Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ @lemmy.dbzer0.com

1y ago

SmartTube - an advanced player for set-top boxes and tv running Android OS

github.com GitHub - yuliskov/SmartTubeNext: SmartTube - an advanced player for set-top boxes and tv running Android OS

SmartTube - an advanced player for set-top boxes and tv running Android OS - GitHub - yuliskov/SmartTubeNext: SmartTube - an advanced player for set-top boxes and tv running Android OS

I've already been paying for YouTube Premium for many years to get rid of advertisement, and I've been using SponsorBlock for a year or so on my laptop to skip the inline ads, but because most of my watching of YouTube happens on the TV I always had to use the remote to skip it. It helps to see the "most rewind" area so you can fast forward to it, but it's still very cumbersome.

Now a couple of days someone mentioned SmartTube on Lemmy and I installed it on my Chromecast with Google TV OS and oh boy is this software great! I did it to get SponsorBlock, but that is by far not the only feature I love about it.

flexible time hiding the UI of a video (have it to 1 sec now)
not showing UI when pausing
way faster scrolling
instant loading
way faster account switching
instant voice search

But there is one feature missing, changing the search language. We speak combined 7 languages at home and it's impossible to search anything other than in English which is really annoying.

Anyway, check it out if you can on your TV.

70 comments

Yes it's brilliant, and very useful especially if you want to browse a different timeline on a different account or just use it anonymously.
It's mind blowing how well built the settings are.

SmartTube is what the YouTube app should be. I've been using it for I think 2 years now and it works like a charm, is super stable, offers loads of customization options, and the interface is better and more complete than the official app. Truly a must have for any Android tv box.

I fuckin love how it auto skips the sponsored bullshit. I have no idea how it knows even when it's seamlessly part of a video but it does. It's witchcraft and I love it!
- Works on desktop and ReVanced also. It's community driven! I've seen tiny videos get fully timestampped within about 10 minutes of publishing. People are very active on the project.
  https://github.com/ajayyy/SponsorBlock
  Look at these stats!
  
  It's insane to me that I can click on a video that was posted by a creator with under 10k subscribers, less than 15 minutes ago, and it already has dozens of votes for submitted segments.
  And some videos, people go waaaaay out for segments, little 2 second skips for subscribe reminders, while blocks rendered down into 5 types of segments so depending on your settings, you might get some of it, or you might get just the meat of the content with no fluff or filler.
  I LOVE the "interaction" skip on some content creators, because they like to address the audience unnecessarily trying to drive comment interaction up. I totally get why they do that, and I respect their decision, but I also have no intention of commenting on 90% of videos, so asking "what do YOU think? Head down to the comments and..." will get nothing from me, but might from someone else. And now I can skip those.
  Re/vanced and now this have been the best things about YouTube since like 2007.
  
  Oh those are interesting stats, especially the 338k Firefox vs 1M Chrome users, so basically 25% of SponsorBlock users are Firefox users, while Firefox has 3% market share.
- I’m pretty sure it works off a user-submitted database? but I might be wrong.
  
  It does.
- Sponsorblock is a browser add on and it’s crowdsourced, also try DeArrow for crowdsourced titles and thumbnails
- I kind of need a whitelist of channels where I want to see the ads, like Jay Foreman.
  
  Sponsor Block (the Firefox extension) gives you a ton of customizability. You don't have to have it auto skip, you can make it so a tiny bubble pops up asking if you want to skip or not. Or you can even just have it highlight it on the seek bar and nothing else.

Just installed it, I've been crying about not having sponsorblock on my chromecast. Works a charm, thank you!

Awesome, I've been running SmartTube on a Sony Android TV for a bit. Works really well, almost seamless. Regular updates appear via the Telegram chat too. SmartTube coupled with YT Pro for phone is a perfect combination.
- For the phone there is also ReVanced, but it's not as nice as SmartTube, but does the job to SponsorBlock.
  
  I find YT Pro to be more polished. It uses MicroG and is closed source which can put some people off, but I've had nil issues.
  
  I wonder why SmartTube doesn't work on phones and tablets? I've looked into ReVanced but I can't figure out the whole process. SmartTube is just an apk.

