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<blockquote>The most requested feature by far. Users want to run Channel Surfer on their actual TVs via Roku, Apple TV, Android TV, and Fire TV apps — not just cast from a browser. 12 people asked for this across HN and email.</blockquote>

In Review

TV / Streaming Device App (Roku, Apple TV, Android TV, Fire TV)

Steven

It’d be cute/nice if we could quickly swap to a desired channel by just typing it’s channel number on the numpad, like dialing in a channel on a tv remote

Select Channel with number keys

Malorie

I’d love to see a dedicated animation channel! Ideally with an emphasis on smaller independent shorts and series on YouTube. I’m always looking for new animation stuff I haven’t seen before, so having a place that can introduce me to independent artists I might not have discovered on my own would be awesome. Even if only bigger productions could be included in the channel, I think it would still be a really nice option to have overall.

Animation Channel

Devin Grover

My last suggestion was misunderstood and stored under turning YT playlists into channels. Nevertheles, my suggestion was an import option to sort videos not according to the source channel but according to theme. For instance, videos from basketball related channels will be streamed under basketball (it would be perfect if you could find a way to micro categorize videos, like nba/euroleauge etc.).

Stream videos under related theme not YT channel

Çağlar Deniz Ata

This is really a long overdue wonderful organization of TV on YouTube. Really nice job. Feature rich and very reminiscent of what TV once was. Bonus; no ads….. yet. Thanks for this!

KUDOS

Ken Decker

User requested: A channel “With a random variety of game show bits. (Family Feud, Price is Right, Press Your Luck, Jeopardy, and Gamechanger Too)”

Add Gameshow Channel

It would be nice if the right click context menu on show’s had a “Notify” option, that would highlight the channel or remind you when that show is about to start playing.

Schedule Alert/"Notify" Context option

In relations to the person who requested volume control, I think it would be a great idea if there was some sort of remote (like on iPhone or Android for example) and pair it to the website to control channels, guide, volume etc.What I do at least is mirror my Macbook (Google Chrome) to my TV and instead of going to my laptop to change channels or the volume, it would probably be better to control it on your phone + for the real experience

Remote Controller

Sean Jordan Sanchez

A toggle that could add user activity to user’s youtube history (or have I missed it)

Add channel surfing to YouTube history

Greg Wilson

So, I’ve recently started trying to import my own channels. The site says you can use the bookmarklet on any channel or playlist, however, I’m running into issues with both.On channels, when I try to use the bookmarklet it separates the videos of the channel into weird individual channels and adds videos NOT from the channel I’m trying to scan. For example, I’ll open up PBS’s YT channel and click on the bookmarklet, it’ll then give me like 6 channels separated into like “11k views” or “15k views” and “PBS Learning” even though all the videos are uploaded by PBS’s YT channel. And then as I scroll down I’ll find videos from random other channels, some I’m subscribed to and some I’m not.When I try to use the bookmarklet on a playlist, it just fully doesn’t work and only gives me error messages and says it can’t scan the playlist or that the bookmarklet isn’t working. Is this maybe only functional on certain browsers? I’m using Firefox as my browser. I’m just a bit confused and would like to figure out how I can use this correctly.

Not sure I'm doing this right

Users want Channel Surfer to support more advanced importing and curation instead of just mirroring YouTube channels.Requests include:<ul><li>group videos into themed channels instead of source channels</li><li>support sub-categories within themes</li><li>let users create a custom channel from multiple YouTube channels</li><li>import a playlist as one channel</li><li>add more curated channel types like sports, news, gaming, comedy, kids, weird/surreal, and live/current-event content</li></ul>This would make Channel Surfer feel more like real TV programming and less like a thin wrapper around YouTube.

Smarter video importing and channel creation

It would be great to be able to “hand craft” topical channels similar to the default ones using YouTube Playlists (plus, maybe: History, Liked Videos or even Purchased Movies).

Completed

Turn YT playlists into channels

J. Pinto

I think a Bob Ross channel would fit right into this also considering his stuff actually used to be on a TV channel

Suggestion for Bob Ross channel

Memeboi

When I import my YT Subsriptions, it imports them but most channels repeat the same Clip over and over. Solutions would be very helpful. I tried it on multiple Browsers.

Imported Clips are repeating over and over

Jan Sanders

Current import flow replaces all previously imported channels when a new JSON import is submitted. Users can’t add a new channel incrementally without losing existing imported channels.

Add/Merge Import Mode (Don’t Overwrite Existing Imported Channels)

I made this code using claude to have a bookmarklet url that works for playlist and copies the necessary json but the playlist has to be from a single channel and all vidoes need to be fully loaded so scroll to the bottom javascript:(function(){var items=document.querySelectorAll('ytd-playlist-video-renderer');var name='Unknown';var nc=items[0]&amp;&amp;items[0].querySelector('ytd-channel-name a,#channel-name a,[class*="channel"] a');if(nc)name=nc.textContent.trim();var vids=[];items.forEach(function(el){var a=el.querySelector('a#video-title');var id='';var m=(a&amp;&amp;a.href||'').match(/[?&amp;]v=([^&amp;]+)/);if(m)id=m[1];var title=a?a.textContent.trim():'';var t=el.querySelector('#text.ytd-thumbnail-overlay-time-status-renderer,span.ytd-thumbnail-overlay-time-status-renderer');var dur=0;if(t){var p=t.textContent.trim().split(':').map(Number);dur=p.length===3?p[0]*3600+p[1]*60+p[2]:p[0]*60+p[1];}vids.push({id:id,title:title,durationSec:dur});});var out=JSON.stringify({name:name,videos:vids},null,2);navigator.clipboard.writeText(out).then(function(){alert('Copied '+vids.length+' videos to clipboard!');}).catch(function(){var ta=document.createElement('textarea');ta.value=out;document.body.appendChild(ta);<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" class="link" href="http://ta.select">ta.select</a>();document.execCommand('copy');document.body.removeChild(ta);alert('Copied '+vids.length+' videos to clipboard!');});})()

YT playlist code

Elijah Grato

IF possible it would be nice to get a customized local Weather Channel according to our own Zip Codes with soft jazz playing in the back, just an idea.

Weather Channel?

<blockquote>Users want more diverse channel categories: sports, news, gameshows, vlogs, gaming, video essays, comedy, memes, kids/cartoons, and "interdimensional cable" style weird/surreal content. Multiple asks across HN and email.</blockquote>

Better Curation / More Channel Variety

Currently, the only way to enable CC is with the keyboard shortcut (C), but it resets and gets disabled every time the video (or the channel) changes. It would be helpful to have the CC button on the video controls and for it to be persistent across sessions.

Persistent Closed Captioning

a volume control feature would be great, especially for the music channels!