Playback.tv is back, and it does one thing: work with a moment
Playback.tv has relaunched. It is no longer a place to watch together; it is four tools for doing something with a moment in a video someone else made.
YouTube is very good at helping you watch a video and make one. It is not built for the thing people keep trying to do with it anyway: take four seconds out of the middle, slow them down, say what is happening, and send that to someone.
That is the whole of Playback. Four tools, no account, nothing downloaded. Each one opens with a paste box and gives you back a link.
The four tools
- LoopOne passage, on repeat, as slow as you need. Press once where it starts and once where it ends, add a note, send the link. The simplest thing here, and the one most people want first.
- PlaybackA single moment with your read attached. Mark it, title it, and pin comments and reactions to the exact frame they are about, so a reply lands on the thing it is replying to.
- CutUp to twelve moments, from as many as six different videos, in whatever order you choose, behind one link. This is the part nothing else does properly.
- CompareTwo moments side by side, scrubbing together on one timeline. Two takes of the same swing, two performances of the same passage, before and after.
Paste any YouTube link to start. No account, nothing to install.
What it does not do
Playback never downloads, copies or re-encodes a video. There is no export, no MP4, no new file anywhere. What it saves is a pointer: a video ID, a start, an end, a speed, and your words. The video plays from YouTube's own player on YouTube's terms, which means the view still counts for whoever made it.
That is a real constraint and it is worth saying plainly rather than discovering later. It means no transitions, no drawing on the picture, no burned-in captions, and no frame-exact guarantee, because a seek lands on the nearest keyframe. If the owner takes the video down, it stops playing here too.
In exchange you get the thing that matters: a link you can send to anyone, that opens on the exact moment you meant, without anyone having to re-upload someone else's work.
Where to start
If you have never used it, start with Loop. It is one video, two presses and a link. If you already know what you want to build, Cut is the one worth your time, and there are worked examples on the for pages for practice, language, dance, sport, study and scene work.
Try Loop
One video, two presses, a link. No account.
Try Loop →Read next
- BlogYouTube retired Clips: what was lost, and what to use insteadYouTube retired viewer-side Clips on 17 April 2026 and replaced them with Share at Timestamp, which sets a start but no end. Here is exactly what was lost and which tool does each job now.
- GuideHow to share part of a YouTube video, with a start and an endThree ways to send someone one section of a YouTube video instead of the whole thing: the native start-only link, the embed parameters, and a link that starts and stops where you say.