SyncTube++

Synchronized video viewing with chat and other features, forked from the original SyncTube.
Lightweight modern implementation and a very easy way to run locally.

Original Features

Control video playback for all users with active Leader button
Start watching local videos while uploading them to the server, before upload completes
External vtt/srt/ass subtitles support
External audiotrack / voiceover support
/30, /-21, etc chat commands to rewind video playback by seconds
Hotkeys (Alt-P for global play/pause, etc)
Playback rate synchronization (with leader)
Links mask: foo.com/bar${1-4}.mp4 to add multiple items
Override every front-end file you want (user/res folder)

PlusPlus Features + Changes

Admin registration via configuring the adminToken config key and then registering on the /admin-register page
gatePassword config option to prevent unwanted users from joining
Majority vote skip management (Admins and the original video queuer overrides this behavior)
Leader request now requires the current leader to give up the role (via /giveup <new-leader>)
Overhauled default CSS and improved mobile view
Caching and uploading files is limited to Admin users only

Supported players

Youtube (videos, shorts, streams and playlists)
Streamable
VK
Peertube (with pt: url prefix)
Raw mp4 videos and m3u8 playlists (or any other media format supported in browser)
Iframes (without sync)

Setup

Open 4200 port in your router settings (port is cust@omizable)
npm ci in this project folder (NodeJS 14+ required)
haxe build-all.hxml in this project folder (HAXE homepage)
Run node build/server.js
Open "Local" link for yourself and send "Global" link to friends

Setup (Docker)

As alternative, you can install Docker and run:

shell docker build -t synctube . docker run --rm -it -p 4200:4200 -v ${PWD}/user:/usr/src/app/user synctube

or

shell docker compose up -d --build
- (Docker container hides real local/global ips, so you need to checkout it manually)

"Cache On Server"

"Cache on Server" is a feature that enables a user to upload videos to the server and serve it to all other users temporarily. The video is deleted after it has been removed from the queue. This feature is limited to admin users only.

This feature requires ffmpeg on your server system, it's only used to build single mp4 from downloaded audio/video tracks. Default cache size is 3.0 GiB.

If you want to enable Cache on server feature for Youtube player (effectively download the video on the server-side first), you can also run:

npm i https://github.com/RblSb/ytdlp-nodejs

Configuration

It just works, but you can also check user/ folder for server settings and additional customization.

How to use

Login with any nickname
Add your video url with "plus" button below (youtube or direct link to mp4 for example)
Now it plays and syncs for all page users, well done
You can click "leader" button to get access to global video controls (play/pause, seeking, playback speed)
If you want to restrict permissions or add admins/emotes, see Configuration above

Chat commands

/1h9m54 - Command format to rewind video by 1 hour 9 minutes 54 seconds
/-1h9m54 - Same, but rewinds back
/ad - Rewind sponsored block in active YouTube video
/fb (/flashback) - Rewind video to a prev time if someone rewinded/restarted video accidentally
/volume 2.6 - Change player volume in 0-1 range or boost it in 0-3 range for quiet videos
/clear - Clear chat. Admin clears chat globally
/help - Show initial tutorial message

Admins only:

/ban Guest 1 2h - Ban user Guest 1 ip for 2 hours
/unban Foo (/removeBan) - Unban user Foo
/kick Foo - Force Foo disconnection until page reload
/dump - Download state dump to report issues
/crash - Crash server if you need to test your auto-restart solution

Plugins

octosubs - More colorful ASS/SSA subtitles support
qswitcher - Raw video quality switcher

Integrations

Platform services without permanent storage:

Create app and commit repo to get build
Remove user/ folder from .gitignore and commit it to change default configuration
Add APP_URL config var with your-app-link.herokuapp.com value if you need to prevent sleeping when clients online

Development

Install Haxe 4.3, VSCode and Haxe extension
haxelib install all to install extern libs
If you skipped Setup section before: npm ci
Open project in VSCode and press F5 for client+server build and run

About

Redesign by Austin Riddell
Original idea by Calvin Montgomery
Default emotes by emlan