lasttube » Discussions

0.2 beta - todo list

 
    • por said...
    • Alumni
    • 11 May 2007, 00:44

    0.2 beta - todo list

    Based on the feedback in the 'Welcome' tread, I've made a todo list for the next release (0.2 beta)

    • Make a splash page

    • Integrate a link to the original video page

    • Accesible for game consoles (especially wii) with visual interface

    • Better filtering of junk content



    Ok? Or do you feel there is absolutely something missing? Any idea on how to implement the visual interface? Maybe with some kind of dock witch pops up when you move your cursor to the bottom. Now where have we seen that before...

  • - Splash yes, just type the username in and start fetchin'
    - Yes
    - Doesn't affect me so I wouldn't really know
    - Definitely, but kinda hard

    It'd be good with a menu bar, or a way to block shit videos (have the filter based on users viewing and rejecting them as poor quality, etc)

    Edit:
    As well, even last.fm links to the song/artist pages, and user pages, similar artist links (to auto-fetch similar videos if you click on a similar artist)

    • por said...
    • Alumni
    • 11 May 2007, 16:58
    As for point 3 (Accesible for game consoles (especially wii) with visual interface) I actually meant the possibility to browse the clips without having to use your keyboard. For people who don't like to type or use a video console.

    decepti0n said:
    It'd be good with a menu bar, or a way to block shit videos (have the filter based on users viewing and rejecting them as poor quality, etc)


    I was thinking the same thing, but that involves some database/serverside tinkering so it will take some time to implement and will be for a 0.3 version or so. Unless someone is very eager to lend a hand ;)

    Genre- and artist based viewing is also something for the near future.


  • decepti0n said:
    It'd be good with a menu bar, or a way to block shit videos (have the filter based on users viewing and rejecting them as poor quality, etc)


    por said...
    I was thinking the same thing, but that involves some database/serverside tinkering so it will take some time to implement and will be for a 0.3 version or so. Unless someone is very eager to lend a hand ;)

    Genre- and artist based viewing is also something for the near future.


    Could it not be something as simple as clicking a 'submit URL' button and adding the address to a database? (Although this may not be the most efficient method). But I do agree that it would be a serverside jobby.

    My music tv channel - LastTube
    http://tv.timbormans.com/user/mr_scientist
    • por said...
    • Alumni
    • 14 May 2007, 20:00
    Hm ok. Altough this system could be very subjective because a crappy video for someone could be a good one for somebody else. There is also no way to implement a feature like 'never play this clip again' because that would require logins for users.

    What we could do is add a button like 'Flag for review' and review that clip manually or remove it when it has a certain number of negative reviews.

    Stuff to think about, but for now I am trying to keep everything as simple and fast as possible.

    Which brings me to the question: has no-one encountered any bugs yet?

  • Nothing major nope; haven't experienced any crashes.

    If I have had the volume down when watching YouTube and leave it low and then watch a video on LastTube the volume will still be at the same level. As there is currently no volume control that means I then have to go back to YouTube to increase the volume. (I think this is because YouTube cache's the volume level set by the user to keep it the same next time a user logs on)

    I have also noticed in Firefox that if I click in the web address/search bar boxes it will not release from them after by clicking in the LastTube area. (This is most probably because a Flash interface area cannot be selected)

    My music tv channel - LastTube
    http://tv.timbormans.com/user/mr_scientist
    • por said...
    • Alumni
    • 20 May 2007, 14:50
    por said:

    • Make a splash page

    • Integrate a link to the original video page

    • Accesible for game consoles (especially wii) with visual interface

    • Better filtering of junk content



    The latest version 0.15 is up and running. It's now completely written in ActionScript 3.0 so there could still be some glitches. Unfortunately for the Wii people, their console only supports the Flash 7 player while this requires 9. I guess they will have to wait. Sorry Bram :)

    • por said...
    • Alumni
    • 21 May 2007, 21:00
    As some of you might have noticed, it's now also possible to search by artist. Hooray!

