Watch a playlist together

There are two ways to watch a list of videos with other people, and they behave differently. Pick by whether you want the party to run itself.

A party you book carries its own list. You put the videos in when you book it, and the party plays them in order: when one ends, the next one starts, on everyone's screen at once. Nobody has to press anything to keep it going.

A party you start on the spot follows you. There is no shared list. You move to the next video yourself and everyone else is offered a Follow. That is the older shape, and it still works exactly as it did.

The booked party, end to end

1. Book the party and add the videos while you are booking it. What you add is what it plays, in the order you put them in.

   Booking starts on the video page: open Watch Along, pick Later above the button, and press Pick a time. What plays is where the list is built. The video you were on is already the first thing in it. Add a playlist puts one of your playlists in as a single item and the party plays it through; Add a video takes a YouTube link or id, and the same video twice stays twice. Move up, Move down and Remove sit beside every row, so the order is a keypress rather than a drag, and the count beneath says how many of the fifty a party can hold you have used.

    

   On a phone it is the same form as a sheet from the bottom, with the row buttons as 44px icons named for their row.

    

2. Share the booking link. Fifteen minutes before the start it opens a waiting room where everyone can talk while they gather.

3. Press Start the party at the time you booked, or leave it: it starts on its own five minutes later.

4. The first video plays for everyone. The Watch Along panel says which one of the list you are on, so Video 2 of 5 means three are still to come.

5. When a video ends, the party moves to the next one. You do not have to be watching, and neither does anybody else.

What happens at each new video

The same five seconds, every time, for everyone including you:

• Follow takes you to the new video at the point the party is at. It also happens on its own when the five seconds are up, so somebody who has stepped away comes back to the right video.
• Stay here keeps you on the video you are watching. The party carries on without you and your place stops being nudged. It answers this hop only: when the party reaches the video after it, you are asked again.

Those are the only two the card offers, and Stay here is only there while the five seconds are running. Leaving is a different thing and it lives somewhere calmer: if you joined a party somebody else booked, Leave the party is in the Watch Along panel, and it is there whenever you want it. If the party is yours, the panel offers End the party instead: a booked party is yours to finish rather than to walk out of.

A screen reader hears the same thing spoken politely, once, and every control is a real button in the tab order, so following is a keypress rather than a hunt.

If the party comes back to a video you are already on - the same video twice in the list, or the same one played again - you are still asked, and following moves you to where the party is in it rather than leaving you at the minute you had reached.

The two videos that behave differently

A live stream has no end the party can plan for, so it plays until the broadcast itself finishes. When it does, the party moves on.

A premiere that has not started stops the party at that point rather than skipping it. The panel says the party is waiting, everyone stays in the room and the chat keeps working, and the moment the premiere starts it plays. If half an hour goes by and it still has not started, the party moves to the next video, or ends if there is nothing left.

A video that cannot be played at all - it was made private, pulled, or marked as made for kids after you booked - is passed over rather than stopping the party.

What the host can do while it runs

Three controls, in the Watch Along panel, in the same place on a computer, on a phone and in the full-screen view:

• Pause for everyone, which becomes Play for everyone while the party is paused. Where the party had reached is kept, so playing again picks up from there instead of starting the video over.
• Skip this video, which moves everyone to the next one in the list.
• Start this video again, which takes everyone back to the beginning of the one that is playing.

Skipping and starting again give everyone else the same five seconds and the same two choices any other new video does, so nobody is moved without being asked. Not you: pressing the button is the asking, so your own page follows straight away. Pausing moves nobody at all: the party stays on the video it is on.

A control that cannot be used right now is still there, and says why beside it in words about the button you reached for: a live broadcast has no shared place to pause at and nothing to start again, a premiere that has not started can only be skipped, and the last video in the list has nothing to skip to.

If the host drops out

Nobody else is handed the controls, and the party does not stop. About half a minute after the host's connection goes, it carries on by itself: a party they left paused plays again from where it was paused, and one that was already playing simply keeps going through the list. A party sitting on a premiere that has not begun keeps waiting for it. A wait is not a pause, and nothing starts it early. The host can come back at any time and pick the controls up again.

When the party ends

Two ways, and the record keeps which:

• It ran out of videos. The last one finished, so the party ended.
• It never played anything. Every video in the list turned out to be unplayable, or the only thing in it was a premiere that never started. The booking is kept, so you can book it again with something else.

Either way it ends once, for everybody, and nothing restarts it.

If the panel says it has lost the party's place

The party is run by us rather than by the host's browser, and now and then that connection goes quiet for a moment. When it does, the panel says so, your video keeps playing, and nothing is nudged until it picks up again. Nobody is thrown out and the party does not end.

The other way: a party you start on the spot

1. Open the Playlists tab, click a playlist, and click Play All. The first video opens with the queue beside it.

2. Open Watch Along on that video and click Start a watch party, then Copy link and send the vdr.fyi link to the people you want with you.

3. When a video finishes, click the next item in the queue yourself. The party comes with you, with the same link, the same people and the same chat.

4. Everyone else gets the same five seconds and the same two choices as above.

What this one does not have: a list anybody else can see, anything that advances by itself, and any way for somebody other than you to move the group.

Surprise us picks a random video and takes the party there in one click, from the settings behind the gear. It is not a list, but it keeps a long session moving without anybody having to decide.

What's next

• The waiting room for a booked party is where a booked party gathers before it starts.
• Play queue is your own queue, on your own screen.
• Invite a friend to a watch party has the full share-the-link path.

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