Use YouTube Suggestions to Play Similar Music Endlessly

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Many times you would like to play similar kind of music though not from same artist or album. While discovering music, YouTube suggestions on right sidebar does a great job for finding it for you. But each time you have to click on a link and there is no automatic way to play them continuously. YouTube Related Music solves this problem by endlessly streaming similar music videos based on suggestions from your first input music video.

What we liked about this continuously music playing YouTube suggestions app?

#. Uncluttered UI and responsiveness

#. Temporary list of your baseline songs and their different versions

#. Ability to play related music videos endlessly like an online radio

#. Usage of YouTube’s own recommendation system

#. Single baseline song to play similar songs

youtube related music

What differs this app from Grooveshark’s and LastFM’s of the world is its ability to choose a baseline song and play similar songs. Also, this app saves you the trouble of manually adding new songs to playlist as YouTube does the discovery for you. So, you always have fresh and relevant playlist of the genre. The idea is noble but sometimes it plays different versions of same song (live, feat, cover and remix) of especially if it’s popular one.

On the right side, you will find list of your baseline songs and on the left the related videos from YouTube. The user interface is crisp and sleek, and has minimal buttons to skip or play next song.

The only drawback of this application is unreliable sound levels and quality. Official videos have normalized sound with decent quality. However you cannot be sure of unofficial ones where sound levels may change drastically between videos.

YouTube Related Music is free to use, so go check it out and discover songs of same taste.

Best Ways to Replay YouTube Videos Automatically in a Loop [Repeat Infinitely]

Posted on January 5, 2012 by Abhishek Mandloi

Unfortunately, we do not have an automatic replay button in YouTube to keep video/song repeat in a never ending loop. Every time we have to manually click on that small replay button at the top of the video, which is both inconvenient and uncomfortable. The old trick of appending &loop=1 parameter was the easiest method and worked on all the internet browsers but lately it does not work anymore with the new revamped YouTube.

Let us look at some of the best ways to automatically replay YouTube videos in an infinite loop –

Chrome Extension – Auto Replay for YouTube

Chrome extension to replay youtube videos

This extension adds a checkbox at the bottom of videos, which lets you watch infinitely once you enable it. It also provides options to input the starting and ending seconds between which the video will be replayed. These input boxes also support keyboard shortcuts. Up and down arrows, increase and decrease the values by 1 second whereas pressing shift button along with arrow keys will change values by 5 seconds. Shift+Enter will take the current time of the video as starting point for next play.

Firefox Addon – YouTube Auto Replay

firefox addon for youtube replay

This Firefox add-on does the similar job except with better interface. Choose your starting and ending time or loop the entire video. Simple!

For IE or other browsers – Direct Websites

Sites like yourepeat, tubeencore, tubereplay and youtuberepeater lets you replay videos in any internet browser. All you have to do is replace the youtube word in the URL of the video with any of these sites.

repeater websites

These websites are almost similar with few different features like –

Tubeencore offers a slider from where you can adjust repeat duration and a download link at the bottom of the player.

Tubereplay offers you clean and distraction free UI though other features are not available. In addition, it provides a bookmarklet, which you can directly click while watching YouTube video to replace URL on the fly.

Youtuberepeater offers same functionality with precise position marking capability.

Use any of these methods to enjoy your favourite videos distraction free. If you have more ideas, tell us in our comments.

Watch YouTube Videos While Working on Desktop Applications

Posted on September 12, 2011 by Abhishek Mandloi

Picture-In-Picture For YouTube is an lesser known extension for Google Chrome that gives you a fair easy way to watch YouTube videos while browsing other websites and even when you are working on desktop applications.

Picture-In-Picture For YouTube
Once installed, the extension adds a new ‘PIP’ button, next to the existing Share button, on every YouTube video page.

When you click on that newly added PIP button, the video will immediately appear as a small pop-up on the corner of your screen. PIP uses Chrome’s notification system, so you will have to allow desktop notifications from YouTube for the very first time.

As it Chrome notification technique, the video window is not that flexible. You cannot change its size, nor can you place it anywhere on the screen by dragging. Though you can control the window’s corner position on screen. To do this, click on the small wrench icon on the window and choose “Choose position”.

As for the player itself, you can pause and play the video by clicking on it. And once the video has finished playing, you can replay it by clicking on it again.

Multiple videos in Picture-In-Picture

You can use PIP to watch up to four videos at the same time. Each video is stacked on top of the other, and if you continue to add more videos with four already on your desktop, the rest will be queued to play when you close any of the four window.

While the video is running you can close the YouTube tab and open just about any program or application and the videos will remain on top, but you can’t close Chrome of course.