    • murfel said...
    • User
    • 24 May 2007, 01:46

    Looking goood

    I'd love to have links there to the playlists of my friends
    And maybe a tag clowd of genres

    good stuff!

  • I may go against the trend here but to me what differentiated lasttube from the others was its dead simplicity, which followed the easy turn on and digest tv paradigm.

    I don't see the point of a splash page, the small video window dilutes the impact of your app, and there is no reason anyone would constantly want to look at the surrounding static content.

    I loved how i could add a bookmark to my browser tab and with one click i would be watching my personal tv in full screen. If it wasn't for that i would have seen no real difference between lasttube and lasttv.

    I think neave.tv has it right, and it looks like you were originally inspired by it. Whats great about it is how it puts you straight into the tv viewing experience.

    I have made a mock-up to show how you can do without the splash page.



    Anyways, keep up the great work.

  • bolophojep said:
    I don't see the point of a splash page, the small video window dilutes the impact of your app, and there is no reason anyone would constantly want to look at the surrounding static content.

    I loved how i could add a bookmark to my browser tab and with one click i would be watching my personal tv in full screen. If it wasn't for that i would have seen no real difference between lasttube and lasttv.

    I think neave.tv has it right, and it looks like you were originally inspired by it. Whats great about it is how it puts you straight into the tv viewing experience.


    Gotta agree with bolophojep here. I totally forgot about mentioning Neave.tv; real cool use of API's etc there. Also bolophojep's point about the splash page I think I do kinda have to agree with.

    The mock up is pretty cool; it manages to keep in with the simplicity, but I personally still think there should be a volume control implemented (I don't know if that is in your plans Por)

    Also the conversation that we have had about filtering videos etc dependant on their quality I believe has now been made a lot easier because the 'big four' record labels are now all signed up to YouTube.

    My music tv channel - LastTube
    http://tv.timbormans.com/user/mr_scientist
    • por said...
    • Alumni
    • 2 Jun 2007, 13:09
    Hey guys

    I was already thinking about switching back to full view, but I was waiting for some feedback on this post. The problem is that we all want to keep the urls like /user/username/, so the browser has to refresh the page once you enter a new artist/username. So that's why I never implemented the input fields in the actual flash file, because the file has to reload, making the implementation a bit obsolete.

    So: Possible solution
    making the player fullscreen again but with a small bar (20px) at the top with input fields and probably also a 'how does this work' link of some sort. Plus the possibility to click and hide that bar.

    That would be easy to do and I think it makes everybody happy. What do you guys say?

    About the record labels: thanks for pointing that out, I'm going to look into it later.

  • por said:
    Hey guys

    I was already thinking about switching back to full view, but I was waiting for some feedback on this post. The problem is that we all want to keep the urls like /user/username/, so the browser has to refresh the page once you enter a new artist/username. So that's why I never implemented the input fields in the actual flash file, because the file has to reload, making the implementation a bit obsolete.

    So: Possible solution
    making the player fullscreen again but with a small bar (20px) at the top with input fields and probably also a 'how does this work' link of some sort. Plus the possibility to click and hide that bar.

    That would be easy to do and I think it makes everybody happy. What do you guys say?


    That sounds like a good enough solution to me Por; especially if it is possible to hide it as it will not have much difference to how it all worked before.

    Keep up the good work ;-)

    My music tv channel - LastTube
    http://tv.timbormans.com/user/mr_scientist
  • What bolophojep said :)

    Indeed no need for this first page with an explaination.
    People coming to the page will know what it's about and will want to see the video full screen immediately.
    Those few that don't get it can maybe get more info by clicking a btn to a more-info-page.

    • por said...
    • Alumni
    • 6 Jun 2007, 18:22
    Okido, and thanks to the wonderful brain of frederik even the small html input bar will dissapear. So nothing but flash.

    Altough I don't agree with the fact that people will immediately know what the app is about, so there definately will be some sort of info button or a small start message.

