

Show HN: Demiba - Get the most out of YouTube music - AlexWD
http://demiba.com

======
AlexWD
The idea is simple: There's a ton of music content on YouTube and Demiba let's
you take full advantage of it like you never could before. Demiba finds
automatically the best quality versions for each song and offers many ways to
listen to and discover music. Customizable radio stations that learns your
preferences offer a great way to listen to your favorites and discover new
ones. Exhaustive playlists allow you to instantly get complete playlists for
artists and albums. With a personal library you can save your favorites for
viewing at any time. Every page is live, so send a link to a friend and they
can join the experience. A chat box will even open so you can communicate.

We're a small team of two developers who have been working on this for a while
and now we're looking to get some feedback. We think we've made a pretty
compelling music experience around YouTube and we're curious what you think.

~~~
trin_
"Demiba finds automatically the best quality versions for each song"

sorry but on multiple tests i'm getting obscure solo-guitar covers of songs
and sometimes shoddy quality live performances. just because something is in
720p doesnt mean its good quality!

example:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=S...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=S2htSfxxHcA#)!

thats probably not the best white of the clash - white riot on youtube

~~~
AlexWD
Our algorithm attempts to filter out things like covers and live performances,
but admittedly it's not perfect. It works pretty well but there's definitely
room for improvement. We're constantly improving this aspect because of how
crucial it is to the product.

Thanks for that example, it'll help me tweak the algorithm to fix that
occurrence. Thanks for the feedback!

------
p4bl0
Very nice idea, but I can't find some artists that I know are on YouTube. My
first two attempt failed. Also if I can see what's coming next and I already
know don't like it I would like to be able to skip it in advance and not to
have to wait until it started playing to skip it.

I guess the product isn't finished yet, but they are attacking a real problem
and trying to do something people (or at the very least, me ^^) do want. So I
hope it will improve!

~~~
AlexWD
Our music information comes from Last.FM, so if an artist doesn't show up it's
because Last.FM doesn't have them in their database. Last.FM's database is
pretty extensive and even relatively obscure artists can often be found, but
sometimes you will run into one that isn't there. Multiple and alternative
sources of music knowledge is definitely something we're considering
especially for more obscure artists that Last.FM might not have. That being
said, the search can be fickle, so if you enter half of a name it might show
no results but if you enter the full name it might show up, so there's a
chance that you could be tricked into thinking an artist isn't there when it
is.

The ability to remove what's coming up next preemptively is a good idea.
Expect to see this feature soon.

The product is definitely not finished, but we're constantly working to
improve it.

Thanks for the feedback!

~~~
p4bl0
I did enter the full name of the artists, and one of them exists on Last.fm (I
just checked). For the record, I am talking about the French hip-hop bands
"Fixpen Sill" (which is on Last.fm) and "Botaniks Crew" (which is not). The
third one I tried, "5 Majeur", did work.

> The ability to remove what's coming up next preemptively is a good idea.
> Expect to see this feature soon.

Great! :-)

~~~
AlexWD
Hm, interesting. Yeah I can't find "Fixpen Sill" in the search, either.
Manually creating the link for the artist playlist does work though:
<http://demiba.com/artist/fixpen-sill>

------
david927
I love it. I think it's the first Show HN that I've bookmarked and will use!

Could you queue up the next video so that it's already loaded when the current
one ends?

It seems like it should be easier to make a playlist and share it. Also, I
would to be prompted to switch to an alternate playlist based on "favorited"
songs, if the one I'm on is boring me.

Again, great work! I've been waiting for something like this.

~~~
AlexWD
Glad you like the site!

Queueing the next video is an interesting idea. I know there is a way using
the YouTube player API to queue a video but I know that it doesn't actually
start loading the flv until playVideo is called, so I'm unsure if that would
speed up the process. Another idea would be to have multiple youtube players
that can load videos separately and then switch between them as necessary.
This might add unnecessary bulk and slow down the page, but I'm not sure if it
would be considerable. I'll look into this.

Right now there shouldn't be much delay between videos, has it been enough to
be annoying for you? There might be other ways this transition can be smoothed
as well.

