"Sarasota Slim's" Streaming Service
Re-watchable movie favorites
Geek alert: The movie video-files viewable here actually reside in a separate Google 'cloud-storage acct'.
It's costing less than $2 per month, to host the movie videos and their progress-thumbnails there.
[ If you're curious about details of that product, click on the Google Cloud Platform logo above. ]
New feature: You can search the closed captions of the CURRENTLY-SELECTED movie for a
word or phrase. If found, it will re-position the video to a point 3 seconds before the word or phrase appears.
[ e.g. Select the movie "No Country For Old Men", search for "sixty-nine", then watch until the end of the scene. ]
[ e.g. Select same movie...and search for "satchel", then watch until Llewelyn leaves his house the next morning. ]
[ e.g. Select the movie "Paul", and search for the word "partake"...watch until they all wake up the next morning. ]
[ e.g. Select the same movie("Paul")...and search for the word "knocking"...watch until Paul leaves the bathroom. ]
[ e.g. Select "The Imitation Game" search for 2ND OCCURRENCE of the word "crossword" and watch that scene. ]
some memorable captions (aka 'Quotes') from the CURRENTLY-SELECTED movie.
Note: On IMDB, for each movie, there is a section containing dialog 'quotes'...one's that the IMDB authors think of as significant. However, if you navigated just to the main/top of a particular movie entry on IMDB, the 'Quotes' section is a LONG way down...you need to scroll down seemingly forever to get to it. So, the purpose of button above allows you to get IMDB to go directly to the Quotes section. If you browse thru those quotes and see some dialog that is interesting/meaningful to you, just type a word or two of it into the caption 'search' field above. The search of the current movies captions (whether or not you have captions enabled/visible at the time), will re-position the movie to the place where that 'quote' occurs.
[Please press browser's "reload" button]
to see the COMPLETE SORTABLE LIST of the 250+ movies considered for deployment to this webpage.
to view my 'snippets' (trailers) from the 'top-25' of my movie favorites.
Note: There are a total of of my "re-watchable movies" available here.
Hint: Use the SCROLL-BAR ( at right-end above ) to navigate the alphabetical list of movie choices:
for the plot synopsis, cast members, and director for the CURRENTLY SELECTED movie.
Thumbnails: [Checkbox will enable/disable] Progress-bar actions display thumbnails.
(1) Select name of desired movie
(the list of names above is scrollable)
(2) Click the START->arrowhead
in the video window above
(3) Enable/disable captions as desired
You can (and normally would) use the FULL-SCREEN button at the right end of
the control-bar. The 'ESC' keyboard key will return the window to the initial size.
Back when I first created this movie-viewing page, streaming services like "Netflix" didn't yet exist. So, this page was a
'sole source' for most of the 100+ movies here. But these days, with so many commercial streaming services, I get fewer viewers.
Suggestion: So, rather than actually WATCHING these movies HERE, you can use the various searching features
above (e.g. click on the "movies-of-interest" button above the player window) and then you can quickly
search thru hundreds of movies in my list, to find your movie-of-interest, and then actually WATCH that
movie on any of your free or paid-for subscription services. The ability of my "movies-of-interest" list to sort by year, or
by director, by rating, etc, is a good tool to find new movie ideas.
to watch a handful of some recent Oscar-nominated movies
Known glitches:
#1: On mobile devices (e.g. Android, etc). the thumbnail viewer displays the series of
images, but it does NOT move the viewbox-frame along, as expected.
#2: Browsers other than Chrome typically do not display the thumbnails..."view-box"
will be empty. No biggie...but if you care, use the Chrome browser instead.
#3: If you experience excessively long startup times and if your browser has a VPN
(Virtual Private Network) enabled...disable the VPN during movie-viewing.
GEEK-ALERT: This 'open-source' web-page is contained in a single HTML-file, so it can more easily be examined by other developers.
[ i.e. the HTML, Javascript, and CSS are all packaged together in the single HTML file. ]
This web-page can be projected onto a TV set (using your home wifi), with the addition of either a CHROMECAST or ROKU / ROKU-TV, etc.
