Playback for studying
Study from a lecture without rewatching it
A 50-minute lecture usually contains about four minutes you actually needed. Mark those, write what each one explains, and share or revisit one link that plays only them.
- 1
Paste the lecture
Any YouTube video: a recorded class, a conference talk, a tutorial, a lab walkthrough.
- 2
Mark the parts that explain something
The derivation, the worked example, the one sentence that finally made it land. Set the in and out points around each.
- 3
Write what it explains
A line per moment, in your words. That line is what you will search your own notes for later, not a transcript of what was said.
- 4
Keep it as a Cut
Several moments, in your order, as one link. Revision is pressing play instead of scrubbing.
Notes that point at the thing
Writing down every word produces a transcript you will never reread. A note pinned to an exact range points at the explanation instead of replacing it, so the note can be one line and still be complete.
Your order, not the lecturer's
A Cut plays the moments in the order you chose, from one video or several. The definition from week two can sit next to the worked example from week nine, and the whole thing is one link you can send to a study group.
Speed where it helps
Run the explanation at 0.5× when it is dense and 2× when it is preamble. The speeds are whatever the video offers, read from the player rather than promised.
Nothing is downloaded
The lecture stays on YouTube and plays in YouTube's own player. What you keep is a pointer and your own words, which is also why it costs nothing to keep.
Keys worth knowing
- I O
- Mark in and out
- Space
- Play or pause
- O
- Loop on or off
- N B
- Next or previous moment
Press ? on any Playback for the full list.
Questions
- Can I search my own notes later?
- Your takes and comments are plain text on pages you own, so your browser's find and your own search engine can both reach them. Playback does not read or store the video's captions, so it cannot search words that were only ever spoken.
- Is it OK to use someone else's YouTube video?
- Playback never downloads, copies or re-hosts a video. The video plays from YouTube's own player, on YouTube's terms, with YouTube's own ads. What Playback saves is a pointer: the video's ID, a start and end time, a speed, and your words. If the owner removes the video from YouTube, it stops playing here too.