Tubular is much more than a simple YouTube-in-a-window application. It’s all about integrating online video into your lifestyle in a much more beautiful way than a simple web browser. It’s got some serious power features that will let you really use YouTube to the fullest. However, all of those are built on a bedrock of the basic functionality: browsing, searching, and playing. Let’s take a look at those three essential playback options.
Tubular uses a grid, similar to another media player, to display its videos. Drag the window wider or narrower to add more columns. There are all the standard YouTube groups, such as Featured Videos, Top Rated, etc. But we didn’t stop there.
You can search for any type of video that you want. You can change the type of search to sort by relevance, number of views, the date it was added, and the rating the YouTube community gave it. We’ll be expanding on that search functionality in the future, to include saved searches and searching by a specific category.
Obviously the most important thing that a YouTube client should do is play back videos. Well, we decided to leave that to the experts. We’re using YouTube’s video player directly from within the main app window. It has all of the standard YouTube player features, like resizing the video and scrubbing. To go back to the video list, click the close button in the bottom right corner of the player or change categories.
That’s all we’ve got for today. Keep yourself tuned in for more screenshots, or sound off in the comments about what you’d really like to see. We’ll have a lot more coming up in the next few weeks.
A big thanks once again to all of you who have supported Tubular through its rough and rocky development process. You guys are awesome, and we couldn’t have done it without your patience and support.
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Cougar Said
at 11:38 am on November 27, 2006,Will there be a list view, similar to iTunes? Can you add smart playlists to the left pane? (I guess that would be a saved search.)
I have to say, I’m pretty dissapointed about the ugly YouTube flash controls. I thought one of the reasons for a YouTube client was to provide an OS X experience for the site. Phill’s original preview said that 1.0 would probably have aqua controls.
I don’t know if this is possible, but it would be cool if you could redo the related videos thing at the end to look more OS X-like. Those ugly red buttons look out of place. Right now, I see little benefit to using this app over Safari.
Noah Said
at 3:02 pm on November 27, 2006,The “Most” lists are good for finding out what the users at large are interested in, but Subscriptions are the only thing that immediately represent what I as a YouTube user am *always* interested in. Tubular would be smart to support My Subscriptions as one of the “channels”!
Si Brindley Said
at 8:16 pm on November 27, 2006,First poster (Cougar) commented with my sentiments exactly. I don’t want to go as far as to say that I pre-paid for this app because I believed the video controls would be replaced, etc. But, to be fair, we *were* told it was intended to be a feature. I guess it turned out to be too hard to implement?
While I’m here ranting…you say this: “Scrubbing through the movie is as easy to do as it is in QuickTime or in your web browser[...]But, if you watch the video through to the end……you can see videos related to the one you just saw.”
These are YouTube features. But you’re telling us about them as though they are features of Tubular. It’s all rather transparent
Steve Streza Said
at 8:41 pm on November 27, 2006,When the original article was written, I intended to try and get some native Aqua controls. Shortly afterward, YouTube changed their Flash player graphics to something significantly better, and it was decided that, for the time being, it was good enough. We wanted to get a release out as quickly as possible that had the core functionality. Adding standard Aqua controls is, sadly, a lot of work.
However, if it’s a significant enough issue for you guys, it will be addressed. I can also give geekier details on some other reasons why it hasn’t happened so far, if you want to hear them.
Si, I hadn’t thought about your last point until you brought it up, but you’re right. I’ll rewrite it so it doesn’t sound like I’m leeching YouTube’s features.
Cougar Said
at 9:49 pm on November 27, 2006,Sure, I’d love to hear the details.
Despite it being a lot of work, I think that it will go a long way in making interacting with YouTube as pleasant as using iTunes. With the way it looks now, I probably wouldn’t have preordered.
Steve Streza Said
at 10:07 pm on November 27, 2006,Geeky details alert!
YouTube stores its files in FLV format (Flash Video). Adobe doesn’t allow 3rd parties to license the file format specification for playback - only for creating content. So, my options are to reverse engineer the FLV format, which is a huge undertaking, or to try and use ffmpeg (which is handling the iPod conversion) to decode the video in real time, which is much less of an undertaking but still difficult.
One option I’m considering is to check to see if a user has the Perian QuickTime codec is installed (which supports FLVs). If it is, load the video with QuickTime. Otherwise, fall back to the YouTube player. I can’t distribute Perian with Tubular because that would be a GPL violation.
Helga Said
at 2:29 am on November 29, 2006,Will there be a little white jellybean in the top right corner to hide the top toolbar? It seems to be absent from your screenshots. I have it in almost all my Aqua applications and use it frequently to gain screen real-estate and change toolbar options.
Si Brindley Said
at 7:07 am on November 29, 2006,Steve: Thanks for your considered reply to my slightly harsh comments
Steve Streza Said
at 9:55 am on November 29, 2006,Helga: There will be. I disabled it for my own sanity so I didn’t have to worry about changing something while I was writing the app.
Si: Thanks for your consideration. We’re all human; I just didn’t fully think the last part of the post through before writing it.
Paul H Said
at 7:04 am on December 2, 2006,Steve … will there be any way to access the comments on a video? Ideally I’d love to see it in a bottom frame the way Mail displays messages in the bottom with the index at the top (double clicking on the border makes the frame go away, or dragging resizes). Failing that it would be perfectly fine to simply have a link to click to see the comments (sort of how FireANT has a link to the comments on any Video).
Connor Said
at 10:29 pm on December 2, 2006,Is it possible to rate the movies from within Tubular? I think it would be cool if it were possible to rate movies like it is possible to rate songs in iTunes. That way, the ratings you give could be sent to YouTube (just like you can rate movies on YouTube currently), but you could also have a list of your best/worst selections. That sounds more confusing than it really is, trust me!
I think using Perian is a good idea. Perhaps you could talk to the folks who design Perian and see if you can bundle it with Tubular? That seems to be a win/win situation and it gives you a lot more functionality with the flash videos.
Finally, a couple of questions:
1. Do you allow for full-screen mode a la iTunes and Quicktime?
2. Is it possible to save the movies to your Mac without converting to iPod? How does that work?
3. Is it possible to search for all movies by a certain user?
Looks promising so far!…
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