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Show HN: Simple Minimal YouTube Alternative Player (no ads...with powers)

beta.echotu.be

61 pointsorizens53 comments

mpv[1] can utilize youtube-dl[2] in the background for playback, so that is on-the-fly downloaded video, with no ads, played as it was local video, hw acceleration and all.

[1]: https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv

[2]: https://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/

And it works not only with youtube but at plenty of other places as well.

I will have to check this out when I get the chance. I was deeply saddened when YouTube killed their "Feather beta" feature which presented a super-minimal version of the site with the intention of reducing load times on slower internet connections.

I wouldn't have thought a minimal interface is required for YouTube.

If your internet connection is too slow to handle a more detailed interface, how on earth is it going to cope with doing something like streaming video and sound?

I think the idea is barely. Thus the adverts and extra load hurt the experience too much. Consider that it might take some time to load the video, now add in the advert on top of that and it might no longer be worth it.

Yet the advert is what's paying for the video and the bandwidth.

I wonder if YT will begin inserting ads directly into the video file server side. If you download the file to watch elsewhere, you get the whole package. Viewers can skip the ads manually, or wait for someone to write a program to detect scene changes and hope to skip the ads automatically. Then we're back to the TIVO model.

I doubt they will do this because they serve custom ads to each user, and to split and merge video files is considerably less efficient than just loading different files.

Can't some video formats be concatenated? Something like this pipeline for serving the ad:

    cat $(select_ad_file $user) $video_file

I know ffmpeg can do that, i've never tried just using cat.

An additional reason for not serving ads in the video file is that their ad clients probably want to know if someone watched it or not. By loading ad as a file associated with the ad client it's easy to verify that someone watched the ad and didn't just click out after 1s, etc.

Not sure why you're being downvoted when that's entirely true; knowing what audience has actually engaged with your ad can be just as (if not moreso) valuable as an engagement in the first place.

Speaking for myself: It's not the bandwidth, it's the slow, laggy, intrusive interface that causes me problems. I can play videos just fine, but videos and a mountain of bad JS can make any of my computers crawl. Additionally, it just looks terrible. I'm here to watch a video, not look at videos that you incorrectly seem to think I'd be interested in.

Bingo. I don't care for the comments or any of the 'related' clickbait videos.

http://youtube.com/tv

there's the closest thing you'll get to an official lightweight youtube site.

You can always use custom filters in your adblocker to make lightweight youtube experience for yourself.

Isn't this more of an alternative browser, as the playback uses YouTube's own HTML5 player?

hi @cr3ative. imho, it suppose to give an alternative experience to youtube's interface.

imho thats what he said

Looks like it's got some bugs preventing it from working.

You're loading the videos over HTTP while hosting your site on HTTPS which will result in the iframe being blocked. This is a security issue anyway and should be corrected.

Also looks like you're using localStorage and sessionStorage without checking to see if they're available.

hi @TrueDuality. I updated the code over the last hour - so probably those were the bugs. yes - currently it's hosted over http (github-pages) - however - it functions correctly without it. regarding localStorage - currently, I assume modern browsers are used - it works on Chrome (desktop - Mac, Windows / android). Thanks for the feedback.

Modern browsers can have no localStorage available too. See: https://gist.github.com/JohnAllsopp/1470989

Awesome app. A Grooveshark replacement for me.

I don't know if it too much to ask but Last.fm integration beyond just scrobbling can be nice. I have used an app belonging to Windows store which used to fetch full discography of searched artist from somewhere and show best YouTube video song next to every track.

One question: Are there benefits of signing in beside being able to save playlist?

Great work.

thanks. currently, benefits of sign-in is: load your youtube user playlists and play them. save a playlist is a work in progress

Slightly offtopic. Is there a way to watch youtube videos across different devices while preserving video location?

Use case: start watching conference videos or lectures on my phone, then move to the laptop then continue on the tablet, then back to the computer. Similarly to the way iBooks transparently preserves and syncs reading position across devices.

Use the website or first-party clients, it does that if you are logged in.

(not trying to be snarky, if you tend to use 3rd party clients you might not know)

Hmm.. I must be doing something wrong then. Logged in on my Chrome on Mac, watched a video, paused it. Closed tab, reloaded tab. The video plays from the beginning. Opened the same video on my iPhone, official youtube app. Plays from the beginning as well.

I guess I need to investigate this further. I didn't realize official google apps support this functionality because it's never worked for me. Thanks for mentioning it.

hi @tra3 currently, Echoes doesn't support playing a video from where it was recently paused. if more users request it - i'll add it.

That would be fantastic. Youtube API provides this information so it's definitely possible.

Are you logged in to a Google/YouTube account?

I sure am. In fact, I just logged in from a completely clean browser (Safari, that I dont use on this machine, so no adblock or third party scripts). When looking at a thumbnail of a previously viewed video I see the "progress bar" that indicates where I left off, but clicking on it, doesn't resume the video. It starts it from the beginning.

Whether it actually wants to work or not is another thing. Video place-saving seems to only work on longer videos - I think the shortest video I've seen that's saved my position was about 16 minutes long - and even then it can still just not work, just like how youtube constantly forgets my "watched" videos.

The page at 'https://orizens.github.io/echoes-ng2/#/' was loaded over HTTPS, but requested an insecure script 'http://www.youtube.com/iframe_api'. This request has been blocked; the content must be served over HTTPS.

hi. you should use http for now:

http://orizens.github.io/echoes-ng2

MotionBox is another alternative player - actually he calls it a video browser. Its Qt based: http://motionbox.handmade.network

On a related note, NewPipe on Android a simple stripped down youtube client.

Which is also free software, and available in FDroid. https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/NewPipe

No powers, but I've long loved the ads- and comment-free experience of quietube: http://quietube.com

Awesome! I'm surprised Google hasn't come up with a way of preventing this.

Btw - anyone know how to adjust the volume?

I also like the myTube app on Windows 10. It's the only Metro app I use.

I need G+ for this ? Skip.

If you want to play playlists from your youtube account - then - yes. Otherwise - g+ is not required.

Hm, since usage of playlists is available now through Google Account login and with G+ removed, is this somehow different in their API for 3rd party apps ?

G+ is Google Account. I'll change the sign-in button to display "Google Sign-in" so it won't confuse. thanks for the feedback.

I like the way you're responding and quickly putting action items into the pipeline.

Thanks

Interesting, I wonder when will youtube shut it down in a way or another...

Not sure what you're saying here. They're embedding Youtube videos which YT is perfectly fine with.

hi @Thomas_9. I'm using youtube's data api and player's api without any hacks. I actually following the api's rules and available api.

If it is basically youtube but you just remove ads, I tend to think they will react. But I admit this is a feeling more than a sure fact. I can't remember the name of the app that worked on top of a Google Api that was stopped in few hours...

I don't remove any ads - only static ads are displayed - no video "trailers" though.

They haven't shut down youtube-dl yet which allow downloads of only the audio track.

You can download the video as well, actually it does this by default, then strips out the audio (-x option). -k keeps the video file.

That's true, it doesn't download only the music track as my original wording implied.

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