Overall, this is a useful extension to keep YouTube videos on top of windows and work simultaneously. The extension works seamlessly and it is quite enjoyable to watch videos, even in such a small window.

Note: The extension currently works only with those YouTube videos that can be embedded. And it even works in Incognito mode.

Install: Picture-In-Picture For YouTube

Remove YouTube Sidebar, Ads and Comments with this Simple Trick

Posted on May 12, 2011 by Abhishek Mandloi

[For Web Presenters, Academicians, and Publishers]

Sidebar and comments are distractions as they draw apart audience mind from getting the crux of the video. In many scenarios, removing sidebar, advertisements and comments seem to be best option especially when you want viewers to focus on videos only. Situations in which you share YouTube links include presentations, web meetings, student notes, blog posts and teaching.

youtube video with comments ads sidebar small

Before: Cluttered Youtube Page

After: Full Screen Video in Browser

Click to enlarge Before and After effects.

A normal YouTube page looks cluttered likes this. What we would like is browser window filled up with only with video like this.

Hiding comments and sidebar is very simple. You can link videos that play full-screen or fill all browser window space by inserting _popup keyword in the video URL link.

For example, if the YouTube link is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OBlgSz8sSM

You will have to add _popup word after watch, so that the video opens in full screen without sidebar and comments section. That is, the new video URL is
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=_OBlgSz8sSM .

Another method is to replace ” watch?v= ” by ” v/ “. So now, the link looks like – http://www.youtube.com/v/_OBlgSz8sSM but this approach does force auto-start the video.

These are very simple tricks to avoid distractions and to show only what you really want to the audience. Use them freely in your web presentations and notes.

Via Search Research Blog.

Play 2 YouTube Videos Simultaneously with YouTubeDoubler

Posted on January 29, 2011 by Abhishek Mandloi

YouTubeDoubler is a mashup which plays two YouTube videos simultaneously. The videos can be of completely different natures but upon mixing they create a unique effect.

The idea of mixing and watching two videos side by side is sounds simple but until you see it yourself it’s hard to believe the creativeness and the fun involved. Head over to YouTubeDoubler and see yourself the weirdness generated by mashing up videos.

Some of the top YouTubeDoubler are –

#. Difference between quick cars and F1 cars on same circuit at same corner.

#. Annoying girl talk.

#. Usher Papers song mashed up with a Goat.

It can also prove as video compare utility. You can compare or mix your own videos or choose from the top played. It’s a fun activity and the creators think it is important to have 60 to 90 seconds of fun from web from time to time. You can call it multi-tasking or just another way to have fun from YouTube. It’s your choice.

10 Best Google Products on Abobe AIR Platform : Gmail, Reader, YouTube, Maps and Others

Posted on January 19, 2011 by Abhishek Mandloi

AIR is a desktop environment from Adobe, the well-known makers of Acrobat PDF Reader. It is acronym for Adobe Integrated Runtime and its purpose is to provide beautiful rich internet applications on desktop. Developers around the world have developed thousands of applications on this new platform and there are some even for Google. Applications on AIR platform have many advantages and most prominent among them is that they are desktop based.

Why Choose AIR Based Google Products Over Browser Based products?

As such you are not losing anything if you decide to stick to browser based products and you may rebuff that AIR was not designed specifically for web as in case of browsers and over security issues. But these applications can be very good alternative when –

# You are looking for offline use.

# You are looking for easy synchronization options.

# you want different apps for separate work on your hard disk.

# Your browser is taking too much memory and often hangs your computer.

# You want good looking apps with Stylish UI.

I am not saying AIR is better or vice-versa but it provide a sensible substitute if you don’t want to use browsers for everything. Let’s have a look at top 10 Google Products available on AIR platform –

GMDesk

GMDesk is a one stop shop for most common use Google products like Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs and Google Maps. You can even change the default start up product and can also access Google Apps. In short, this app removes 4 tabs from your browser in addition for giving great user experience.

ReadAir

ReadAir – One of my favorite is ReadAir. It is minimalistic yet beautiful with Mac OSX theme. Gives full synchronization with Google Reader, Provides auto-logic and keyboard shortcuts. All in all its one of the best only if it had offline support.

Desktube

Desktube – Experience YouTube on your desktop with this fantastic app. Desktube not only lets you search, watch, comment and upload videos but also lets you download YouTube videos in MOV format.

AIRTube Video Downloader

AIRTube Video Downloader – Another nifty application for YouTube is AIRTube. This app was made keeping only one object in mind – Downloading YouTube videos. So all you need to do is drag-n-drop or paste Video URL and this app will download it for you in variety of formats.

Analytics Reporting Suite

Google Analytics Reporting Suite – This powerful app is not only trendy and fast but also gives separate reports in multiple tabs making comparison and analysis much easier.

