used to watch as a kid.
| owjofwjeofm wrote:
| video speed controller extension is automatically speeding up the
| video for me and I can't change it back on this website (due to
| the invisible divs covering everything I think)
| lagniappe wrote:
| How do I disable the static effect between channel changes?
| hadisafa wrote:
| For now you can't, but i'll be adding more features soon.
| lagniappe wrote:
| I noticed you have a BTC address listed. I showed your app to
| my friends and one of them who doesn't have an HN account
| asked if you have a "Solana" address.
| saramago wrote:
| The quality of the steams are excellent. I would love to know how
| it works so well with no buffering and latency. I like it.
| Spacemolte wrote:
| This is great! I wonder what the best way to get this up on a TV,
| preferably with control of the channels through the remote.
| andsko wrote:
| Did something similar years ago for tech-related topics:
| https://old.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/l3kel1/tech_tv/
|
| Didn't get much love from the internet but it was featured on a
| popular site, along with other similar TVs:
| https://www.makeuseof.com/fun-streaming-sites-for-a-tv-like-...
|
| Regarding the iframe, the YT controls. Someone has noted that it
| takes the TV experience away. I agree, but hiding the YT embedded
| UI is against TOS. Plus the UI already has sound control,
| subtitles, link to the video - features that others suggested
| here.
| CSMastermind wrote:
| There's something cool about knowing that other people are all
| watching the same thing at the same time. Sports are really the
| only thing that give that feel now a days.
| fusslo wrote:
| I watched right up until I heard a goddamn ad for manscape or
| dollar shave club or whatever the fuck
| lukko wrote:
| I love this! Criterion Channel has a similar sort of function - a
| single, continuous channel (called 24/7) that plays curated
| movies from their collection. Did you curate the list of channels
| / videos?
|
| Also, how is the noise generated? I know it's a tiny thing but it
| looks a bit repetitive / pseudorandom.
| pendar747 wrote:
| Love it! This is a brilliant example of how removing choice
| actually make the product so much better. If this was an app on a
| Apple TV I would actually use it
| aszantu wrote:
| my experience just got so much better lol, thanks!
| IAmNotACellist wrote:
| Thanks, I hate it
| frectonz wrote:
| Somebody finally made the Interdimensional Cable from Rick and
| Morty.
| marknutter wrote:
| I have nothing else to contribute to this conversation other than
| to say this is fucking amazing. Brilliant job, mate.
| 9erdelta wrote:
| radical, I love it.
| jordanlev wrote:
| This is so wonderful, thank you. Please don't change anything
| about it (except making the explanation of the channels available
| in the site's info panel)!
| c0mbonat0r wrote:
| remings me of https://90s.myretrotvs.com/
| eBombzor wrote:
| This is incredible, thanks for sharing
| SkittlesNTwix wrote:
| I love this. Please keep it running. I just bookmarked it in
| favorites.
| hondohondo wrote:
| Well done. Would this work on iOS natively through an app?
| r3vrse wrote:
| Neat! I have wondered how much of a foothold "retrograde" tech
| will take in the next 10-20 years.
|
| Decision fatigue, nostalgia, attenuation -- call it what you
| will. At some level we're tacitly acknowledging that the vast
| ocean of content and complexity we've created is beyond what is
| desirable or even healthy to effectively evaluate.
|
| A very modern malaise. Excuse the armchair philosophizing.
| stuxnet79 wrote:
| There's certainly a market for it among the older crowd, but
| for those who've spent their formative years consuming content
| in the Netflix / Youtube era ... you can't miss what you've
| never had. I do echo the decision fatigue complaint - there is
| simply too much content out there to meaningfully engage with.
| The downsides of living in such a connected world ...
| pineaux wrote:
| This is actually very untrue. It sound right but it's not. A
| lot of the younger crowd takes to analogue devices as bees to
| honey when they've had a chance to use it. Vinyl is a growth
| market. Tapes are being collected. Even film roll companies
| are experiencing year over year growth. Since their demise 10
| years earlier. I think it's because all these things are not
| "nothing" you can destroy them, lose them, sell them, buy
| them, own them, give them away, hold them, they are unique
| and hard to copy.
| FullstakBlogger wrote:
| > _At some level we 're tacitly acknowledging that the vast
| ocean of content and complexity we've created is beyond what is
| desirable or even healthy to effectively evaluate._
|
| I don't think there's enough _useful and organized_ information
| to evaluate. There 's no reason for everyone to be stuck in a
| vast ocean of content labeled with a handful of vague
| categories, except that that's just the way that someone
| decided to make it.
|
| If I want to figure out if I want to try a game, I can go to
| steam and watch a trailer, look at the tags, and still have no
| idea if the game is worth playing. How do I make a decision?
