Quietube makes YouTube watching distraction-free

Quietube is a new tool to enhance the YouTube-watching experience. The idea is that you can watch just the video, with none of the other YouTube page elements. To do this, you simply add its bookmarklet to your browser's bookmarks toolbar, and click it on any YouTube page.

While not as elegant as YouTube Cinema, which is my favorite YouTube enhancer, Quietube doesn't require installing an extension. It also creates a TinyURL you can pass along to others to share the video in Quietube mode.

One thing YouTube watchers may miss, however, is that each video is treated like an embed, meaning that the button for toggling to full-screen view lays hidden within the player's controls.

Here's a quick demo of it below. You can also see a live example of it here.

(via BookToo via Waxy Links)

[hanson.ianj]

Pretty nice, but they should let you "turn down the lights."

[Hunnter2k3]

I always wonder why they don't have this on more videos
The only one i have seen it on so far was one of the Google Tech Talks.

But, it lead to a buggy title as well, the title overlapped the menu...

[rangerunseen]

Hey,
There is a script available for the addon "greasemonkey" that is called "Light's Out". Just do a simple google search and you'll locate it. I have it installed, and it works like a charm. There is a "lights out" button on every page, which, at the first click grays the page (but you can still see the content of the page - the opacity is around 50%), and, at second click, totally blackens the page, leaving only the video and its player visible. After this, click anywhere on the page to get back to normal. I prefer this because there is no addon installed, making firefox slightly faster, and I'm still on the actual Youtube page - something I like. So if you're interested in a screen-dimming protocol for Youtube, I suggest you give this a try.
Thanks

[t-bon3]

Greasemonkey scripts *will* slow down your Firefox.
Greasmonkey filters the downloaded html of a web page before then sends it to the browser rendering engine.
If you have a lot of scripts, Greasemonkey will need to do a lot of filtering before you set to see the page.

[rangerunseen]

Hmm, I wasn't aware that Greasemonkey slows down firefox by a noticeable factor. How substantial is the loss of speed as compared to an addon?

[assman]

I use this as well, it's fantastic. Try it along with "YousableTubeFix". Best Youtube script. ever. Makes Youtube 10x better. search for it, shouldn't be hard to find.

[biznatch11]

Did you notice the "advertise on this site" section below the Quietube version of the video? This just seems like a way for someone to make money off of youtube. Just click full screen on the youtube video and there you go, no more distractions.

[assman]

I agree. But greasemonkey script is a better alternative.

[rolandrickperry]

I noticed it didnt work on some video, maybe copyright protected. It said embedding disabled

http://quietube.com/v.php/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHp7QgUNgRc

http://quietube.com/

the drag button to toolbar in the above link didn't work for me (windows vista) so i just put this in front of the full youtube URL http://quietube.com/v.php/

[jasonfolds5]

This is an interesting site, but I prefer a site called http://www.theeter.com, which I've been using for a few months now.

Same idea, except the view page looks nicer, the URL is customizable (i.e. mattdance.theeter.com), default HD, and you can customize some other things. Only thing it's missing is bookmarklet.

Still, interesting-

[Quietuber]

Hi - I built quietube. Thanks for the support, and glad you like it.

We've now added Vimeo and Viddler support, and full-screen videos, as well as better short URLs with bit.ly, and more viewing options.

@biznatch11 - the ads are removed for the moment, but they'll be back, discreetly, to cover site costs. Already had to pay for extra bandwidth after this article hit the web! It's not meant to be a way of making money off YouTube - what we're doing is no different to an ad-supported blogger embedding a video.

@Hunnter2k3 - could you tell me a bit more about your problem, and will try to fix...

@rolandrickperry - Yes, some videos are embed disabled. We're currently working on a solution to deal with this issue...