6 ms·

I suspect you’re right, but on the other hand, I think it’s useful to think critically about whether starting the video faster is worth it if it makes the web p

I suspect you’re right, but on the other hand, I think it’s useful to think critically about whether starting the video faster is worth it if it makes the web page that it’s embedded in load slower. The “every millisecond counts” argument applies to the web page too. If the user bounces off the web page, they won’t get to the video anyway. Also, maybe it’s fine if people don’t want to play the video? Personally, I appreciate it when a web page includes a summary, so that I can avoid watching a video. (I prefer not using YouTube for anything other than listening to music or occasionally watching a movie.) Video can be a useful tool, but consider whose interest it’s in for you to encourage your audience to watch more TV. Is it really serving your users? Even when I do want to watch a video, it’s selective. One thing I find rather frustrating about YouTube’s redesign (on desktop) is that it devotes so much screen real estate to promoting videos other than the one you’re actually there to watch. I’d prefer fewer distractions.

Stratoscope 2y ago
> One thing I find rather frustrating about YouTube’s redesign (on desktop) is that it devotes so much screen real estate to promoting videos other than the one you’re actually there to watch. I’d prefer fewer distractions. The F key is your friend. It puts the video full screen. You don't even have to find the full screen icon at the bottom right of the video, just hit F.
- brookst 2y ago
  But I don’t want full screen, I want it to take up the full window that I have allocated to the browser, while still allowing me to multitask in other windows.
  - nulbyte 2y ago
    I love Firefox's picture-in-picture mode for this exact reason. I think there is an extension for Chrome also.
    - hombre_fatal 2y ago
      It's in Chrome natively. But in Youtube you have to right click on the video twice. First to trigger the Javascript context menu, and again to trigger the native one which will have the "Picture in picture" option. And there are actually two different native context menus, so if the PiP one doesn't pop up, you might have to try multiple times. Very weird UX instead of just giving us a PiP button under the video.
      - jmb99 2y ago
        It’s not weird UX when you consider why it’s so hidden: to increase “engagement” metrics (i.e. make it more likely for you to click on other videos, view/interact with ads/etc). Same reason the feature is unavailable on iOS (even though it’s been natively supported by the OS for years), unless you pay whatever google wants for a premium YouTube subscription.
        ytwySXpMbS 2y ago
        There’s a great app called PiPifier, which allows you to use PiP for free on iOS.
      - clearleaf 2y ago
        That behaviour is so weird that it feels like an oversight. It's like we're not supposed to be able to access those options at all. A lot of people are explaining it by saying PIP mode lowers engagement so they hide it. But then why have that as a built in feature at all?
  - luyu_wu 2y ago
    Maybe try the T key for theater mode!
  - davisoneee 2y ago
    You can make firefox fullscreen _within the window_ by changing a flag in about:config ... full-screen-api.ignore-widgets (set to true) then, when you press `F` on a video, you will remove all firefox 'decoration', just like fullscreen mode, but it'll respect whatever position and size you have set for the browser.
    - epiccoleman 2y ago
      That's a truly excellent tip, I definitely need to go tweak that setting.
      - davisoneee 2y ago
        As an additional tip, if you want to get rid of the "You are now fullscreen" (or whatever it says) that comes across the top... you can set the following to 0 full-screen-api.transition-duration.enter full-screen-api.transition-duration.leave full-screen-api.transition-duration.timeout full-screen-api.warning.delay full-screen-api.warning.timeout these are all involved in the popup when you fullscreen a video
    - brookst 2y ago
      What a wonderful but bizarrely named feature flag. Thank you!
  - Akronymus 2y ago
    For me, this extension works quite well https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/bettertheatre/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/bettertheatre...
  - gbalduzzi 2y ago
    this is my greatest nitpick. Any website with a video player should include a "full window" control
  - 57FkMytWjyFu 2y ago
    Windowed - floating Youtube/every website' avail for firefox or chrome. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/windowed/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/windowed/ https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/windowed-floating-youtube/gibipneadnbflmkebnmcbgjdkngkbklb https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/windowed-floating-y...
roelschroeven 2y ago
> One thing I find rather frustrating about YouTube’s redesign (on desktop) is that it devotes so much screen real estate to promoting videos other than the one you’re actually there to watch. I’d prefer fewer distractions. Theater mode (shortcut 't') is a bit better. But yes, I too would like a mode where the video fills the whole browser window.
- davkan 2y ago
  If I’m watching a video longer than 10 minutes or so I usually use a Firefox popout window.
- asdff 2y ago
  Its the nature of the beast. For a while I used a custom ublock filter to strip out the recommended videos section, the comments, whatever I considered junk pixels. Now I just pull the video to /tmp/ and don't have to deal with buffering (somehow still an issue in 2024).
- dredmorbius 2y ago
  Use an external video player. mpv and VLC are my usual go-to's. Both will stream straight from a URL (and both handle far more than just YT). You can also of course download and play at your leisure with ytdlp. <https://mpv.io/ https://mpv.io/> <https://www.videolan.org/vlc/ https://www.videolan.org/vlc/> <https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp>
  - oblio 2y ago
    I just tried VLC. Media - From Network Stream - pasted Youtube URL. Nope, error message, said check the logs. Searched the UI for an entry for the logs, found nothing. Googled for "vlc logs". Found a guide. Configured the path to be on the desktop. Restarted VLC. Tried again, same error message. No log file created and of course no log file entries. The joys of FOSS.
    - thatloststudent 2y ago
Talinx 2y ago
Why not load the minimal required content for it to look right first (e. g. thumbnail, video controls) and load everything else once the rest of the page has been loaded (e. g. buffer the first few seconds of the video), somewhat similar to hydration?
- skybrian 2y ago
  I suspect that’s what they do already. The trouble is that it’s heavyweight speculative execution that often doesn’t pay off, but it wastes resources anyway.