|
| If I just watch 3 minutes of a lets play, or a live stream, I
| can get an idea of what the game is like. This youtube channels
| thing is giving us exactly that experience.
|
| Opening a youtube video directly, on the other hand, is an
| entire ordeal. It's slow to load, takes up a bunch of ram, puts
| the video in your history and messes up the minigame of trying
| to micromanage the algorithm so you don't end up with bad
| recommendations. It's hard to just simply watch a few seconds
| of a bunch of videos to get a vibe.
|
| There's so much low hanging fruit in terms of content
| organization/discovery, it drives me insane that the experience
| is generally so bad, and getting worse.
|
| Clay Shirky gave a talk on this years ago (also I think it's a
| blog post) called "It's not information overload, it's filter
| failure". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LabqeJEOQyI
| unethical_ban wrote:
| The shared reality, the shared experience of hearing and seeing
| things at the same time as others are listening, creating
| content... Radio and TV and theater give this to us, where hyper
| individual on demand feeds break it.
|
| I hope society decides to retain some level of "over the air"
| information sharing that is synced.
|
| This is a neat idea.
| madrox wrote:
| Well done. My team built this at Disney six years ago when we
| were trying to solve content discovery problems. The problem with
| endless carousels of thumbnails is that it really doesn't draw
| you in. Sometimes you just need to drop people into content like
| it's channel surfing.
|
| Netflix tried something similar a few years ago, but in my
| opinion it missed a critical ingredient, which was dropping
| people into the middle of content at a compelling point.
|
| Really like the execution here. YouTube take note.
| newswasboring wrote:
| Can you give any insight into why these projects were canceled
| at Disney or Netflix?
| confused_boner wrote:
| could that be solved by finding and using the 'most replayed'
| mark timestamps for each video and using that to find the best
| start points for each video
| a1o wrote:
| Uhm, only if this mark doesn't get affect by it being
| streamed here or it was be less relevant later.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| Part of the issue with endless carousels of thumbnails now is
| that the thumbnails are almost invariable clickbait now. What
| will I actually get? I have no idea. Even YouTube channels I
| genuinely enjoy use thumbnails which are entirely different
| from the actual content. I suppose sensationalism has taken
| over.
| didip wrote:
| This is very nice! Improvement requests:
|
| * Add channel information so that folks can bookmark good stuff
| on YT.
|
| * Add keyboard shortcuts for ease of channel surfing.
|
| And then folks can buy one of those retro TV bezel for even
| deeper immersion.
| newswasboring wrote:
| Damn, I realized the thing I like the most about this is I can be
| disappointed. There can legitimately be "nothing on", and then I
| can go and do something else to come back later. I think the most
| apparent way algorithms have messed with my head is teaching me
| there is always something on. So I keep wasting sometimes upto an
| hour just to find something. In the end I end up watching
| something I had already seen anyways.
| lokimedes wrote:
| Take my money, so cool!
| typon wrote:
| This is brilliant
| efsavage wrote:
| As someone who grew up with a handful of channels and no
| recording or TV guide besides the one that came in the paper,
| this experience is pretty accurate* , so kudos on the execution,
| but in contrast with some other comments, it is not nostalgic in
| any positive way. I will gladly take clickbait thumbnails and
| titles over wasting time flipping through garbage.
|
| * It's missing the part where you get your little sister to hold
| the antenna in a certain position so you can get a clear picture.
| jaffa2 wrote:
| Can u make it use only your subscribed channels?
| KoolKat23 wrote:
| This is awesome, wish it worked on my firestick.
| lazylion2 wrote:
| Great idea, beautifully executed!
|
| was annoying that i couldn't find the source of the the video (i
| know you provide the id, but still), had to remove a couple of
| elements to be able to rightclick the video and copy the url at
| timestamp
| milkers wrote:
| Agreed, it is so clean and simple what @hadisafa did! In my
| version (https://tv.istasyon.app/) I made it more obvious
| instead of hiding title etc., I thought it would be more honest
| to the actual creator with a ref back.
| willhackett wrote:
| I... I think I love it.
| y-curious wrote:
| Just gotta say, this is incredible. If this was an app on my
| "smart" TV I would use it more than the YT app.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| There used to be reddit.tv for this, but it would start
| everything from 0s
| maxglute wrote:
| Excellent execution. Need some green volume bars.
| th3w3bmast3r wrote:
| This is really slick!
| sev wrote:
| This is awesome. How come we never see ads?
| milkers wrote:
| I've also noticed that when I did my version of this app more
| than 3 years ago (https://tv.istasyon.app). Somehow the ads are
| limited or gone if you play videos as embedded. At some point,
| I thought YouTube had fixed that but seemingly not. The easiest
| way to do it is to find the YouTube video URL and replace that
| part `/watch?v=` with `/embed/`, then voila!
