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What I'd really like is a service that edits down YouTube videos by removing all the stock footage and talking head crap, then speeding up the audio to fit over
by kragen 2y ago
What I'd really like is a service that edits down YouTube videos by removing all the stock footage and talking head crap, then speeding up the audio to fit over the remaining novel information—whether that's new battlefield footage, electron micrographs, demonstrations of machining techniques, or just elephant toothpaste. The talking head filler seems like it would be easy to recognize, but stock footage recognition presumably would have a significant false negative rate, which is okay.
This would reduce some videos to just a transcription, which would be the ideal outcome, I think. The less of my limited time on Earth I waste watching some dumbshit reading a script at a camera, the better. Summarizing the transcript further like this site does might be occasionally useful, of course.
- satvikpendem 2y agoI use SponsorBlock (be sure to enable all categories of blocking such as filler content, not just sponsors), DeArrow (de-clickbaits thumbnails and titles) and a video speed changer extension to enable much of your stated functionality, though of course not all. I've saved likely years of watching due to this combination.
- soraminazuki 2y agoHow did your viewing experience change after using DeArrow? I'm curious because DeArrow has a great reputation, yet my gut feeling tells me that I should avoid watching clickbait videos altogether.
- satvikpendem 2y agoThen you'd be in luck as it makes me less likely to click on those videos. I only watch them if I'm truly interested in the topic as shown by the revised thumbnail and title, which makes my viewing quality much higher on average.
- eco 2y agoI love the DeArrow experience. The problem with clickbait on YouTube is that even good creators are compelled to use it because it works. Whether it's due to the algorithm or just human behaviour I don't know. There's a little blue button next to the video titles to toggle it on and off and it's very interesting to compare the community title and thumbnail with the original. Good original titles are often left largely intact, maybe with some extra context. Betteridge law is no longer relevant. It's nice.
- pinoy420 2y agoTom Scott and LTT did research on this and you are absolutely correct. It just “works” for engagement. Even those who are already your top viewers.
- Timwi 2y agoDeArrow lets me make an informed decision on whether to watch a video or not. It's true that sometimes the clickbait will extend into the first few seconds of the video, but you can still stop watching then if you think it's not for you. Myself, I enjoy knowing what it's really going to be about.
- IshKebab 2y agoI tried DeArrow for a bit but I found that for some channels it actually made things worse - I mean it removed the clickbait, but some clickbait gave me a better idea of what the video was actually about than DeArrow's boring titles. Overall it didn't improve the experience really.
- sebzim4500 2y agoJust looking at their own marketing material, in some cases it's just making the titles longer and more boring without actually making them more descriptive.
- dinkumthinkum 2y agoIf you avoid watching clickbait thumbnailed videos then you will miss out on a lot of good content. Perhaps you are fine with this but if the implication is that a clickbait thumbnail implies the video is not good, this is an indicator that, at this point has almost no correlation with the video quality. This is because content creators, pretty much have to use clickbait thumbnails to get views or traction, largely because of the way YouTube's "algorithm" works.
- eco 2y agoOne of the best things in SponsorBlock is Highlight segments. If the video is 10 minutes of filler building up to a single interesting/exciting moment you can often see exactly on the timeline where to jump to.
- lolinder 2y agoThat's also present in the regular YouTube video scrubber. Maybe less prominently?
- unstatusthequo 2y agoI think that only shows up when a video hits a critical number of views so it knows where people watched and rewatched.
- _Algernon_ 2y agoWhen you need 4 extensions (counting ublock as well) to make a site useable, maybe it is time to reconsider what site you spend your time on?
- pinoy420 2y agoWhat a silly point of view. Instead what should they do? Post comments like this on HN? They clearly enjoy watching and digesting information from YouTube- the biggest platform for this. But people need to make money from it hence the ailment these these plugins remedy
- _Algernon_ 2y ago>Instead what should they do? Read a book, touch grass, etc. >They clearly enjoy watching and digesting information from YouTube- the biggest platform for this. I'd probably enjoy heroin but I still choose not do take it because I know it's not good for me. What's your point?
