7 ms·

> Firefox now supports simultaneously watching multiple videos in Picture-in-Picture. Is Adderall the new Aspirin? Or is there some WFH use here that I'm missi

by blfr 6y ago

> Firefox now supports simultaneously watching multiple videos in Picture-in-Picture. Is Adderall the new Aspirin? Or is there some WFH use here that I'm missing.

astura 6y ago
Sports immediately comes to mind - Some people I know who are really big into sports like watching/keeping track of multiple games at once.
- csin 6y ago
  This is a game changer for sports bettors. Me personally, will probably stick to one video playing in the background. It's more for ambient noise. On days when there are 4 nba games going on simutaneously, I'm far too busy fiddling with my spreadsheet/nba feed to be actually watching the game.
- wongarsu 6y ago
  Not only multiple games, but also multiple viewpoints of the same game. Twitch added support for that use case for esports (I think as part of their deal with Overwatch League).
everdrive 6y ago
I never understood this feature either. I can already make multiple browser windows if I want. Definitely not interested in PIP.
- matsemann 6y ago
  I like that I can scale the video as I want. Like on a news-site the only options are often a small inline viewer or full screen. So I use PIP often for that even though I'm staying on the page. And it's just more convenient than trying to maximize the space of another browser window and making it stay put above other stuff. No extra chrome, no wasted inline space on the page. I can just take a Blender tutorial for instance and move directly above my Blender window and it obscures as little as possible.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  Browser windows have decorations that take space. I don't use PIP often, but it comes in handy when I have limited screen real estate, like watching Netflix on my sidearm in tablet mode, while simultaneously doing something on the web.
  - amelius 6y ago
    This is something better solved at the window manager level. E.g. what if I want to have a PIP in my Xterm?
    - ubercow13 6y ago
      How does a window manager get rid of Firefox's browser chrome?
      - TeMPOraL 6y ago
        Answer: it doesn't. The problem is browsers have two layers of decoration: the WM layer (which tiling window managers tend to remove), and the internal layer - the tab bar, address bar, option buttons, borders, etc. As far as I know, there isn't a way to remove all that without going full screen.
        Macha 6y ago
        In the very first version of firefox with full screen mode it ended up doing just that, rendering full screen inside a normal window area in my tiling WM. It was likely a bug/unimplemented feature at that stage, but to be honest it would have been nice to have as an option prior to pip.
      - vifon 6y ago
        For me it makes the fullscreen videos cover only the Firefox window, so they effectively can serve as PIP windows. To be honest, I have no idea how to enable it outside of XMonad, it just worked like this on XMonad many years ago when I switched to it and I actually liked this behavior so here we are.
- _ph_ 6y ago
  Most web pages only support two video sizes: 1. unusably small 2. full screen. Which often means unusably large (27" screen), especially for less-than-HD videos At least youtube added at some time the cinema mode which allowed the video to occupy the whole window width, that is what I use most of the time. Still, PIP also has the advantage of removing the window decorations, so saving space. Also, they are floating on top of all other windows, which helps, but also occasionally can be annoying.
- acdha 6y ago
  I shared the initial reaction the first time I heard about it but completely changed my mind after using it. The big win is for poorly designed sites like YouTube which use non-standard controls and waste a significant majority of the space. I have hot keys to resize windows to screen quarters or halves but for anything less than full screen on my laptop a YouTube video will have less than half of the window devoted to the actual content and the browser chrome will reduce that even further. If there’s something I’m watching but not giving my full attention to - say an event hasn’t started yet or someone will be landing a rover on Mars in an hour - this means that I can either have a big chunk of my screen wasted or I can use PiP and have just the thing I care about using a quarter of the space but showing considerably more of the actual content. Plus, it uses well-tested standard controls so I don’t have to play games figuring out whose <script> kiddies don’t think about keyboard shortcuts or test their event handlers.
- astura 6y ago
  Following along with a tutorial would be a big use case.
- SubiculumCode 6y ago
  PIP also has pin-on-top feature, I believe letting you place the video in a corner over an expanded, in-focus application.
coldpie 6y ago
For a serious answer, here's some links: https://w3c.github.io/picture-in-picture/ https://w3c.github.io/picture-in-picture/ https://github.com/w3c/picture-in-picture/blob/master/explainer.md https://github.com/w3c/picture-in-picture/blob/master/explai... https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2018/10/watch-video-using-picture-in-picture https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2018/10/watch-vide... https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1463402 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1463402 https://www.chromestatus.com/feature/5729206566649856 https://www.chromestatus.com/feature/5729206566649856 Looks to me like it is a standard that web devs requested (e.g. so you can scroll down YouTube or whatever and the video will keep playing in the corner), which Firefox chose to also make an end-user UI for.
- sambe 6y ago
  I think the parent is primarily referring to the multiple aspect of it (PiP was already supported).
_ph_ 6y ago
While I usually limit myself to one video playing on the computer, when following live events it can happen that you want to have two streams running. E.g. the multiple channels streaming the Starship test flights or watch one video while waiting for another stream to come online.
- dotancohen 6y ago
  I was exactly thinking about the Starship test flights for this. I think that's the only time I've ever had more than a single video playing at once.
swiley 6y ago
When I watched YouTube regularly I would often have multiple videos going. Some people talk slowly and YouTube encourages filler in order to hit the 10 minute mark. When most of the videos are like this you can definitely have a couple monologues, some music, and something to read just fine.
- blfr 6y ago
  You can speed up videos on Youtube. Both natively and with yuotube-dl then play locally with mpv or your (lesser) favourite player.
  - swiley 6y ago
    This was less clicks and faster.
    - wongarsu 6y ago
      Clicking on the gear in the youtube player allows you to set playback speed. Most videos are very watchable on 1.25x or 1.5x speed, on videos that are basically just filler with some information in between I even go to 2x
iso1631 6y ago
I have a fitlet running a pygtk 4screen vlc showing me 3 news networks and a music stream on my 3rd monitor. I can click each one to mute/unmute, mousewheel up/down to change the relative volume, and the entire thing is compeltely separate from my I can have 4 different sources on at the same time (music in the background - quiet, one of the news channels a bit louder if I'm waiting for something to happen, a corporate all-hands zoom call I'm half listening to on the main computer, and maybe a short video or meme, it's usually 2 or 3 though. I don't use pip much as the one site I'd use it on (twitter) works hard to stop the video playing as you scroll down anyway.
driverdan 6y ago
I watched NASA's stream of Perseverance landing on Mars. It would have been cool to watch a few different landings streams at once since one had good narration and another had better footage.
arkitaip 6y ago
Following a group of streamers at the same time is ideal for this. Currently you need to use 3rd party services.
thebiss 6y ago
I have two, as yet unsolved, work from home use cases: - I often would like to watch one team member update Trello or Mural, at the same time as another updates Github, while I update a contract. I'd move those streams to my 4k monitor, to keep them readable, while I work on my primary. - If I'm running a demo to a client, I'd like to have one stream sharing the demo platform, while another shares video of my haggard face, and a third shows my presentation. I don't want to share my whole desktop, to avoid sharing slack or SMS notifications. OBS can probably do #2. Nothing does #1.
joveian 6y ago
I don't get it either, personally, but I remember reading around high school (90s) a book called "Boost your Brainpower" or something like that. They mostly recommended lots of visualization (they said the trick is to say out loud what you are seeing to improve) but also had a suggestion to watch multiple televisions at the same time, suggesting it would be helpful in some way or another that I have long since forgotten. I never tried any of those, but hopefully in a decade we'll be reading about "the browser feature that boosts your brainpower" and not "the browser feature that made the amphetamine crisis even worse".

