
Show HN: Play20Back – MTV as It Looked 20 Years Ago - notgood
http://www.play20back.com/?hn123
======
notgood
Hi people of HN, I'm glad some of you like this little project of mine! BTW in
case is not clear it (automatically) shows videos from exactly 20 years ago,
so right now is showing videos from July of 1995.

If you wonder where I get the data is by a script scraping an awesome forum
called ukmix. I also filter out low-quality videos by calculating the
likes/dislikes ratio and view count (data from YouTube's API), it also tries
to filter out lyrics videos and other non-official music videos. Feedback is
welcome.

Enjoy.

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brandonmenc
Very cool project. Can you let us adjust the time? I'd really like to see MTV
from 30 years ago.

~~~
notgood
10, 30 and 40 are easy to do because I have sources for those, so I will add
that functionality soon (any other time frame would be a lot of work so
probably not going to do it)

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jrbeal
Congrats! I think this is a cool idea! It looks like you're pretty much
committed to a 20 year target but would it have been possible to allow the
user to set that target themselves (within a given range, of course)? Instead
of 20 years being the default, they could specify 25, or 15, or whatever.

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lisowski
This is awesome! Will definitely use it to throw a quick stream of older Music
Videos up on the television. It would be cool to see a list of that month's
videos or be able to customize the stream a little.

For those who miss place to discover current artists through music videos, I
built [http://kikbak.tv](http://kikbak.tv). It goes through blogs hourly to
create a top 100 chart for the day. Artists spend so much money on music
videos and there are no popular discovery platforms! I truly miss mtv, so
let's rebuild it somehow.

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mbrownnyc
I actually think that's the exact opposite of the original point, and it
simply should be left alone to be what it is. By "customizing" the selection,
it loses a large majority of the nostalgia.

Maybe... just maybe... have the default be this way, and a tiny tiny link
saying "click here for the new web 2.0, users are in control, why not just
search youtube yourself, upvote this, downvote that... empowering...
customizable... have it your way, right away at burger king now version"

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adam12
I like it, but I don't remember half of these songs/videos ever being on MTV.

This is more of what I remember:
[http://www.mtv.com/music/yearbook/index.jhtml?contentId=1536...](http://www.mtv.com/music/yearbook/index.jhtml?contentId=1536070&year=1995)

and:

The Real World

Beavis and Butt-head

Singled Out

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soylentcola
20 years ago I had just graduated from high school. 120 Minutes was still the
best thing on MTV and yeah, Beavis and Butthead and the rest of Liquid
Television were great. I still consider "The Real World" the start of when MTV
(and TV in general) started moving in a direction I personally didn't like. It
was MTV's big move toward scripted and unscripted dramas and away from music
videos and some other "experimental" video like the aforementioned Liquid TV.

I get that it was a market-driven move. Networks show what gets the viewers
and viewers wanted Real World/Road Rules. Just bummed me out when those shows
started pre-empting or replacing the stuff I enjoyed like Beavis and Butthead
and Sifl and Olly before eventually replacing the music videos themselves.

At least there are way more avenues for finding music and videos these days so
I can't really be too annoyed outside of curmudgeonly nostalgia.

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laumars
Ahh back when the "M" in MTV stood for "music" (and the odd Beavis and Butt-
head episode).

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baseballmerpeak
Not "Mediocre," as it is now.

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Mithaldu
Pretty much entirely unusable in germany due to, roughly, half the videos
being blocked. :(

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dewey
I think YouTube is one of my main reasons for using a VPN here in Germany. I
try not to use the german internet without my VPN switched on for a couple of
reasons but that's definitely the most annoying one.

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WA
What are the other reasons?

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dewey
\- Privacy on shared Wifis (at University)

\- Shady law firms sending mass letters

\- Geo blocked content

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EdiX
Now I can look forward to 2021 when this will be Imitation of Life non-stop.

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binarymax
So good.

Feature request! intersperse classic MTV intros like these
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajbSFYV-
maQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajbSFYV-maQ)

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w0rd-driven
Keeping the artist and track title visible at all times would be the only
usability thing I would change. I'm often going to the youtube link to find
this. I keep this as a tab open in Chrome while I'm doing other work so being
able to go back when I find something good and just having that information
available would really help.

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gerjomarty
I like the idents you've added as well. Was the style you used one of the
styles on the American MTV? One of the big things I remember about MTV
(Europe, at least) were the idents, including the track/artist ident at the
start/end of songs.

I haven't been able to find a decent archive of them though.

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drb311
You're awesome.

To make it really authentic, the text that states the artist and track title
shouldn't be so sharp. It should look as blurry as the video.

Other than that this is a perfect bit of fun. I love the Internet.

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jedberg
20 years ago is when I graduated high school. We used to actually watch MTV.
Talk about nostalgia.

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koonsolo
Feeling like a teenager again! But on the other hand, thanks for making me
feel old! ;)

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Ono-Sendai
Video quality is a bit too good though :)

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golergka
Never play music or sound on load. Even if it's your page only purpose, put on
a simple "play" button in the middle of the screen, and start playback after
user clicks it.

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notgood
Ok seems reasonable, I will change that soon.

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basecamp88
I prefer it this way. When you changed your TV channel to MTV, there was no
play button.

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sjshelby
Bookmarked it. Ad pops up every time you get a new video. Deleted bookmark.