AirTalkr

AirTalkr – Want to use Gtalk, Yahoo!, MSN, AOL and ICQ at the same time? If yes, then this beautiful app not only lets you use everything at same time on your desktop but also lets you view and share Flickr pics and youtube videos with your friends.

Polaris

Polaris – This Google Analytics desktop widget offers 8 standard reports for quick viewing and analyzing site data. This app proves to be very useful tool for checking GA data on the fly.

Geemail

Geemail – This beautiful app gives you all the functionality of Gmail as a lightweight desktop program. Its dead simple to use. No need to configure IMAP/POP and it even has offline mode. That means even if you are not connected to internet, you can compose and send an email. GeeMail will send the email next time whenever it detects internet connection.

Google Calendar Invoice Creator

Google Calendar Invoice Creator – A very productive app that lets you transfer all your Google Calendar meetings and bill them with people whom you want. From a businessman perspective, it’s a perfect app to keep tab and track all meetings and clients.

Gmail Note

Gmail Note – A simple mail notifier which can handle multiple Google accounts. If you are not using Thunderbird/Outlook, then this is one perfect app that notifies new mails. The notification also displays short mail content and a double click takes you to your Gmail account.

My Favorites: I am in love with ReadAir and Desktube. Tell us which application did you liked the most?

YouTube Full Screen Deletes Buffer on Maximizing – Annoying Problem

Posted on January 6, 2011 by Abhishek Mandloi

One common problem often shared between slow internet connections users is that YouTube deletes video buffer when player is switched to full screen or maximized.

When you start playing any YouTube video, the red bar starts filling beneath video player indicating the buffer status. This buffered video resides onto your computer hard-disk and you can even save it for viewing video offline. Now if you maximize, YouTube by default removes all buffers and starts to fetch it again in high resolution. This is particularly annoying because it interrupts the video playing experience as it starts loading again.

Why YouTube Deletes Buffer and Starts Loading Again?
YouTube developers do this on purpose. Because on switching, the video needs high-resolution stream for the same clarity as in normal screen. That’s why, the video which is normally played at 360p gets changed to 480p automatically so that video quality is maintained.

How to solve this problem?
There are two ways to solve this problem. Lets look at them one by one –

1) If you have a high-speed internet connection, then you should always start viewing it in higher resolution of 480p or more so that upon maximizing, it doesn’t stop and buffers again. Typically, YouTube will automatically recognize your bandwidth speed and will serve you with the best possible resolution. This solution is only applicable for high-speed internet users, for others let us see second solution.

2) For users with slow connection, you can login into YouTube account (either with YouTube credentials or Gmail credentials ) and change settings from http://www.youtube.com/account#playback/quality .

Select the option – I have a slow connection. Never play higher-quality video and click Save at the bottom of the page. Thats all, now even if you watch videos in full-screen mode, YouTube won’t change resolution and there will be no re-buffing or unexpected pause.

The only disadvantage of second solution is that you have to be logged in always for this setting to take effect. I suppose, it’s a small price for such a annoying problem.

Watch Full Length Hindi Movies for Free on YouTube

Posted on April 17, 2010 by Abhishek Mandloi

Watch popular hindi movies on YouTube here.

We all use YouTube to watch video songs from our favourite movies but now some of the popular movies are made available on YouTube. Viewing is absolutely free. Use this page to browse all the full-length hindi movies on YouTube. The page shows only the recent featured 60 movies therefore it would be better if you do sorting by new releases or popularity..

Most of these movies are offered by publication houses like Rajshi and UltraHindi for their brand publicity, company promotion and other house-specific reasons. Therefore, if you go on UltraHindi user page, you can find other hindi movies which have not made their way in official bollywood movie list. For example – Makadee, Bhoot Uncle, Andaz Apna Apna and many more.

Are you wondering how these movies were uploaded to YouTube, when the upload limit for YouTube is only 15 minutes per video. Google assumes that normal people won’t upload TV serials or movies (Don’t be evil methodology) and also for piracy concerns. However, YouTube partners have special privileges to upload entire movies , for example Rajshri productions. You can find the entire list of these partners here.

Also, if you are interested in other variants of Indian cinema like Telugu, Kannada, Gujarati, Marathi, Bengali, Malayalam, Tamil, Punjabi or Marwari languages then head over to this page.

Go ahead and enjoy these oldies but classical bollywood movies.

5 Best Greasemonkey Scripts for YouTube

Posted on March 1, 2010 by Abhishek Mandloi

Greasemonkey scripts let you improve your web experience by adding additional functionalities for any kind of website. And our favorite video site, YouTube is not an exception. In total, hundreds of YouTube scripts are available but there are some, which every video lover should install like the script to search only high quality 720 pixels videos. And now, since Google Chrome supports Greasemonkey scripts, it is my responsibility to publish some of the best scripts so that even Chrome lovers will have the benefit of better and additional YouTube features.

