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Show HN: If YouTube had actual channels
- HL33tibCe7 2y agoThis 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 2y agoEncountering 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 2y agoCable tv and even Amazon has “channels” for some YouTube stars.
- milkers 2y agoI attempted a similar one 3 years ago actually (https://tv.istasyon.app https://tv.istasyon.app). It was a weekend project and I left it as is since then.
- cryptonector 2y agoOh no. (This is great. Just... it's too easy to get lost in this!)
- alericbdent 2y agoGreat 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 2y agoThis is mesmerizing. I zapped twice, landed on an interesting channel and... Moved the window to another monitor and full-screened it. Well done.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- whoiscroberts 2y agoNow we need a TV Guide.
- jbobrow 2y agohttps://git.jonathanbobrow.com/YTCH-Guide/ https://git.jonathanbobrow.com/YTCH-Guide/
- callamdelaney 2y agoIf youtube had channels you'd need a TV license to watch it.
- jagged-chisel 2y agoIn the UK. I'm sure the US would create something similar but more obnoxious.
- spamjavalin 2y agoDon't add a thing - the purity is what makes this perfect.
- hadisafa 2y agoChannel 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 2y agoThis is what I was looking for, where did you see that info?
- hadisafa 2y agoI made the thing :)
- harshaxnim 2y agoMay be you could put it up in the site too
- edm0nd 2y agoThis is such a neat project that you made!
- anarcat 2y agoI think they built it. :)
- mxfh 2y agoLocal 58?
- ks2048 2y agoThis 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...
- hdlothia 2y agoThis is great, really smooth
- hadisafa 2y agoThank you!
- xyst 2y agoLove 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 2y agoThe 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 2y agoyeah when i noticed this, it blew my mind.
- hadisafa 2y agochannels are synced so everyone is watching the same exact content at the same time, just like TV.
- A_Duck 2y agoYep 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.
- dotnet00 2y ago>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.
- digging 2y ago> 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.
- SuperHeavy256 2y agoHaha this is really well engineered, it feels honestly like TV and not a cheap iframe embed
- DougWebb 2y agoI 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 2y agoGiven 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 2y agoI 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 2y agoWith 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 2y agoWe 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 2y agoI'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.
- racefan76 2y agoThis is neat! Feels just like old cable, the static transitions being a good touch.
- aroemers 2y agoPerhaps you like this nostalgic TV as well then: https://90s.myretrotvs.com https://90s.myretrotvs.com. It also uses Youtube as a source and plays uninterrupted like an old-school channel.
- djeastm 2y agoThis 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 2y agoAlso discussed on HN: - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36906022 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36906022 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25973955 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25973955
- racefan76 2y agoCan confirm, I like it.
- DougWebb 2y agoYou 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 2y agoI 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 2y agoThe channels are on a schedule, everyone is watching the same exact video at the same timestamp!
- EcommerceFlow 2y agoWow 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 2y agoAre 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.
- chadcmulligan 2y agoIts the discovery aspect I miss, even cable had channels you could look at shows of a type - scyfi or Arena etc. Even free to air had reliable shows pre picked for you that you could rely on being decent. Now there's a fire hose of shows on Netflix, some good, some bad finding something to watch is now a task.
- theginger 2y agoIs there an open source code repo for this?
- OwseiWT 2y agoBy what I understood there's only front-end code. Ignoring the file server, of course.
- justanotherjoe 2y agoCan't you just embed the youtube videos?
- OwseiWT 2y agoYeah, the site uses an iframe to youtube Perhaps the ideia of a back-end was the video selection, so everyone watches the same videos. But there could also be a video list in the source code, or maybe, but less likely, a deterministic usage of yt's algorithm
- yadaeno 2y agoI’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 2y agoThere'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 https://github.com/vexorian/dizquetv
- ibizaman 2y agoI know of https://ersatztv.org 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 2y agoFor 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 2y agoI download videos and schedule them as channels with https://ersatztv.org/ 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 2y agoThis is great, but the static doesn't seem random? It just bugged me a tiny bit. Otherwise, I love this.
