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Here's my reaction: I just stopped watching for the most part and started doing other things instead. If I'm not doing something active now and I just want to

Here's my reaction: I just stopped watching for the most part and started doing other things instead. If I'm not doing something active now and I just want to sit - I read the funny pages (reddit), I read hacker news, I find questions in my mind to research, I play video games, read a book, start a side-project and/or listen to some music. My wife still watches all sorts of garbage TV and if not for her I'd have cancelled cable a long time ago.

RodgerTheGreat 7y ago
I made a tool which wraps around youtube-dl to manage fine-grained subscription and automatic downloading of various youtube channels. When I want passive entertainment, I have a directory full of interesting, high-quality videos that cater to specific niches I like. The end result is much better than TV ever was- no ads, access whenever I want- even offline- and content made by passionate hobbyists rather than mass marketers. I feel much happier paying a handful of content creators via Patreon than spending money on a cable or streaming service subscription.
- justsubmit 7y ago
  That sounds really interesting. How do you manage the library, especially in regard to storage limits, expiring old content, etc?
  - RodgerTheGreat 7y ago
    So far I just handle it manually. I've dialed in pretty good preferences for incoming content, (for example, using regex-based whitelists and blacklists to weed out material I'm not interested in from channels that aren't already organized into appropriate playlists) and when I browse the videos directory to find something to watch I delete things that have been sitting there a while which I don't expect to get around to. There would be a lot more work to do if I wanted to "product-ize" the tool, and periodically youtube breaks it by adding a new feature or moving something around. For personal use, though, it's very needs-suiting. The whole approach is also less of a tempting distraction than browsing youtube itself, so it's easier to manage how much time I spend watching videos. If I ever run out of content, I just go for a walk, or read a book!
    - mitchty 7y ago
      I'd be curious to see it as well, sounds good/useful even in its nascent state. I have something similar-ish in that I have a makefile/script setup where all I do is dump a file of url's/playlists/people and let a cron job download updates to things on a 12 hour basis. Then I just have a setup in plex for youtube videos and I have plethora of content to watch when I have time. Its jarring to use "normal" youtube now and all the ads after using this setup. Also really nice for archiving channels and/or preparing for when youtube randomly decides to throw strikes on videos and not being able to see them anymore or people setting things to private etc...
    - crooked-v 7y ago
      You might want to give Plex a try. As long as you use a preset pattern for folders/filenames, it can automatically load any arbitrary set of videos as "series" in the UI: https://support.plex.tv/articles/200265256-naming-home-series-media/ https://support.plex.tv/articles/200265256-naming-home-serie...
- avatarbl 7y ago
  I like your approach! Mind sharing the tool ? Thanks
toper-centage 7y ago
The only people complaining about having to "subscribe to multiple services" are the power watchers. I don't follow series. I let series finish, then watch them... If you do this, its actually much more enjoyable (no waiting for next episode, or next season, and no stressing out about spoilers online). And this way you can just subscribe to the services for a single month.
ben509 7y ago
Same here. I never had strong feelings about streaming services or TV, but a year ago or so I realized I was rarely watching Netflix much and cancelled my subscription. Other activities had implicitly filled in the time.

RodgerTheGreat 7y ago

I made a tool which wraps around youtube-dl to manage fine-grained subscription and automatic downloading of various youtube channels. When I want passive entertainment, I have a directory full of interesting, high-quality videos that cater to specific niches I like. The end result is much better than TV ever was- no ads, access whenever I want- even offline- and content made by passionate hobbyists rather than mass marketers. I feel much happier paying a handful of content creators via Patreon than spending money on a cable or streaming service subscription.

justsubmit 7y ago
That sounds really interesting. How do you manage the library, especially in regard to storage limits, expiring old content, etc?
- RodgerTheGreat 7y ago
  So far I just handle it manually. I've dialed in pretty good preferences for incoming content, (for example, using regex-based whitelists and blacklists to weed out material I'm not interested in from channels that aren't already organized into appropriate playlists) and when I browse the videos directory to find something to watch I delete things that have been sitting there a while which I don't expect to get around to. There would be a lot more work to do if I wanted to "product-ize" the tool, and periodically youtube breaks it by adding a new feature or moving something around. For personal use, though, it's very needs-suiting. The whole approach is also less of a tempting distraction than browsing youtube itself, so it's easier to manage how much time I spend watching videos. If I ever run out of content, I just go for a walk, or read a book!
  - mitchty 7y ago
    I'd be curious to see it as well, sounds good/useful even in its nascent state. I have something similar-ish in that I have a makefile/script setup where all I do is dump a file of url's/playlists/people and let a cron job download updates to things on a 12 hour basis. Then I just have a setup in plex for youtube videos and I have plethora of content to watch when I have time. Its jarring to use "normal" youtube now and all the ads after using this setup. Also really nice for archiving channels and/or preparing for when youtube randomly decides to throw strikes on videos and not being able to see them anymore or people setting things to private etc...
  - crooked-v 7y ago
    You might want to give Plex a try. As long as you use a preset pattern for folders/filenames, it can automatically load any arbitrary set of videos as "series" in the UI: https://support.plex.tv/articles/200265256-naming-home-series-media/ https://support.plex.tv/articles/200265256-naming-home-serie...
avatarbl 7y ago
I like your approach! Mind sharing the tool ? Thanks

toper-centage 7y ago

The only people complaining about having to "subscribe to multiple services" are the power watchers. I don't follow series. I let series finish, then watch them... If you do this, its actually much more enjoyable (no waiting for next episode, or next season, and no stressing out about spoilers online). And this way you can just subscribe to the services for a single month.

ben509 7y ago

Same here. I never had strong feelings about streaming services or TV, but a year ago or so I realized I was rarely watching Netflix much and cancelled my subscription. Other activities had implicitly filled in the time.