Better support for playlist creation and sharing is something I agree is
crucial and we should get to that soon. Improving recommendations to make
music exploring and discovery is something we're constantly working to
improve.

~~~
acgourley
What about a double buffer system? Make two players, one hidden. The hidden
one loads the next song. Switch players when the foreground one ends.

------
kittxkat
Well, the best (read: cleanest/simplest, fastest, and best get-out-the-way
approach) way to listen to music on youtube imho is: www.deskamp.com

Just put in the music you want to hear, hit enter, and it'll add the best
match to your playlist. Dead simple.

Disclaimer: I am in _no_ way affilated with them, I just enjoy their service.

------
theone
I really like the idea of fetching artist info and database from last.fm. Neat
!!!

Couple of months back I worked on <http://youtube-related-music.appspot.com> .
On viewing Demiba i'd also like to rework on my app. Thanks for the
inspiration...

------
dexter313
Really nice design, but i got this from all the videos i tried to watch (i
tried about 10 songs)

This video contains content from [COMPANY]. It is restricted from playback on
certain sites.

ps. i got one song working :)

~~~
AlexWD
Ouch, that's awful. It should automatically filter out videos like that. I'll
look into it. Thanks for pointing that out.

------
instinctious
This is almost like tubalr[1] with niceties like prediction algorithm and
apparently a better way to select videos from the YT.

[1] <http://www.tubalr.com/>

~~~
AlexWD
I think a crucial difference stems from the fact that we incorporate music
knowledge from Last.FM. This allows us to do things like easily create full
lists of songs for artists, full album playlists, etc.. It creates, I think, a
more complete and music-oriented experience. This music knowledge is also what
allows us to create radios, give recommendations, etc..

~~~
cjstewart88
You're right, a difference between my service and yours is the fact that you
use Last.FM. I use The Echo Nest though, it's an amazing service. Tubalr uses
The Echo Nest and builds playlists based on artists top tracks.

Tubalr used to use Last.fm but found out that the last.fm api went down a bit
to much for my liking. After switching to The Echo Nest I've had 0 downtime
due to the API I use.

Tubalr also creates "radios" in several ways. Check out the explore
page(<http://www.tubalr.com/explore>). You can browse top genres, subreddits,
and a huge list of genres.

As far as recommendations, type in an artist and click the similar button and
you'll get a playlist full of artist similar to what you searched.
(<http://www.tubalr.com/similar/My+Morning+Jacket>)

Example Genre Search: <http://www.tubalr.com/just/indie+rock> or
<http://www.tubalr.com/just/dubstep>

Example Reddit Search: <http://www.tubalr.com/r/metal> or
<http://www.tubalr.com/r/realdubstep>

~~~
AlexWD
That's awesome. I did notice that Last.FM used to go down fairly often but I
don't think it has given me any troubles in at least the last several months,
luckily. How have you found the quality of the data from Echo Nest compared to
Last.FM?

I didn't realize how extensively you use music semantics in tubalr. I'd say
that's not as big of a difference between our products as I originally
thought.

~~~
cjstewart88
Man, EchoNest is the way to go without a doubt. Their library is gigantic and
have a free api for non-commercial use, up to 120 request per minute!

Their API has been incredibly easy to use and I feel like the quality of
results is far better.

I honestly think we will continue to see apps that take advantage of YouTube's
Music content until YouTube can nail their music experience, and I'm not sure
if they even want to.

------
scrrr
That's nice, but it doesn't help me circumvent German YouTube censorship.
Still, I think in other countries this probably works well. Good job! Also on
the UI.

~~~
AlexWD
Are you getting the "This video is restricted in your country" error? The
website should automatically filter out videos that aren't available to you to
only provide ones that work. I haven't tested this much though and so it might
not work perfectly.

~~~
scrrr
No I'm not but it is obviously skipping those errors.

------
verganileonardo
Great idea! When the next video/music is unavailable (deleted or unavailable
for my country) the queue stops foverer and I need to start over :(

~~~
AlexWD
If you just skip it doesn't continue normally?

Optimally the site should find a video that works for you. I'll be fixing this
soon.

~~~
verganileonardo
Nop, I tried to skip, but nothing happens!

Also, I searched for Gentle Giant's music and there was a video with an oldman
showing a sculpture!

Anyway, great website! :)

~~~
AlexWD
I'll get to fixing that ASAP.

The video selection algorithm isn't perfect either, but we're constantly
improving that too.

Thanks for the feedback and for pointing out those issues.

------
chicagohacker
Looks great, but the name isn't very catchy.

~~~
hhaidar
It's easy to spell and remember though.

------
hhaidar
All the pages are also live, so you can link a friend to your session and chat
while listening.

------
GotAnyMegadeth
Does it Scrobble?

------
klrr
Very very smart, thanks a lot for this.

~~~
AlexWD
Thanks! I hope you enjoy using it as much as I do.