- soneil 2y agoIt looks like the static is tiled. So it's random (enough) within a tile, but you can perceive the tiling.
- TomK32 2y agoMust 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 2y agoOh 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 2y agoWish it had video settings like captions, video quality etc
- lucasoshiro 2y agoThis 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!
- rubslopes 2y agoI 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.
- Almondsetat 2y agoWhy can't you pick randomly from your home page and let auto play do its thing?
- Mathnerd314 2y agoYeah, for me loading the homepage and clicking the top-left video is almost an automatic reflex at this point.
- lucasoshiro 2y agoThe 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 2y ago
- 1-6 2y agoIt just needs upvote and downvote buttons and it would be perfect.
- al_borland 2y agoWhat 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 2y agoReally 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 2y ago- 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.
- shprd 2y agoWell done. Do you've plans for further development to grow this?
- hadisafa 2y agoDefinitely yes! Will add more features very soon.
- brandon272 2y agoI 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.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- wooly_bully 2y agoTwo 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 2y ago
- tambourine_man 2y agoYou're showing your age there, hadisafa, with that static simulation :) Awesome work.
- frabjoused 2y agoAwesome! But please remove the static fuzz it's really unpleasant.
- CamperBob2 2y agoIt'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 2y agoThis hooked me right away! I wish it had pause though because I discovered a show I wanted to watch and had to work. :(
- prmoustache 2y agoyou can record it though. OBS Studio becomes your VCR.
- hadisafa 2y agoyou can copy the video id (below the controls) and watch it later on youtube
- qingcharles 2y agoIs there a reason it's not a direct link? I just right-clicked "Search Google for..." but still...
- mrkramer 2y agoAre 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 2y agoThese are just youtube videos but they are synced so everyone is watching the same thing at the same time.
- mrkramer 2y agoI 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 2y agoThis 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 2y agoYo 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 2y agoI 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 2y agoSo 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 2y agothis is phenomenal, i love it, it genuinely feels like flipping TV channels. really excellent work!
- hadisafa 2y agoThank you :)
- dangsux 2y ago[dead]
- metadat 2y agoThis 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 https://i.redd.it/ygxao2bj0jz81.jpg
- kajecounterhack 2y ago+1 would love to read a writeup about how this was made. Very cool.
- lukas099 2y agoThis 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 2y agoThe videos are hand-picked and are scheduled so everyone is watching the same thing at the same time.
- lukas099 2y agoI 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?
- tobiasbischoff 2y agoThis is awesome since it removes decision fatigue completely. It turns YT into a TikTok with quality content. Great.
- slazaro 2y agoI'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 2y agoThank 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 2y agoYou can probably do the audio fix systemwide with EasyEffects.
- Kiro 2y ago> 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 2y agoNot 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.
- gowld 2y agoNeed a larger "static" sprite so it's not obviously a sprite.
- OwseiWT 2y agoMaybe an atlas, or a selection of (larger) sprites to choose from, displayed in random order
- energy123 2y agoFeels way better without the likes, comments, ads and recommendations.
- CTDOCodebases 2y agoAwesome. Now I can just flip between channels constantly. "Doom scrolling" the kids call it.
- jprd 2y agoWell done, bravo!
- hadisafa 2y agoThank you.
- mncharity 2y agoTIL 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 https://github.com/mendel5/alternative-front-ends
- silisili 2y agoIn 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.
- timnetworks 2y agoWhat a different experience than default UI. Are you making the source for this public, and/or is it based on an existing project?
- hadisafa 2y agoThere is no backend, just plain html, css and js. The source is public.
- strangecyan 2y agoAmazing! 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?
- WarOnPrivacy 2y agoI see channels 1-12 = static. The status of each says Unstarted. Same experience with a different browser. Also same after shifting location.
- noboostforyou 2y agoWow 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 2y agoThis is amazing! I want this on my TV as the default firmware!
- hadisafa 2y agoThank you!
- complianceowl 2y agoAbsolutely love this.