| klaussilveira wrote:
| I'll never understood why Netflix, Hulu and others haven't done
| something similar to this. It's a much more natural way of
| "finding out" what you want to see. Create a bunch of channels
| based on existing tags or categories, have thing playing on a
| schedule, and allow me to zap through.
|
| Bonus points if you allow me to zap as efficiently as I was able
| to back when we had analog TVs and cable. I was the master
| zapper, zapping through hundreds of channels in seconds. Just
| buffer the adjacent channels and calculate the maximum input
| latency.
| rck404 wrote:
| Instagram tried this with IGTV. I actually liked the format too
| but they did shutdown due to lack of interest
| https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/20/17484436/instagram-igtv-v...
| Thebroser wrote:
| I used to love this chrome extension back in the day, unsure if
| it still works but same idea:
|
| https://ottoplay.tv/
| mholm wrote:
| My guess would be that the primary users would keep it on as
| background noise in some room or another, and it would take a
| significant amount of data for comparatively little benefit.
| rickreynoldssf wrote:
| There was a startup called RheoTV started by ex-Apple people
| that did exactly that and it didn't work out.
|
| There was also something called NeverThink that had the same
| fate.
| Separo wrote:
| I don't know why I love this.
| rvense wrote:
| It's a pretty good idea, but how are the videos picked? I flipped
| through all the channels and 11/12 was Americans talking (and the
| last one was sports). Would it be easy to be able to set the
| language?
| nashashmi wrote:
| Just got addicted to Ch 12 which is a bunch of interviews and
| talk shows. Never knew this was what I was missing to go off in
| the background at an isolated work place.
| nightpool wrote:
| This is really, really cool, but I'm a little disappointed that
| there's no credit for the channel / video you're watching when
| you click on the (i) icon--only a link to your own credit. I
| think if you're going to credit yourself, you have a moral
| obligation to credit the people who made the content you're
| highlighting as well.
| hadisafa wrote:
| The video id is on the bottom right.
| epanchin wrote:
| I've watched more YouTube today than I have cumulatively this
| month. A lovely thing.
| lofaszvanitt wrote:
| The worst thing about youtube is the discovery part. It's
| abysmal, an early 2000s derelict, a shitshow.
| rglover wrote:
| This is what YouTube TV should have been. Google is blowing it.
| They have an unlimited collection of high-quality content, for
| free, just begging to be organized into channels.
| gumby wrote:
| A physical selector dial for your faves would be nice.
|
| I remember we had a chunky dial that required a lot of force (for
| me as a little kid) to turn from channel to channel. It had a
| bunch of channels (a dozen?) but I think there were only two
| channels broadcasting. (My Dad bought a B&W TV for us to watch
| the moon landings)
| epanchin wrote:
| Please do a kids version!
| geepytee wrote:
| This is so cool, thank you for building this!
| EggsD wrote:
| One of the keys to success for this thing is not letting it
| become infested with advertisements.
| EggsD wrote:
| One of the keys to the success of this thing is not letting it
| become infested with advertisements. The desire to monetise will
| be almost irresistible.
| milkers wrote:
| I've built a similar thing 3 years ago -> https://tv.istasyon.app
| Your comments here are golden and congrats to @hadisafa for his
| clean and simple execution.
|
| My project was never used (except me and just my family) nor
| resurfaced on forums etc. but our choice of the same favicon
| touched me :)
|
| My concern for such a project was that I found using the content
| that others created without attributing the og creator a bit
| sketchy.
|
| P.S: It seems I leaked my app 10 months ago under another thread
| -> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37905024
| EggsD wrote:
| So, the content in this test is all TV production content as far
| as I can see. I reckon this would really hit it's strides once it
| was changing through content actually produced just for You Tube.
| arbol wrote:
| Mesmerising
| spamjavalin wrote:
| Don't add a thing - the purity is what makes this perfect.
| zebomon wrote:
| This is very cool! I've actually been working on something
| similar for some time as a feature on my website
| https://www.bingeclock.com. Can I ask if you've done something to
| minimize the number of banner ads Youtube pushes onto the screen?
| That has been a challenge for me and yours looks very clean!
| Awesome job!
| talliedthoughts wrote:
| This is a great idea, I'd love to be able to use it on my TV. It
| would be nice if it also supported changing the playback speed to
| 1.5x, 2x etc - the youtube player has this so I'm assuming it's
| possible.
| xyproto wrote:
| I wish the arrow keys and/or scroll wheel could be used to change
| channels too.
| trinsic2 wrote:
| Is there a way to embed this? I use Obsidian and want to capture
| this for historical sake and when I want to go back to it I can
| search for it on my hard drive.
|
| Really cool idea btw.
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