by blfr 6y ago

> Firefox now supports simultaneously watching multiple videos in Picture-in-Picture. Is Adderall the new Aspirin? Or is there some WFH use here that I'm missing.

astura 6y ago

Sports immediately comes to mind - Some people I know who are really big into sports like watching/keeping track of multiple games at once.

csin 6y ago
This is a game changer for sports bettors. Me personally, will probably stick to one video playing in the background. It's more for ambient noise. On days when there are 4 nba games going on simutaneously, I'm far too busy fiddling with my spreadsheet/nba feed to be actually watching the game.
wongarsu 6y ago
Not only multiple games, but also multiple viewpoints of the same game. Twitch added support for that use case for esports (I think as part of their deal with Overwatch League).

everdrive 6y ago

I never understood this feature either. I can already make multiple browser windows if I want. Definitely not interested in PIP.

matsemann 6y ago
I like that I can scale the video as I want. Like on a news-site the only options are often a small inline viewer or full screen. So I use PIP often for that even though I'm staying on the page. And it's just more convenient than trying to maximize the space of another browser window and making it stay put above other stuff. No extra chrome, no wasted inline space on the page. I can just take a Blender tutorial for instance and move directly above my Blender window and it obscures as little as possible.
TeMPOraL 6y ago
Browser windows have decorations that take space. I don't use PIP often, but it comes in handy when I have limited screen real estate, like watching Netflix on my sidearm in tablet mode, while simultaneously doing something on the web.
- amelius 6y ago
  This is something better solved at the window manager level. E.g. what if I want to have a PIP in my Xterm?
  - ubercow13 6y ago
    How does a window manager get rid of Firefox's browser chrome?
    - TeMPOraL 6y ago
      Answer: it doesn't. The problem is browsers have two layers of decoration: the WM layer (which tiling window managers tend to remove), and the internal layer - the tab bar, address bar, option buttons, borders, etc. As far as I know, there isn't a way to remove all that without going full screen.
      - Macha 6y ago
        In the very first version of firefox with full screen mode it ended up doing just that, rendering full screen inside a normal window area in my tiling WM. It was likely a bug/unimplemented feature at that stage, but to be honest it would have been nice to have as an option prior to pip.
    - vifon 6y ago
      For me it makes the fullscreen videos cover only the Firefox window, so they effectively can serve as PIP windows. To be honest, I have no idea how to enable it outside of XMonad, it just worked like this on XMonad many years ago when I switched to it and I actually liked this behavior so here we are.
_ph_ 6y ago
Most web pages only support two video sizes: 1. unusably small 2. full screen. Which often means unusably large (27" screen), especially for less-than-HD videos At least youtube added at some time the cinema mode which allowed the video to occupy the whole window width, that is what I use most of the time. Still, PIP also has the advantage of removing the window decorations, so saving space. Also, they are floating on top of all other windows, which helps, but also occasionally can be annoying.
acdha 6y ago
I shared the initial reaction the first time I heard about it but completely changed my mind after using it. The big win is for poorly designed sites like YouTube which use non-standard controls and waste a significant majority of the space. I have hot keys to resize windows to screen quarters or halves but for anything less than full screen on my laptop a YouTube video will have less than half of the window devoted to the actual content and the browser chrome will reduce that even further. If there’s something I’m watching but not giving my full attention to - say an event hasn’t started yet or someone will be landing a rover on Mars in an hour - this means that I can either have a big chunk of my screen wasted or I can use PiP and have just the thing I care about using a quarter of the space but showing considerably more of the actual content. Plus, it uses well-tested standard controls so I don’t have to play games figuring out whose <script> kiddies don’t think about keyboard shortcuts or test their event handlers.
astura 6y ago
Following along with a tutorial would be a big use case.
SubiculumCode 6y ago
PIP also has pin-on-top feature, I believe letting you place the video in a corner over an expanded, in-focus application.