- Eduard 2y agoeven the mainstreaminess is well-captured
- gramakri2 2y agoIncredibly well done! Great execution
- lnauta 2y agoI 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 2y agoIn a similar vein: https://radio.garden https://radio.garden
- _sidewalkchalk_ 2y agothis 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 2y agoThis 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.
- nexuist 2y agoHey, 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 2y agoSo 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.
- ben_ 2y agoVery 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 2y agohttps://www.youtube.com/tv https://www.youtube.com/tv used to be this, but they closed it down.
- SirMaster 2y agoWhat about commercials?
- smusamashah 2y agoThis 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 2y agoThis 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".
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- shafyy 2y agoThis 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 2y agoTo 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!
- jodacola 2y agoGoodness. 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 2y agoLoved this. Would it be possible to add subtitles?
- qwertox 2y agoThis 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 2y agoIf 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
- bni 2y agoboomer.tube is not yet taken
- krabat 2y agoplz add subtitles, if they exist Brilliant - and if the channels are actually broad in content and varied... Yeah!
- slazaro 2y agoI 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 2y agoSeconding the keyboard mapping. Up/Down or Left/Right would be helpful. I love this OP. Well done!
- bprasanna 2y agoPlease make this an Amazon Fire TV Stick App! Would love to simply switch on and keep doing my work.
- notThrowingAway 2y agoThis is just delightful. What would make it perfect is the white noise that you get while switching channels.
- andyfosh11 2y agothis is the best thing ive seen in a long time! instant pmf
- justanotherjoe 2y agoThis is brilliant. Great for my old TV where browsing youtube (or the internet) is a chore.
- quadrature 2y agoI love this, it would be perfect for my parents. The algorithm tends to send them down weird rabbit holes and echo chambers.
- seydor 2y agoThis 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
- nashashmi 2y agoIt 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 2y agoYes everyone is watching the same content at the same time just like an actual TV channel.
- baobabKoodaa 2y agoThis 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 2y agoI 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 2y agocannot get past UNSTARTED or buffering... Am I doing something wrong?
- tumidpandora 2y agoThis is simply awesome, but apologies, I don't follow, what's the source for all the content?
- hadisafa 2y agoThe content is hand picked, no algorithms :)
- ProllyInfamous 2y agoIncredible. 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- 2y agoI would love to see this with my feed. Like personalized but always running. Seems like a good alternative to clickbait thumbnails and titles.
- wuliwong 2y agoI 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 2y agoAlso works on localhost, run these commands: `wget -r -np -k https://ytch.xyz https://ytch.xyz` - downloads the website recursively `wget https://ytch.xyz/list.json 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 2y agoWhen a channel reaches the last video, list.json will be fetched to get an updated list of videos.
- jeffhuys 2y agoI 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 2y agoHow 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.
- jeffhuys 2y agoThe author was replying to everyone, even me, but didn’t respond to my question about how the list is made. This makes me assume that it’s hand-made. If so, it’ll probably get 1 or 2 updates (if even that many) and then remain static as the creator loses interest. Wouldn’t be the first time. EDIT: list has changed. Trying to track it, we'll see what happens. I really hope the author has some way to search Youtube for trending videos based on some query/tag, and re-generates a list once a day or something like that.
- apineda 2y agoI've put it on for 2 hours now, this hits the spot.
- cynicalpeace 2y agoIt's surprising I've never heard of anything like this before!
- domatic1 2y agoJust like https://80s.myretrotvs.com/ https://80s.myretrotvs.com/
- insane_dreamer 2y agoThis is genius. Keeping the number of channels limited (<50?) is important to the experience, I think.
- IamLoading 2y agoFunny, 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.
- consf 2y ago[dead]
- sambeau 2y agoI 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 2y agoVery 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 2y agoThank 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 2y agoAdd an “upload video” link and YouTube suddenly has competition.
- m348e912 2y agoMaybe 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 2y agoThis 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 2y agoThis 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 2y agoWhy I f*cking love this? Congrats.
- golergka 2y agoThanks, 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 2y agovideo 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 2y agoHow do I disable the static effect between channel changes?