Lets look at best five greasemonkey scripts that every youtube lover should have for total awesomeness:

1. Completely Enhance Video Watching Experience

The Best in all available scripts is the YouTube enhancer script, which actually does justice to its name i.e. enhances the viewing experience by providing all functionalities like playback control, video resizing, quality enhancement, rollover preview, downloading and much more.

Youtube enhancer controls
Youtube enhancer resize video options

This is a single package for the ultimate cinema experience. You can have custom start and end for your favorite scenes, and even put them in repeat loop. It’s a must try for Gtricks readers.

2. Download YouTube Videos in Different Formats

Keep-Tube is by far, the most downloaded/installed Greasemonkey script for YouTube. This script lets users download YouTube videos in High Definition (HD), High Quality (HQ), MP4, 3GP, and FLV formats.

This script also claims to work with other popular video sharing websites like Dailymotion, Magavideo, Google Videos, Vimeo, Metacafe, Myspace, Facebook and others. They also claim to provide more downloading options than other video downloaders.

Once installed, you can find the download link near the video title or at rightmost end of page.

3. Watch Videos Directly without Opening a New Page
What happens when someone posts a video link from YouTube on a forum or some social networking site? We need to click it to view it. However, in the process, we lose our actual page and migrate to new page. In such conditions, Videoembed comes to good use.

This script automatically adds videos to the links so that when you click on link, they show up and start playing without navigating to the new page. Hence saving you both, time and clicks. And this contributes to better user experience.

For example, try searching “Russell Peter” after installing this script. In the search results, along with websites, you will find some YouTube videos. Because of videoembed script, you can see ‘plus’ icon next to the title of the video. Click on the icon to watch video within the search page. Its better to watch these videos in search page than opening them in different pages.

4. Watch YouTube Video Songs with Lyrics

Video Song With Lyrics

YouTube Lyrics script adds a custom box next to video song in the sidebar to display lyrics. This script searches 11 different lyrics sites before presenting you most relevant lyrics and even you can select lyrics site from the drop down menu.

5. Always Watch YouTube Videos in Highest Quality (HQ/HD)
YouTube HD Ultimate script will automatically load the highest quality of video without refreshing the whole page. The High Quality (HQ) or High Definition (HD) version of the video will be loaded depending on the availability. But it ensures that you watch only high quality 720p videos.

The script is fast and simple to customize. It also provides other features like hiding annotations, removing in-video ads, downloading and keyboard shortcuts.

Bonus Tip: Remove Chrome (In-Video) Ads
If you are annoyed by Chrome or in-video ads that start before YouTube videos, then this script can help you. As the name suggests, YouTube Auto Buffer & Auto HD & Remove Ads script removes ads and also buffers the video without auto-playing so that you don’t have to pause a video as soon as it loads for buffering.

* Flashblock users might face some problems with these scripts. Therefore, it’s better to add YouTube in Flashblock whitelist from Tools > Add-ons > Flashblock > Options > Whitelist.

Youtube for HTML5 Videos

Posted on January 21, 2010 by Abhishek Mandloi

Now since every modern browser is supporting HTML5, YouTube has started to deliver experimental videos with HTML5 player. Speciality of HTML5 player is that you won’t need any adobe flash player plugin to view these videos. Let us look at some of pros and cons of HTML5 Videos:

Pros with HTML5 videos:

The biggest advantage is that you don’t need to install adobe flash player or Microsoft Silverlight plugin. That means faster and light-weighted browser with less crashes.

Videos will act like animated images. That means you can style them just like images.

Videos loads quickly than traditional flash videos.

Watch videos with h.264 encoding

Pros with HTML5 videos:

Not every browser is supported. Only Chrome, Safari and Internet Explorer with Chrome Frame supports this latest format.

It doesn’t work with videos that have advertising, captions, or annotations.

Great news is that Firefox 3.6 is launched today with major updates. Unfortunately, Firefox 3.6 doesn’t currently work with the experimental HTML5 video player.

You can start viewing HTML5 videos by joining this experiment. If you have already joined any other testtube experiments, you may not get the HTML5 player, though it works perfectly with light-weight Feather.

Disable HTML5 on Youtube
HTML5 is disabled by default in Youtube. However, if you have accidently turned it ON, then you can disable it by going to Youtube.com/html5 page. Here, you need to leave the experiment, which will then instruct youtube to show only flash based videos and not the HTML5 ones.

Tag Archives: Youtube