- exe34 2y ago> Read a book I wanted to say something flippant, but dang with the halo on my shoulder urges me otherwise. so here goes: books can also full of filler crap and useless and outright wrong material. just because it's a different medium doesn't make it any better for wasting time. in fact, a bad book can waste weeks of your life whereas a bad video on YouTube could waste about 10 minutes. ultimately I approve of any tools that allow one to extract the information that they are after without paying the cost of giving more attention to somebody than they've earned.
- _Algernon_ 2y agoBooks at least go through a minimal amount of vetting before they are published, and there are meaningful differences between forms of media. As McLuhan wrote: "The medium is the message".
- rcfox 2y agoYouTube has a speed changer built in. I'm curious what your extension would add.
- satvikpendem 2y agoHigher speeds than 2x. I usually watch at 3x and sometimes more (sometimes with captions turned on). Keyboard shortcuts as well, as others have mentioned.
- arccy 2y agothe built in one has keyboard shortcuts too: < and >
- satvikpendem 2y agoThere are more advanced keyboard shortcuts than just that when using an extension like YouTube Enhancer which includes the aforementioned higher speeds.
- powerhugs 2y agoSponsorBlock specifically blocks sponsor segments in YT videos.
- wazoox 2y agoNot the op but the extension I'm using adds 3 very mportant features : * default to my preferred speed (2×) * keyboard shortcuts to change speed on the fly as needed * arbitrary speeds up to 4×
- GrumpyNl 2y agoOr ask the original creator if he can publish the script used.
- xandrius 2y agoYou described SponsorBlock, really a game changer. Also works on mobile!
- kragen 2y agoWow, I'm really surprised that my comment describing 95% of YouTubers as "some dumbshit" got voted up to +19. I guess I'm not the only old man shaking his fist at the surveillance capitalism incompetent confident shouty bullshitter cloud?
- dinkumthinkum 2y agoIf that's what you want then why would you want a service like this? Surely there would be a non-video news sources of electron micrographs or elephant toothpaste for which there would probably be hundreds or thousands of LLM TL;DR things.
- kragen 2y agoI think you don't have a very clear idea of what I am talking about. You cannot present electron micrographs as text. You can present individual electron micrographs as still images, but not animation. Similarly, video of elephant toothpaste can only be presented as video, even if still images can be arresting. There is no sense in which a textual description of machining techniques or a Ukrainian battlefield is a substitute for video footage of them. In 5 seconds they can convey information that no amount of linguistic description can. Sometimes that information is even true. What I hate is when I'm trying to find such irreplaceable information and instead my search results are full of vapid stock footage and hubristic talking heads overconfidently reading a script out loud as they gaze at a video camera. It's like AI slop without the creativity.
- bbstats 2y agohow would you remove stock footage? B-roll has voice over it, it's kind of a necessity.
- kragen 2y agoBy "speeding up the audio to fit over the remaining novel information", as I said. "B-roll" doesn't necessarily imply worthless stock-footage filler; in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woj4vfMLpao https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woj4vfMLpao or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdF_nzMW_i8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdF_nzMW_i8 or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eu_crbcBdNM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eu_crbcBdNM, for example, the B-roll is the remaining novel information. The third of these also includes the kind of talking-head filler I'd like to remove.
- Xen9 2y agoI don't watch YouTube but if I would / I would if I'd cut out anything with faces or speech & use an LLM to summarize what's technically relevant from the transcript in a way that fits length of what remains. Pipeline such content, but use weighted random videos, with low weights for types of content with clickbait headings & perhaps blacklist for words like meme or lol in transcript to cut out things with stock footage. I am not sure of exact best way to remove it, actually, other than "using the transcript for some computational technique of probabilitistic stock footage prediction" which I bet would be most effective.
- moralestapia 2y agoCool. What's stopping you from doing it?
- kragen 2y agoWatching too many YouTube videos, probably.