- saramago 2y agoThe 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 2y agoThis 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 2y agoDid something similar years ago for tech-related topics: https://old.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/l3kel1/tech_tv/ 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-experience-on-the-internet/ 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 2y agoThere'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 2y agoI watched right up until I heard a goddamn ad for manscape or dollar shave club or whatever the fuck
- IAmNotACellist 2y agoThanks, I hate it
- lukko 2y agoI 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.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- pendar747 2y agoLove 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 2y agomy experience just got so much better lol, thanks!
- mozart_torte 2y ago[flagged]
- mozart_torte 2y ago[flagged]
- frectonz 2y agoSomebody finally made the Interdimensional Cable from Rick and Morty.
- marknutter 2y agoI have nothing else to contribute to this conversation other than to say this is fucking amazing. Brilliant job, mate.
- 9erdelta 2y agoradical, I love it.
- jordanlev 2y agoThis 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 2y agoremings me of https://90s.myretrotvs.com/ https://90s.myretrotvs.com/
- eBombzor 2y agoThis is incredible, thanks for sharing
- SkittlesNTwix 2y agoI love this. Please keep it running. I just bookmarked it in favorites.
- hondohondo 2y agoWell done. Would this work on iOS natively through an app?
- r3vrse 2y agoNeat! 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.
- trinsic2 2y agoThis is actually making me think about how I watch programs when I dont really need to focus in on anything. I wonder if there is a plug-in where you can spin the wheel between types of media to watch and it selects one for you.
- stuxnet79 2y agoThere'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 2y agoThis 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.
- eddd-ddde 2y agoI'm fairly young. One of the first things I want to do now that I start to get grown-up money is buying a decent record player and some vinyls.
- unethical_ban 2y agoThe 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 2y agoWell 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 2y agoCan you give any insight into why these projects were canceled at Disney or Netflix?
- madrox 2y agoI can't speak to Netflix. At Disney the willingness to experiment with streaming UX was thin on the ground six years ago. It was about making something that felt like a direct Netflix competitor. Other experiments have shipped since then, like co-viewing. I actually believe TikTok is more of the spiritual inheritor of this kind of project more than any other platform.
- newswasboring 2y agoI guess what I am trying to ask is why was UX research "thin on the ground" (lovely expression, never heard it before). Was it a profit loss thing or more like the progress wasn't fast enough
- confused_boner 2y agocould 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 2y agoUhm, only if this mark doesn't get affect by it being streamed here or it was be less relevant later.
- didip 2y agoThis 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 2y agoDamn, 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 2y agoTake my money, so cool!
- typon 2y agoThis is brilliant
- efsavage 2y agoAs 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 2y agoCan u make it use only your subscribed channels?
- KoolKat23 2y agoThis is awesome, wish it worked on my firestick.
- lazylion2 2y agoGreat 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 2y agoAgreed, it is so clean and simple what @hadisafa did! In my version (https://tv.istasyon.app/ 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 2y agoI... I think I love it.
- y-curious 2y agoJust gotta say, this is incredible. If this was an app on my "smart" TV I would use it more than the YT app.
- wahnfrieden 2y agoThere used to be reddit.tv for this, but it would start everything from 0s
- maxglute 2y agoExcellent execution. Need some green volume bars.
- th3w3bmast3r 2y agoThis is really slick!
- sev 2y agoThis is awesome. How come we never see ads?
- milkers 2y agoI've also noticed that when I did my version of this app more than 3 years ago (https://tv.istasyon.app 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 2y agoI'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 2y agoInstagram 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-video-app-launch https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/20/17484436/instagram-igtv-v...
- thruway516 2y agoLikely from a lack of engaging longform content on IG. Who wants to watch a continuous reel of mind-numbing shorts for hours. Youtube has enough quality content to make a more compelling product in this format
- Thebroser 2y agoI used to love this chrome extension back in the day, unsure if it still works but same idea: https://ottoplay.tv/ https://ottoplay.tv/
- mholm 2y agoMy 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.
- jagged-chisel 2y agoHow is the cost any different than “binging” a series kept on as background noise? If this new feature would cost the streaming companies more money, they just need to tweak the business model or subscription pricing to cover it.