coldpie 6y ago

For a serious answer, here's some links: https://w3c.github.io/picture-in-picture/ https://w3c.github.io/picture-in-picture/ https://github.com/w3c/picture-in-picture/blob/master/explainer.md https://github.com/w3c/picture-in-picture/blob/master/explai... https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2018/10/watch-video-using-picture-in-picture https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2018/10/watch-vide... https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1463402 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1463402 https://www.chromestatus.com/feature/5729206566649856 https://www.chromestatus.com/feature/5729206566649856 Looks to me like it is a standard that web devs requested (e.g. so you can scroll down YouTube or whatever and the video will keep playing in the corner), which Firefox chose to also make an end-user UI for.

sambe 6y ago
I think the parent is primarily referring to the multiple aspect of it (PiP was already supported).

_ph_ 6y ago

While I usually limit myself to one video playing on the computer, when following live events it can happen that you want to have two streams running. E.g. the multiple channels streaming the Starship test flights or watch one video while waiting for another stream to come online.

dotancohen 6y ago
I was exactly thinking about the Starship test flights for this. I think that's the only time I've ever had more than a single video playing at once.

swiley 6y ago

When I watched YouTube regularly I would often have multiple videos going. Some people talk slowly and YouTube encourages filler in order to hit the 10 minute mark. When most of the videos are like this you can definitely have a couple monologues, some music, and something to read just fine.

blfr 6y ago
You can speed up videos on Youtube. Both natively and with yuotube-dl then play locally with mpv or your (lesser) favourite player.
- swiley 6y ago
  This was less clicks and faster.
  - wongarsu 6y ago
    Clicking on the gear in the youtube player allows you to set playback speed. Most videos are very watchable on 1.25x or 1.5x speed, on videos that are basically just filler with some information in between I even go to 2x

iso1631 6y ago

I have a fitlet running a pygtk 4screen vlc showing me 3 news networks and a music stream on my 3rd monitor. I can click each one to mute/unmute, mousewheel up/down to change the relative volume, and the entire thing is compeltely separate from my I can have 4 different sources on at the same time (music in the background - quiet, one of the news channels a bit louder if I'm waiting for something to happen, a corporate all-hands zoom call I'm half listening to on the main computer, and maybe a short video or meme, it's usually 2 or 3 though. I don't use pip much as the one site I'd use it on (twitter) works hard to stop the video playing as you scroll down anyway.

driverdan 6y ago

I watched NASA's stream of Perseverance landing on Mars. It would have been cool to watch a few different landings streams at once since one had good narration and another had better footage.

arkitaip 6y ago

Following a group of streamers at the same time is ideal for this. Currently you need to use 3rd party services.

thebiss 6y ago

I have two, as yet unsolved, work from home use cases: - I often would like to watch one team member update Trello or Mural, at the same time as another updates Github, while I update a contract. I'd move those streams to my 4k monitor, to keep them readable, while I work on my primary. - If I'm running a demo to a client, I'd like to have one stream sharing the demo platform, while another shares video of my haggard face, and a third shows my presentation. I don't want to share my whole desktop, to avoid sharing slack or SMS notifications. OBS can probably do #2. Nothing does #1.

joveian 6y ago

I don't get it either, personally, but I remember reading around high school (90s) a book called "Boost your Brainpower" or something like that. They mostly recommended lots of visualization (they said the trick is to say out loud what you are seeing to improve) but also had a suggestion to watch multiple televisions at the same time, suggesting it would be helpful in some way or another that I have long since forgotten. I never tried any of those, but hopefully in a decade we'll be reading about "the browser feature that boosts your brainpower" and not "the browser feature that made the amphetamine crisis even worse".