Clever hack! I didn't think the latency would be low enough for that, but I guess with some ad segments being upwards of a minute long these days, it's still worth it.
For anyone who can load APKs on their TV and wants a more integrated solution, this alternative client works wonderfully https://github.com/yuliskov/smarttube
It's at the level of polish where people didn't even realize it wasn't the official client for quite a while, until I turned on SponsorBlock that is.
Anyone is aware of software which does the same but for podcasts? I've had built a downloader by qwen38 (https://cgit.euer.krebsco.de/makefu/podfetch) which does so via multiple programmatic approaches (keywords, sponsorblock-ml, neuralblock) but actually i think crowdsourcing the solution is the best approach here.
Crowdsourcing doesn’t work for Podcasts because most providers cut in ad segments based on your location. Those differ in length so the sponsorblock approach would not work. I slopped up a small go app that uses whisper API to transcribe and then uses Jev-compatible API to classify ad segments. Works great and costs like $0.01 per episode.
I've wondered if it would be possible to crowdsource tiny -but distinct- segments of audio that bookend each ad break so clients could remove any ads inserted between those points.
I’ve been using it with Apple TV youtube app for several months and I can say it works very well. Very little configuration, and it does the job. Can’t go back. Highly recommended!
For anyone who can load APKs on their TV and wants a more integrated solution, this alternative client works wonderfully https://github.com/yuliskov/smarttube
It's at the level of polish where people didn't even realize it wasn't the official client for quite a while, until I turned on SponsorBlock that is.
I lived in Tanzania for a few years and most podcasts wouldn't play adverts while I was there.