- Separo 2y agoI don't know why I love this.
- rvense 2y agoIt'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 2y agoJust 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 2y agoThis 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 2y agoThe video id is on the bottom right.
- rglover 2y agoThis 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.
- epanchin 2y agoI’ve watched more YouTube today than I have cumulatively this month. A lovely thing.
- lofaszvanitt 2y agoThe worst thing about youtube is the discovery part. It's abysmal, an early 2000s derelict, a shitshow.
- gumby 2y agoA 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)
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- epanchin 2y agoPlease do a kids version!
- geepytee 2y agoThis is so cool, thank you for building this!
- EggsD 2y agoOne of the keys to success for this thing is not letting it become infested with advertisements.
- EggsD 2y agoOne 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 2y agoI've built a similar thing 3 years ago -> https://tv.istasyon.app 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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37905024
- EggsD 2y agoSo, 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 2y agoMesmerising
- zebomon 2y agoThis is very cool! I've actually been working on something similar for some time as a feature on my website https://www.bingeclock.com 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 2y agoThis 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 2y agoI wish the arrow keys and/or scroll wheel could be used to change channels too.
- trinsic2 2y agoIs 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.
- jondwillis 2y agoI worked at Pluto TV pre-launch, and YouTube "live" crammed into channels was basically our app, with a scheduler system that allowed us to also render a channel guide.
- chasebank 2y agoPlease tell me you worked with Thomas?! This is essentially what Pluto tv is / was.
- jondwillis 2y agoYep! Still keep in touch.
- abrookewood 2y agoMan, this is strangely compelling ... it's a very different experience. The only complaint is I have no idea what I am watching.
- doomroot 2y agoThere is a youtube video id on the remote :) I personally love the minimalism.
- bredren 2y agoTiming for this being on FP could not be better given Github downage.
- abimaelmartell 2y agoI see people asking the creator to add some data about the channels, but i think this is intended to mimic traditional TV, where they didn't have any information other than what the producers put on screen.
- sircastor 2y agoThis is amazing. It reminds me a little of betamaxmas[0]. I wish I could find a Christmas Channel! :) It also occurs to me that there are a whole bunch of people here for whom this doesn't offer any nostalgia or memories, but is purely just a weird old affectation. [0] https://betamaxmas.com/ https://betamaxmas.com/
- faramarz 2y agoNot having the algo recommendations but with your curation is also amazing. I’ll need to pin this to my tv app folder to remember to try it on the big screen. This is super cool!
- Jiahang 2y agocan i selfhosted it?
- nlanier 2y agoAbsolutely love the sense of discovery this has. Kudos to the creator… I will be watching for updates!
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- tjbiddle 2y agoThink the website is getting the HN hug of death; just static for me on every channel, but reminded me of a story: Recently my sister was on a vacation with her family, and my two nephews were upstairs watching TV. They came down "Mom - The TV is broken!", she goes upstairs - working fine. 10 mins later it repeats, and repeats again. Finally, she catches when the TV "breaks" ... it's a commercial, haha.
- allthegoodnames 2y ago[flagged]
- scotty79 2y agoSuddenly I see that tiktok and YouTube shorts and such are just new incarnation of chanel flipping mechanics. And I'm not sure if it's better all around. Algorithm driven personalized YouTube videos playing from random moment with easy follow up with rewinding to see the whole thing or more from this creator or more like that would be awesome. You can also be smart about where from start playing by using the hot moments information from YouTube.
- yieldcrv 2y agooooo I love being dropping in to content I miss that aspect of the tv experience, something live streamers do still except that it’s just them playing a game, rambling or doing porn. This is far more diverse
- Daneel_ 2y agoJudging from the enthusiasm from HN toward this in general, it seems like I'm in the minority in that I hate this experience. I was born in '87, for reference. Channel flipping always frustrated me, and I haven't had TV hooked up in my house in well over a decade - the TV is for youtube/streaming media only.
