Comment by masterofarbs | Hacker News Reader

Comment by masterofarbs | Hacker News Reader

Hi HN Excited to share the Ask a Question on YouTube Video. This app allows you to enter any YouTube URL, ask a specific question about the video, and get an instant. We built this tool to make it easier to extract valuable information from YouTube videos quickly and efficiently. Whether you’re researching, learning, or just curious, this tool aims to enhance your YouTube experience.

Key Features:

• Instant Answers: Get immediate answers to your questions about the video content. • Question Suggestions: Struggling to think of a question? We’ve included some default questions to get you started. • Dark Mode: Enjoy a visually pleasing dark theme for better readability and less strain on your eyes.

How It Works:

1. Enter the YouTube URL in the provided field (we’ve included a default URL to try it out). 2. Click the “Load Video” button to load the video. 3. Ask your question in the question field (a default question is provided for ease of use). 4. Click the “Submit” button and get your answer instantly displayed.

Example Questions:

• What are the key points discussed? • Can you summarize the video? • What are the conclusions of the video?

Try it out: https://analysttool-e7f4e.web.app/youtube.html

Feedback:

We’re eager to hear your thoughts, suggestions, and feedback. Your input will help us improve and add more features. Please try out the app and let us know what you think!

It's easy to use and does what it claims to. Nice work.

Can you somehow get this into a browser extension or tamper monkey script so it can be a little text box superimposed on the videos on the YouTube home page and in search results?

The use case I have is a clickbait-buster. I had previously made a bash script (that used yt-dlp) to get the transcript and manually paste it into ChatGPT and ask something like "does this video really give xyz, or is it just clickbait". I used this approach a few times to great effect (quickly avoided ~30 minute videos that seemed important based on their title/thumbnail).

Thanks for the feedback and sharing your usecase. I can make it a browser extension. Which browser do you use? I have not looked into Tamper Monkey before but can take a look if there is a demand

It seems like you would need a way to store the prompt, too, maybe? Or maybe your browser remembers your prompts?

Personally I wouldn't care too much about storing the prompt/chat, since I only used it to determine whether I should take the time to watch the video (so it's only necessary for a minute or two max).

If it helps you I can share some of the real life use cases. Here are three I noted:

- I see this home page: https://imgur.com/mZkczrg and the title about russia losing nuclear capability looked like a massive development, but was BS.

- This video's title seemed highly relevant but it way over the top (I gave ChatGPT the transcript and asked it to give me the main reasons for not using UUIDs - they were extremely minor to say the least): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-K2C3sf1_Q

- ChatGPT summarised this video and I deemed it not worth watching (despite a title that seems very relevant): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jIwILYjXrU

Thanks for sharing more context, as I get more feedback, I can priortize more.

At the minimum a chrome extension that opens a new tab with the tool is something I can start with

This was supposed to be a fun project :)

I echo this statement -->

- ChatGPT summarised this video and I deemed it not worth watching (despite a title that seems very relevant): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jIwILYjXrU

I love youtube content but I don't want to spend 20 mins to learn that the video is irrelevant to me

Oh 100% keep it fun, I only mention this info in case it helps (I had planned to make something myself but only got as far as a bash script, which still was very useful, probably saving 1h+ from just the three videos above)

I implemented this video_url feature

If you add video_url to the URL, it will load for you, and you can ask your question directly.

https://analysttool-e7f4e.web.app/youtube.html?video_url=htt...

If you package this a Chrome extension, you should be good to go (I can send you the code to do it, I don't want to deal with releasing a chrome extension right now)

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