Ask HN: Honestly, what's the deal with YouTube's play bar?

#1

Post by hello_there_you » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 9:33 AM UTC

I can not believe this thing still exists and looks and works the way it does. Basically, if I want to point and click on a specific time of the video, I still can't do that if the little circle is in the way. Who came up with that design??? Sometimes, you're watching an hour long video where if you click on the timeline, it misses by several minutes, so you have to click again to get the god damn circle out of the way and then try to get it where you want it again. Is this a google product? Really?

All I want is to be able to tell the player that "please start at 8 minutes and 32 seconds into this clip", not 7 minutes and 32 seconds into the clip and not 9 minutes and 48 seconds into the clip. There's a huge difference there. I mean, am I crazy? I just need to understand the thought process here.

If I worked at this mysteriously amazing company I would change the circle to a 2 pixel wide line and deploy that shit before lunch today. Problem solved.

If you don't know what I'm talking about: http://i.imgur.com/tk5PWrF.png

Re: Ask HN: Honestly, what's the deal with YouTube's play bar?

#2

Post by moridin007 » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 9:57 AM UTC

i feel your pain bro..

you can always add #t=03m22s to the end of the url to start from 3m22s from the video.

Re: Ask HN: Honestly, what's the deal with YouTube's play bar?

#3

Post by Rifu » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 10:38 AM UTC

If you hold the circle that's "in the way", it'll allow you to scrub through the video.

Re: Ask HN: Honestly, what's the deal with YouTube's play bar?

#4

Post by hello_there_you » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 12:16 PM UTC

Rifu wrote: post #3

If you hold the circle that's "in the way", it'll allow you to scrub through the video.

Try doing that on a touchpad(is that the word?). First when you click the circle, it moves a couple of cm, then you have to try to move your fingertip slooowly towards the time you want to start from. I mean, come on people... what are we doing here?

Re: Ask HN: Honestly, what's the deal with YouTube's play bar?

#5

Post by zhte415 » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 12:40 PM UTC

And cache. When wanting to rewind I'd like the forward part of the video to keep downloading, not reload the video from that point and lose all ahead of it that's already downloaded. That used to be the case, but changed around 2011/2012 IIRC.

Re: Ask HN: Honestly, what's the deal with YouTube's play bar?

#6

Post by mahouse » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 1:56 PM UTC

hello_there_you wrote: post #4

Rifu wrote: post #3

If you hold the circle that's "in the way", it'll allow you to scrub through the video.

Try doing that on a touchpad(is that the word?). First when you click the circle, it moves a couple of cm, then you have to try to move your fingertip slooowly towards the time you want to start from. I mean, come on people... what are we doing here?

Get a better touchpad?

Re: Ask HN: Honestly, what's the deal with YouTube's play bar?

#7

Post by hello_there_you » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 2:07 PM UTC

mahouse wrote: post #6

hello_there_you wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try doing that on a touchpad(is that the word?). First when you click the circle, it moves a couple of cm, then you have to try to move your fingertip slooowly towards the time you want to start from. I mean, come on people... what are we doing here?

Get a better touchpad?

Right. Jokes aside, I'm currently using a pretty new MBP. Still not understanding the problem here. How is the circle a good idea? There must be some technical reason for why they went with it. I can't imagine anyone testing it out for more than 5 minutes before thinking "Yep, this clearly sucks".

Re: Ask HN: Honestly, what's the deal with YouTube's play bar?

#8

Post by hello_there_you » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 2:11 PM UTC

moridin007 wrote: post #2

i feel your pain bro.. you can always add #t=03m22s to the end of the url to start from 3m22s from the video.

Yes, as ridiculous as it sounds, that seems to be the only option.

Re: Ask HN: Honestly, what's the deal with YouTube's play bar?

#9

Post by LukeHoersten » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 2:15 PM UTC

My buddy works at YouTube on the player and I asked him this same question. Basically he said there's resistance to changing too much on the interface in order to not mess with success. The good news is, they know the issue(s).

Re: Ask HN: Honestly, what's the deal with YouTube's play bar?

#10

Post by hello_there_you » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 3:30 PM UTC

LukeHoersten wrote: post #9

My buddy works at YouTube on the player and I asked him this same question. Basically he said there's resistance to changing too much on the interface in order to not mess with success. The good news is, they know the issue(s).

"resistance to changing too much on the interface in order to not mess with success"

Oh my god. I see. Thx for the inside info.