- thwarted 2y agoI've always wanted a recreation of 80s Saturday morning cartoons, you can choose one channel to watch and if you switch away to another channel, it's gone, just like this. You have three primary channels and two secondary or "local" channels (and maybe a PBS) to choose from. It's a 5½ hour block, to simulate starting at like 6am and going until 11:30am. You get a bunch of half-hour kid and pre-teen shows for a few hours, and then you get some more older teen-oriented shows (like Saved By the Bell), and a 1½ hour block of the cartoon variety-hour shows like The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show. CBS would always have some kind of wild-animal showcase. Throw in some toy commercials, School House Rock, the Time for Timer PSA ("A hanker for a hunk of cheese!"), and those bumpers that showed you how to make the "come back can" and how to whistle with an acorn top. It's the delivery and the format that I'm nostalgic for, it doesn't need to be the vintage material. It would be cool to have some modern School House Rock and PSA and mini-craft projects. Grab a big bowl, a box of cereal, and a carton of milk and just veg out in your pajamas on the couch on a weekend morning.
- two-sandwich 2y agoI did this in Plex using DizqueTV. It was a blast to set up, schedule, and insert a selection of toy ads from the era to make it feel real. Of course, I only watched it once or twice before I realised I am not capable of sitting through 6 hours of cartoons any more. The sugary cereal made me feel sick, too. Strongly recommend.
- sralbert 2y agoToonami Aftermath is very similar to this, but for late 90s/early 2000s. https://www.toonamiaftermath.com/ https://www.toonamiaftermath.com/
- joeevans1000 2y agoI can't believe how awesome this is. I've spent hours watching. I'm not sure what's going on. Why is this so great? The lack of toxic labeling, which is everywhere now? Thank you.
- mulhoon 2y agoIndeed. Not being poisoned with clickbait thumbnails and short reels. What a relief.
- VA0 2y agobrilliant!
- XCSme 2y agoIt's so refreshing to know that you don't have to watch everything. Go through the content, once you find something that you enjoy, watch it. Not worrying about what else you have to "watch later".
- sovok 2y agoVery neat. I like the channel idea. There’s also https://random-video.com https://random-video.com which shows one of 4.5 Billion YouTube videos randomly (or with a filter for view count, language, year). Pretty fun to discover what’s out there, without being influenced by YouTubes algorithm. It’s based on the YT Archive project and some other sources, since YT sadly has no randomize function.
- tardoe 2y agoIf you could take 10-12 key words and build personalised channels based on those topic/keywords would be amazing.
- fitsumbelay 2y agoI'm old enough to miss channel changing and really like this. But even moar than that, boy do I love me some Youtube iframe API - https://developers.google.com/youtube/iframe_api_reference https://developers.google.com/youtube/iframe_api_reference - it's probably the last but certainly coolest piece of FAANG Web 2.0-ness left
- devvvvvvv 2y agoVery cool. A lot to be said for jumping right in to the action. This is a perfect demonstration of that "law" that states you can skip the first 30% of a YouTube video and not miss much.
- AIorNot 2y agothis is so cool that I wish it were an app on my samsung tv
- dorkwood 2y ago[dead]
- ggm 2y agoWhere's CEEFAX?
- thebeardisred 2y agoThis reminds me of a spinoff project from the creator of SpySpace (L4nd) called "Toobin.tv"
- indus 2y agoEffing brilliant!
- sixothree 2y agoMy vote is to _not_ let the features creep in. Keep it simple. Make a more advanced one at a different address or something. The beauty here is the simplicity,.
- bilingualbingo 2y ago[dead]
- slim 2y agothis is tiktok
- ebri 2y agoThere is a bug when using qutebrowser (using arch linux) - when turning on the sound, the TV turns off (e.g. goes to black-and-white-noise-mode). When turning off the sound, the TV turns on again. On google chrome, all is well. Just for FYI :) very cool project!
- Contortion 2y agoSlightly similar bug in DuckDuckGo on Android, unmuting causes the video to buffer again but it then pauses itself and there's no way to unpause it.
- tdiff 2y agoThe main benefit of TV was (and sometimes is, e.g. bbc if we ignore news) editioralized picking of programs. There was someone deciding if a video is worth watching (and in many cases acting in good faith). Very useful in modern Youtube world.