Stratoscope 2y ago

> One thing I find rather frustrating about YouTube’s redesign (on desktop) is that it devotes so much screen real estate to promoting videos other than the one you’re actually there to watch. I’d prefer fewer distractions. The F key is your friend. It puts the video full screen. You don't even have to find the full screen icon at the bottom right of the video, just hit F.

brookst 2y ago
But I don’t want full screen, I want it to take up the full window that I have allocated to the browser, while still allowing me to multitask in other windows.
- nulbyte 2y ago
  I love Firefox's picture-in-picture mode for this exact reason. I think there is an extension for Chrome also.
  - hombre_fatal 2y ago
    It's in Chrome natively. But in Youtube you have to right click on the video twice. First to trigger the Javascript context menu, and again to trigger the native one which will have the "Picture in picture" option. And there are actually two different native context menus, so if the PiP one doesn't pop up, you might have to try multiple times. Very weird UX instead of just giving us a PiP button under the video.
    - jmb99 2y ago
      It’s not weird UX when you consider why it’s so hidden: to increase “engagement” metrics (i.e. make it more likely for you to click on other videos, view/interact with ads/etc). Same reason the feature is unavailable on iOS (even though it’s been natively supported by the OS for years), unless you pay whatever google wants for a premium YouTube subscription.
      - ytwySXpMbS 2y ago
        There’s a great app called PiPifier, which allows you to use PiP for free on iOS.
    - clearleaf 2y ago
      That behaviour is so weird that it feels like an oversight. It's like we're not supposed to be able to access those options at all. A lot of people are explaining it by saying PIP mode lowers engagement so they hide it. But then why have that as a built in feature at all?
- luyu_wu 2y ago
  Maybe try the T key for theater mode!
- davisoneee 2y ago
  You can make firefox fullscreen _within the window_ by changing a flag in about:config ... full-screen-api.ignore-widgets (set to true) then, when you press `F` on a video, you will remove all firefox 'decoration', just like fullscreen mode, but it'll respect whatever position and size you have set for the browser.
  - epiccoleman 2y ago
    That's a truly excellent tip, I definitely need to go tweak that setting.
    - davisoneee 2y ago
      As an additional tip, if you want to get rid of the "You are now fullscreen" (or whatever it says) that comes across the top... you can set the following to 0 full-screen-api.transition-duration.enter full-screen-api.transition-duration.leave full-screen-api.transition-duration.timeout full-screen-api.warning.delay full-screen-api.warning.timeout these are all involved in the popup when you fullscreen a video
  - brookst 2y ago
    What a wonderful but bizarrely named feature flag. Thank you!
- Akronymus 2y ago
  For me, this extension works quite well https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/bettertheatre/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/bettertheatre...
- gbalduzzi 2y ago
  this is my greatest nitpick. Any website with a video player should include a "full window" control
- 57FkMytWjyFu 2y ago
  Windowed - floating Youtube/every website' avail for firefox or chrome. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/windowed/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/windowed/ https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/windowed-floating-youtube/gibipneadnbflmkebnmcbgjdkngkbklb https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/windowed-floating-y...

roelschroeven 2y ago

> One thing I find rather frustrating about YouTube’s redesign (on desktop) is that it devotes so much screen real estate to promoting videos other than the one you’re actually there to watch. I’d prefer fewer distractions. Theater mode (shortcut 't') is a bit better. But yes, I too would like a mode where the video fills the whole browser window.

davkan 2y ago
If I’m watching a video longer than 10 minutes or so I usually use a Firefox popout window.
asdff 2y ago
Its the nature of the beast. For a while I used a custom ublock filter to strip out the recommended videos section, the comments, whatever I considered junk pixels. Now I just pull the video to /tmp/ and don't have to deal with buffering (somehow still an issue in 2024).
dredmorbius 2y ago
Use an external video player. mpv and VLC are my usual go-to's. Both will stream straight from a URL (and both handle far more than just YT). You can also of course download and play at your leisure with ytdlp. <https://mpv.io/ https://mpv.io/> <https://www.videolan.org/vlc/ https://www.videolan.org/vlc/> <https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp>
- oblio 2y ago
  I just tried VLC. Media - From Network Stream - pasted Youtube URL. Nope, error message, said check the logs. Searched the UI for an entry for the logs, found nothing. Googled for "vlc logs". Found a guide. Configured the path to be on the desktop. Restarted VLC. Tried again, same error message. No log file created and of course no log file entries. The joys of FOSS.
  - thatloststudent 2y ago

Talinx 2y ago

Why not load the minimal required content for it to look right first (e. g. thumbnail, video controls) and load everything else once the rest of the page has been loaded (e. g. buffer the first few seconds of the video), somewhat similar to hydration?

skybrian 2y ago
I suspect that’s what they do already. The trouble is that it’s heavyweight speculative execution that often doesn’t pay off, but it wastes resources anyway.