Backlog
22Under consideration
Add Gameshow Channel
User requested: A channel “With a random variety of game show bits. (Family Feud, Price is Right, Press Your Luck, Jeopardy, and Gamechanger Too)”
KUDOS
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!
Smart TV Schedule Creation
Hey, so I’m new to this whole featurebase forum, but I had an idea that I thought was worth discussing for implementation. Right now, I know that Channel Surfer lets someone import playlists as TV channels, but I was wondering if that feature could be expanded to make a smart schedule of youtube videos for a single day based on a group of youtubers that the user selects. As a simplified example, there are 24 hours in a day. The User could select let’s say 4-5 youtubers they like in a variety of genres. Personally, I watch game reviewers, gameplay videos and cartoon/animation deep dives. If I picked the youtubers ToonarificTariq, JacksepticEye,Northernlion and SuperEyepatchWolf, Channel Surfer would scan their upload list and the durations of the videos, and package them together so that a mix of those same videos play in those 24 hours. Obviously, I’m not stupid enough to forget how complex creating that 24 hour schedule would be. I’d have to consider things like: Peak times. no one actually watches 24 hours of tv consecutively. Gameplay vids of a game that are split into multiple parts. the algorithm would need some way to handle a gameplay series so that the first part is first, and the second part either plays right after, or in the same timeslot the next day. The videos might not even add up to 24 hours. In this case, I think you could just put on a lofi stream on youtube to cover the time. Like how old channels had times between 3-4 am where the channel just showed a screensaver with some elevator music. Making sure each youtuber you added to the TV Schedule is represented equally. this would probably be some weighted metric between video count and total duration of all uploads. Some way to make sure that the same videos aren’t repeated, like how Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network would run repeats of spongebob and teen titans go respectively. A bunch of other minor stuff to make sure that the viewing experience isn’t compromised. Even taking those into account, I don’t think there’s really any major roadblock that should make implementing this feature impossible? In essence, it’d basically be making a custom youtube playlist but one where you can’t choose which point to jump in. But TV is good because you don’t need to choose anyways. Plus, the idea has plenty of layers for expansion as well, like sharing your custom channel with other watchers for a more communal experience like in the old days.
Discord Embedded App SDK
The Discord Embedded App SDK allows app developers to integrate activity into Discord for whatever app they’re using. This is most often used for games, but can be used by any application. For example, this is how Spotify looks on Discord. Here is an example of how it could look with Channel Surfer: I am not sure of the feasibility, but this feature request is asking for Discord activity to be reported by the Channel Surfer app. I believe that showing others what channel you’re currently watching and allowing them to click to also watch the same channel would have significant social impact. This would be akin to calling your friend and telling them to turn to a channel, like people did back in the 90s and 2000s. I think this feature would be very fun and would be nice to have.
A new board for sharing playlist links.
A spot we can share playlist links we have made for channels.
CRT whine sound
I would really like there to be an option to enable that CRT whine. Maybe with some very quiet white noise if you want. It would be perfect as something to go with the scanline effect
Suggestion for a wrestling channel
Hello, really love the project! One channel I'd love to see added is pro wrestling. Pretty much all the big promotions (WWE, AEW, TNA, NJPW, ROH) have active English YouTube channels with a constant stream of content, highlights, promos, full matches, etc. It should be relatively straightforward to pull from those as a source. Wrestling has a big dedicated fanbase and honestly feels like a perfect fit for the lean-back vibe of the app. Would love to see it added at some point!
Add channel surfing to YouTube history
A toggle that could add user activity to user’s youtube history (or have I missed it)
An option to enable an end of broadcast day that activates at 12:00 AM
As the title says, I would love for there to be an optional feature that adds an end of broadcast day video playing the U.S. anthem (or maybe the anthem of whatever country the viewer is from) at 12:00 AM
Add podcast channel
A user requested the following: You should totally add a channel for video essays about games, feelings, media, etc. I feel like tons of people-- including myself -- would like video essays in the background as something to relax and listen to as background noise.
Next up
4Committed and queued
TV / Streaming Device App (Roku, Apple TV, Android TV, Fire TV)
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.
Remote Controller
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
Stream videos under related theme not YT channel
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.).
Change video order for channels/playlists
Is it possible to load the videos from the channel and then order them oldest to newest (or for that to be an option)? Watching a webseries in reverse order is fine if there is no throughline, but it can be a bit odd seeing multipart videos coming through with the last part first.
Fix timezone issues
Right now it is 1:43 in morocco, guide says I should be seeing video about vectors, instead I got dialogue video which sloted in the next hour.
Allow everyone to import a YT Guide as a channel
Right now, there are a ton of guides: https://channelsurfer.tv/guides I want everyone to be able to click a button and add a guide channel based on the content in the guide.
In Progress
1Actively being built
Done
38Recently shipped
Fix iOS and Mobile issues
Things are messy on iOS and mobile in general. I want to do a lot of cleanup and make it a much nicer experience.
Auto Fetch Imported Data
I need to do more backend work for this, and that’s coming as part of the bigger work to allow more videos per channel. Once that’s in place all of it will auto refresh.
Stability and bug fixes
I’ve added a LOT of features in a short amount of time. Bugs are stacking up, and things aren’t very stable. :-/ I’d like to take a week to really dig into bugs and stabilize things before adding more features. I have much better tracking of issues and errors now, but I need to squash a lot of these bugs.
Smarter video importing and channel creation
Users want Channel Surfer to support more advanced importing and curation instead of just mirroring YouTube channels. Requests include: group videos into themed channels instead of source channels support sub-categories within themes let users create a custom channel from multiple YouTube channels import a playlist as one channel add more curated channel types like sports, news, gaming, comedy, kids, weird/surreal, and live/current-event content This would make Channel Surfer feel more like real TV programming and less like a thin wrapper around YouTube.
Turn YT playlists into channels
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).
Select Channel with number keys
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
Animation Channel
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.
Import ALL videos?
This is a fantastic product. Well done. Is there any possible way to set this up so that when you import a channel or a playlist without using the bookmarklet, it will import all of the videos that are within the playlist or the entire channel? Currently, when I use the instant importer and just drop in a playlist or a channel, I only get the most recent fifteen videos or so. This is a shame because I'm trying to create a custom Sesame Street channel for my son, and I want to combine the videos that are in about five different playlists. f I add all five of those playlists, I'll only get around fifteen videos from each, when a lot of these playlists actually have hundreds of videos in them… That's a lot of content I would hate for him to miss out on, but I love the idea of having a unified master playlist that has everything in it.
Actual Full screen
Would love to see me being able to truly full screen, without the bottom bar. even if it’s just a key shortcut.
Shuffle/Random channel shortcut
A shortcut for swapping to any random channel in the program would be an amazing feature, to allow you to quickly experience a variety of videos and channels without always scrolling in the same order from top to bottom
Add Filter for YouTube Shorts!
Hey there! I typically watch long form videos for my channels but many creators make Youtube Shorts which don’t fit the scaling or vibe of Channel Surfer. Would we be able to implement a feature to filter these out? Thanks for your consideration!😄
Custom channel reordering & ability to hide default channels
1. Reorder custom channels — Let users drag/arrange their custom channels in whatever order they want. As people add more channels and make changes, they need a way to organize them intentionally rather than being stuck with creation order. 2. Hide/disable default channels — Give paid subscribers the option to hide the built-in default channels so they can have a view that shows only their custom channels. Not deleting them permanently, just toggling visibility.
Schedule Alert/"Notify" Context option
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.