- 01jonny01 2y agoI love this idea, I kind of created something similar with skipvids.com subscriptions
- PUSH_AX 2y agoWhy do people build video players with no volume control, it has to be one of the worst UX choices in common practice.
- pietroppeter 2y agoZapping!
- slouc 2y agoThis is unbelievably good
- atoav 2y agoOne thing about analog interfaces is that they are really in a way empowering to the User. Don't like what you're seeing? Just one button press or the turn of a tuner dial and you're outta there and into a new thing. And there is no algorithm telling you what to tune into or which channels you see. Heck, if you want you could tune your radio in-between the station and listen to the static of the atmosphere for an hour. As a programmer with UI experience (for both physical and graphical UIs) I am aware that nothing stops us from deploying similar paradigms in the digital domain and this is yet another example to make the point, that it is possible. Sadly few companies nowadays have any incentive to make their interfaces so neutral, egalitarian and simple. It seems to take a special kind of radicalism to commit to limited controls and not slap open ended navigational structures, menus and so on onto a touchscreen. Car interfaces come to my mind.
- venk12 2y agoThis is interesting. Maybe this could help bring back some long form tv, which in my opinion is better than watching TikTok which consumes our dwindling attention span
- supernihil 2y agoSource https://github.com/stevemk14ebr/YTCH https://github.com/stevemk14ebr/YTCH
- sagasu007 2y agothis is amazing！
- worldsayshi 2y agoIt can't be in alignment with YT terms though right? They will try to block it right?
- 9point6 2y agoI remember cobbling something like this together myself using a Kodi plugin called PseudoTV a number of years ago Definitely a lot more usable from a browser for sure. I'd echo other comments that a TV guide style interface would be a fantastic addition that would take this from a "that's cool" to something I'd potentially regularly use.
- orliesaurus 2y agoThis feels good, thank you for hacking it together!
- wem5637 2y agoI made the same thing a few years ago. Youtube embeds, react, socket.io and postgresql on a node.js server. I got the idea from poolside.fm's video player. https://wem5637.medium.com/i-made-a-probably-illegal-youtube-wrapper-that-broadcasts-non-live-static-youtube-embeds-like-tv-147cf6658307 https://wem5637.medium.com/i-made-a-probably-illegal-youtube...
- adaml_623 2y agoThe most amazing thing is the off button. Think about it. I've never seen a website that just turns off before
- energy123 2y agoAre you going to keep updating the content so it's current and has rewatchability? I would really like to keep using this.
- AndreiCalazans 2y agoThis amazing and great! I absolutely hate having to choose something to watch from an immensive infinite list, specially when I'm just trying to relax.
- consf 2y ago[dead]
- sailfast 2y agoI now need USB rabbit ears so I can tune to the correct spot.
- thom 2y agoAm I the only child of the 80s that hates this? A bunch of stuff I'm not interested in, and then I switched off. The moment TiVo was available we had it in our house and it was great. I still like the occasional shared experience of big sporting events or Eurovision or something on broadcast TV, but outside that it's just the equivalent of doomscrolling. If you look at your plethora of streaming options today and can't find anything to watch, just do something else. The wonder of the modern age is the sheer volume of stuff you can ignore entirely and never care about.
- dpcx 2y agoYou're not. Though on a recent vacation, one of my kids only had access to cable and absolutely loved the randomness of what was available.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- thruway516 2y agoI'm a child of the 80s too and I haven't watched TV in a decade, save for the occasional TV in hotel room. I do miss the luxury of occasionally having what you watch already decided for you and the serendipity of discovering something engaging by accident. Lately it has started to feel like all the choices we have in modern life and the decision paralysis that entails is causing more not less stress. I'd hazard the biggest problem with the old format was not so much the lack of control as the lack of quality content and paradoxically having too much choice with the explosion of cable tv channels. I think there's space for a refined version of something like this to coexist with all the modern options - something like a personalized curator that picks quality content tailored to your tastes and just plays it without you having to decide exactly what to watch beyond flipping (a limited number of) channels.
