With version 0.2, VideoSkip has added a number of new features that make it even more competitive with other offerings out there. And yes, it remains legal, free, and active on any video source, not just a selected few.
Read on for a list of improvements.
- The biggie, which causes the change from version 0.1 to 0.2, is localization. The VideoSkip extension for Chrome (also Edge, Opera, and soon Safari as well) and Firefox can be now in your preferred language. We began by adding Spanish to the original English, and you can help us to add other languages as well. Just drop us a line, or submit a pull request on VideoSkip’s Github page.
- There’s a “Find shot” button that scrubs the video automatically to the position of the screenshot, to make it even easier to sync the skips to the particular source you’re using. Just make sure you start within one second of the correct time. A word of caution, though; because the process involves taking a number of screenshots, this only works with services that allow them (YouTube, Vimeo, Crackle, HBONow, and a few more, but not Amazon, or Netflix, for instance).
- If the source does not allow screenshots, you’ll have to find the screenshot manually, but this too has been simplified for sources that show videos in letterbox format, so that you no longer have to move or rescale the screenshot.
- Another new button is “Auto prof.” which generates muting profanity skips automatically as soon as you load a subtitle file. Skips are made every time a subtitle contains a word in a block list (language specific), which can be displayed and edited after you click the “Help” button. Bear in mind that the automatic skips last for the whole duration of each subtitle, which typically is longer than the offending word. Once generated, the automatic skips can be edited in the skip box just like any other. The overall timing of the automatic skips can be adjusted with the arrow buttons, in case the subtitle file was not totally in sync with the video.
A majority of the skip files currently loaded on the VideoSkip Exchange have been made with a file rather than a streaming movie, which means that most subtitle files found in places like opensubtitles.org or yifysubtitles.com will sync to your actual source quite well, after you click the “Sync times” button.
Update July-2020:
VideoSkip 0.2.3 adds an important enhancement: graded filters. This means that editors can grade the severity of the content being filtered, on a scale from 1 to 3. This is matched by the ability of the user to select filtering level by category, also on a scale from 1 to 3. This is because what is inappropriate for a child may not be so for an adult or a teenager. Setting a category to High (3), will make all skips in that category active no matter their severity. A category set at Medium (2) will filter content graded as 2 or 3, but not 1. A category set at Low level (1), will filter only content graded as 3.