  • Sounds like a good solution por.

    por
    Altough I don't agree with the fact that people will immediately know what the app is about


    Well, i guess if you only had the two input fields it would be quite hard but i cant see how anyone can fail to understand a prompt like "start watching your personised music tv .. by artist or lastfm user" keep it pure and simple.

    Having said that i still think you should have a seperate info page to give a more indepth breakdown and credits etc.

  • I have been thinking about how to filter crappy videos. It is good to remember no one is going to miss a good video if they never know what they are missing BUT people are going to be annoyed by crappy content. So i think a few false negatives wouldn't be such a problem.

    A database does sound tricky and would have to be hella large. Is it not possible to have a fairly 'intelligent' algorithm that uses a combination of youtube data to filter, viewcounts/ratings/fav's or whatever produces the best results whilst not taxing your server too much.

    Let the youtube users do the sorting the wheat from the chaff and leave us sit back and view.

    Also, when searching youtube i seem to always find good content for the more well known artists at the top of the search, quality drops considerably when the artists only have a few videos online. so maybe you should have a more aggressive filter if the artist has few videos to their name?

    • por said...
    • Alumni
    • 8 Jun 2007, 01:19
    Good thinking, I'll have to sleep on that but that's definately a way to improve things. I already thought about using the youtube user ratings, but they were never that accurate. I'll experiment with a few algorithms tomorrow.

    In other news: I'll be visiting the Last.fm HQ on wednesday for a job interview :)

  • Typically i find fav's are a good indication that there is some quality within..


    In other news: I'll be visiting the Last.fm HQ on wednesday for a job interview :)

    Wow.. Best of luck with the interview!

    • s_e_p_p said...
    • User
    • 11 Jun 2007, 09:32
    feature requests:

    1) Can you provide the link to the youtube video page when playing a song?
    2) When playing a song with your lasttv player, is it submitted to your last.fm playlist? Would be nice. I'm listening to it for an hour now.

    J

    • por said...
    • Alumni
    • 12 Jun 2007, 03:36
    @holophojep: Thanks!
    @s_e_p_p: 1) That's definately something on the todo list (probably the next version coming next week)
    2) That would be possible for some of the clips with well formed titles, but some are just too incomplete (like missing a songtitle for example)

    @everybody: sorry for the delay on the update but I've been a bit busy lately with my portfolio, job interviews and some other projects. The lasttube api is getting an update and improved 'crap'-filter. Next week you'll probably be seeing the new player based on the mockup a couple of posts back.

    As for the algorithm: I think I will base it primarely on the favourited rating for now unless someone is really good at writing an algorithm based on the average rating, rating count, view count, number of days on youtube and favourited. How many times do you think a clip should have been favourited to be shown on lasttube?

  • Having the algorithm based solely on the favourites could be tricky because not only will it filter out smaller artists but will not be so effective with the larger artists where even crap content has favs.

    Maybe a filter by ratio of favs over views would be more reliable..

    • por said...
    • Alumni
    • 14 Jun 2007, 18:03
    Yeah there are basically these numbers we can take into account:
    * Average rating (number of stars)
    * Times rated
    * View count
    * Times favourited
    * Amount of comments

    But it's not that easy to make that into an equasion that's actually any good. Maybe I should ask the 3 algorithm wizzards at last.fm to lend me a hand. Stuff they do is amazing. But the most reliable for now seems to be favs/views to me too. I'll see what it brings.

  • Yeh. I also did some tests but never got round to posting it.

    Generally for me favs/view gave good results for anything over 0.7%.

    An exception was with videos with few views, which often gave quite unreliable results. This could be fixed by applying the filter only to videos of over a certain number of views (6000 seems to work for me).

    • Babs_05 said...
    • Forum Moderator
    • 5 Jul 2007, 05:04
    Would it be possible to enter the name of a group, to see what member video might be like? I'm thinking 'member radio' but with visuals.

    Thanks. : )

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