Been using since few days on my first gen fire stick. Feels like another world completely. No more bloated YouTube app and MUCH faster
The only feature missing is the streaming from the phone
- You can cast videos from your phone, you just have to connect it somewhere in the settings (can't really check right now but I'm sure I've used it)
  
  I tried but it opened the YouTube app instead

Been using this on a FireTv 4k stick for a few years. The youtube on it was one of the few places my house where my adblocking dns didnt work. SmartTube is just perfect.

ohh totally gonna try and get this installed on my friends tv!
- I also installed https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=flar2.homebutton to be able to remap the YouTube button on the Chromecast remote to SmartTube.
  I guess it's time to get the SmartTube icon on the remote too 😂
  
  Has Remapper been updated to fix the volume control glitch? Last time I used Remapper the volume would be uncontrollable. Without it, pressing the volume up key would only go up 2-3 units on my tv. If I used the volume up button with Remapper running it would scroll all the way up to max volume with a single press...
  
  This is awesome, thanks!
  
  Awesome! I'ma try this!
  
  Legend!
  
  Thank you very much for this, finally managed to disable and rebind some remote buttons for apps that Ive already nuked off the TV. Works great with some workarounds.
  
  I... didn't know I needed this. Remapped the YT and Netflix buttons, with single and double taps. The remote is now exactly the remote I need for my Chromecast.

This is so good I bought a cheapo tv box just to run Smart Tube
- I have a box in the mail, was going to install newpipe, but gonna try SmartTube instead.
  
  But be aware that those two apps do vastly different things. One is trying to save your privacy by hiding you behind a wall of other users, the other one is just a different frontend for the YouTube API.

I really like the app, but I wish it would let me load ads on creators I wanna support, I realize it's worth less then peanuts, but if it could allow only 30s ads or less that would be perfect for me
- Sign up to their patreon or buy their merch. They'll get a bigger cut that way.
  
  if only I had the funds to do so lol
- Just open your favorite creator on the main app or through your browser with AdBlock off
  
  that is a terrible UX lol, the main youtube app for TV is absolute dogwater, it's slow and it even crashes fairly often. im not going to swap apps for this. browser is even worse
- It’s not really possible because api requests don’t include ads AFAIK
  
  I am aware, just find it kinda sad
- If you are that concerned why not just run a playlist of their videos on desktop in the background with the tab muted and Adblock off while you do other things.

This is amazing

If any of y'all watch twitch this is like the SmartTube version of it
https://github.com/S0und/S0undTV
- I’ve been searching for a good twitch app replacement for so long. Will definitely try this out thank you

Definitely loving these alternatives

I'd love to find something like this for the SamsungOS tvs, or at least a locally hosted alternative adblocker. I get 3-4 ads per 10 minute video now and it's endlessly frustrating.
- Get an Android Box and run the apps you want to.

One idea for the language problem. It needs a little bit of tinkering. Grab the apk and alter the package name. Than you can install multiple instances side by side. You could install one instance for each language. Probably necessary to alter the app name as well so you can distinguish between the different versions.

I've been using this app for years and sometimes it's almost super stable. Sometimes things don't load and an update or restart is required to fix it.
- The only trouble I have is sometimes it can’t parse updates so I have to try again later

I use this for years, it's great

I'd love to use it on my smartphone as well... problem is the interface was designed to react only to directional buttons, not to touch inputs. I wonder if somebody can manage to add the ability in the source code?
- Newpipe is pretty effective for me on Android.
  
  My only issue with Newpipe is that I can't sync my "watch later" list with Google's servers. That, and I can't reply to comments straight from the app. Otherwise I'd probably be using either that or Piped.
- For the phone the easiest way is NewPipe with Sponsorblock https://github.com/polymorphicshade/NewPipe
  One step above it , slightly more involved is ,YouTube-Revanced. The step by step walkthrough is in this thread, no command line stuff just follow the steps religiously. https://www.reddit.com/r/revancedapp/comments/xlcny9/_/
  
  Currently using Revanced, I'm hoping to see a way to actually integrate my Google account with something else, in a similar manner to what SmartTube is somehow allowed to do.
- What about Revanced?

I love finding and using other people’s wonderful creations.
I got an Apple TV, and found a SponsorBlock script i can run from my media server that polls the tv for what YouTube content I’m watching, and automatically skips ads for me. It’s so seamless, I don’t even realize it’s doing it most of the time.

I've been using it for a few months on my Nvidia Shield and the only two problems I have with it are the audio and video desync when skipping segments (rewinding one step resyncs it though) and the content on the Suggested Videos/Home page sucks, it doesn't seem to offer the same recommendations that the YouTube equivalent does.
Other than that, it's great to not have to manually skip the Sponsor segments.

70 comments