- TechSquidTV 2y agoThis is super fun, but I hope the content creators are being compensated. Content creators work hard to produce this content under the assumption they will be paid for it (in one of many different potential channels but the HOW is less relevant).
- hadisafa 2y agoThis is built using the official youtube api. https://developers.google.com/youtube/iframe_api_reference https://developers.google.com/youtube/iframe_api_reference
- 0pteron 2y agoMy senior mother needs this. She doesn't use a computer, but does have a TV a firestick. I've tried showing her how to use the search of youtube but she is too use to how tv use to work and wants to channels to find something. If this could be made into a firestick app or something and come with a recommendation system, allow some customization using topics instead of channel names and have them be editable and customized to different youtube interests - I would buy it
- Kuraj 2y agoThat's awesome. Can you package it into a Google TV app?
- en3r0 2y agoSeveral years ago I spent a great deal of time thinking about how to create something like this, glad someone did it! My vision went beyond this into allowing users to create their own channels (still only identifiable by a channel number) which would basically just be a playlist. I think a better idea now would be to have them add a list of channels and have it randomly play videos from only those channels and have that interrupted by anytime that channel is live streaming.
- javier_e06 2y agoLove this. Good quality video and low latency. The content? Well, can't please everybody. I was looking for cartoons, any cartoon. No dice. That would be great addition.
- stuaxo 2y agoSecond channel in and someone is saying "plandemic" maybe channels on youtube just highlights how close you are to some of the weirder views on there.
- mynameisjeffkk 2y ago[dead]
- mistersquid 2y agoI've been dying to try this but on macOS Sonoma 14.5 both Chrome and Safari cannot establish a secure connection. Chrome complains > This site can’t provide a secure connectionytch.xyz sent an invalid response. ERR_SSL_PROTOCOL_ERROR
- poulsbohemian 2y agoDon't worry kids, it's Google's remote work policy that is the problem, not their terrible product design and lack of innovation.
- jbobrow 2y agoReally love this and couldn't help but sketch out a quick YTCH-Guide https://git.jonathanbobrow.com/YTCH-Guide/ https://git.jonathanbobrow.com/YTCH-Guide/ Github repo is here: https://github.com/jbobrow/YTCH-Guide https://github.com/jbobrow/YTCH-Guide
- ebarracchia 2y ago[flagged]
- ebarracchia 2y agoThis webpage need to be converted to a PWA application. That's would be a great or better experience!!!
- winternett 2y agoSo it appears that OP is only using items off YouTube front page as options on channels? I think this would be a lot more interesting if it chose more randomized content, especially having an option for content with low views... Also, an option to do full-screen would greatly enhance the experience. I think the biggest issue that exists with current YouTube is that so much is crammed into the UI and viewing experience (Ads, the videos on the sidebar, clunky controls to skip videos, etc...) that ruins the continuity of video content, especially when mixed with so many videos in different formats... It's also the same problem that TikTok is fighting with, it makes for a pretty disruptive viewing experience in comparison to cable TV or just choosing to watch TV shows or movies instead.
- richardboegli 2y agoCould you precache some of the videos so you can click through faster? This should probably be a toggle and then you can set how many channels each way depending on your bandwidth.
- charlie90 2y agoI feel like the secret sauce to this is the fact that it drops you into the middle of a video. If it was just a queue of videos that play from start to end it wouldn't be as interesting. I cant believe Netflix hasnt added something like this for TV shows. Just drop you into something random and have a few basic categories to choose from. Its so much better for discovery than having to judge 100s of shows based on their thumbnail.
- fuzzfactor 2y agoHow many years do you think it would take, and how powerful a computer would you need before you could switch Youtube channels as fast as channels on a regular analog TV from the 1960's?
- cchance 2y agoMy wife bitched theres no beauty channel.
- ahsan23 2y ago[dead]
- ahsan23 2y ago[dead]
- perihelion_zero 2y agoI wouldn't mind seeing some kind of super-charged tag-based browsing of various existing sites that are annoying to browse. YouTube is one of them.
- Robert_55 2y ago[flagged]