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

5 pointshello_there_you10y ago12 comments

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

12 comments

fredm-de10y ago

Holy Moly, they seemed to just have changed the player a few hours ago. And you're problem seems fixed.

hello_there_youOP10y ago

YAAAY!! See, some complaining on hacker news and BOOM - progress. Your welcome.

Rifu10y ago

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

hello_there_youOP10y ago

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?

mahouse10y ago

Get a better touchpad?

1 more reply

zhte41510y ago

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.

LukeHoersten10y ago

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).

hello_there_youOP10y ago

"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.

hello_there_youOP10y ago

Btw, all they have to do is change two lines of CSS.

.html5-scrubber-button {border: 0; width: 1px;}

But whatever, let's not risk anything here ;)

moridin00710y ago

i feel your pain bro..

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

hello_there_youOP10y ago

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

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

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

5 pointshello_there_you10y ago12 comments

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