First, let's get some terminology squared away: Google uses terminology, such as "Cast...", and "tab-casting" and "screen-casting", from their Chrome-browser. And, elsewhere in their documention, they use terms like "media-casting", and "mirroring". Roku and other vendors use phrases like "screen-casting" and "mirroring". Don't be concerned, worrying that you don't understand all these distinctions. They are all conceptually the same, (tho with minor implementation differences).
To boil it all down, the bottom-line FEATURE is to cause either the entire screen, (or some smaller app-portion of the screen), on your PC or mobile device, to be projected onto your TV, so that you can allow other people in the same room with you to view video that you are accessing/controlling from your PC or mobile device. (e.g. from YouTube or Pandora or THIS WEBSITE!)
Let's start this discussion by posing a question: What is the difference between these 3 devices?
($45) Chromecast-streaming-device and the
($56) Roku-streaming-stick+ and the
($30) Chromecast with 'Google-TV' ?
The short answer is: Essentially, for simple mirroring/casting, there really IS no difference!
I consider them to be CONCEPTUALLY the same because they all share these two attributes:
(1) Attach to one of a TV-set's HDMI-ports. (2) Can receive/display a wifi-based video/audio stream of content.
And, I consider them all FUNCTIONALLY the same, due to their ability to receive "casted" / "mirrored" content.
[ The Roku and Google-TV models DO have the extra functionality to act as a set-top box.
But we don't NEED that functionality for our simple casting/mirroring task. ]
These products often get overlooked because they are now also being marketed by 3rd parties: e.g. (Click here)
[ Note: I've never owned / used /tested either of these last 2 devices. ]
Our GOAL here, for using any of these devices, is simply to display a movie or other video content onto
our existing TV-set, rather than viewing the content on the much smaller screens of a smartphone or tablet or laptop.
So, if your home has Wifi-service, consider buying any of these devices.
Neat! Now you can invite friends over for a 'movie-night' of your favorite internet-movie.
Or, show them your favorite "SNL" video-clip, at YouTube.com !
Overall, I now have become enamored with the Roku and Google-TV devices (given their hand-held remotes),
because of their ability to be REPLACEMENTS for rented set-top boxes...an approach known as 'cutting the cord' !
Using an ROKU or CHROMECAST device is NOT the ONLY way to 'cast' or 'mirror' a PC/smart-phone/tablet onto a TV.
Other, devices, such as an "Amazon-Fire-TV", or an "Apple-TV" can also be made to work.
And, some 'smart-TVs [e.g. some Samsungs] can be 'casted to' directly.
[ For general info for any of these various approaches, click here ]
==================
Note: So far, we've discussed only setups that use standard WIFI to make aWIRELESS connection to a device plugged into your TV. Some modern TVs have a special 'variant' of wifi called "Miracast" built-in to them. If your cellphone (or tablet or whatever device you're using to access the Internet video content) also supports Miracast, then you could investigate using that. (Note: I've never tried Miracast...std wifi methods are more general and I've always had wifi available to me.) My google-searching about Miracast seems to indicate that Apple's iOS devices do NOT support Miracast. So, you must have an Android phone/tablet or one that is a Windows-phone product, etc.)
If you don't mind having your cellphone next to your TV, you could consider using some inexpensive cables to connect your cellphone to the TV directly. You were probably not aware (I wasn't) that the world now makes cables with a USB-C connector on one end and an HDMI connector on the other. (Amazon sells them: click here) This will often work, given specifics on whether your cellphone can transmit video-content out its USB-C charging port! (I've never tried this approach.) Note: This approach is less expensive and is a less 'high-techy' solution. There a detailed writeup on that approach click here
#1-A: Using a PC (e.g. Windows, macOS, Linux, ChromeOS) to display onto a TV fitted with CHROMECAST:
Answer: You can. Click Here
#1-B: Using a PC (e.g. Windows, macOS, Linux, ChromeOS) to display onto a TV fitted with a ROKU device:
Answer: You can. Click Here
#2-A: Using an Android smartphone or tablet to display onto a TV fitted with CHROMECAST:
Answer: You can. Click Here
#2-B: Using an Android smartphone or tablet to display onto a TV fitted with a ROKU device:
Answer: You can. Click Here
#3-A: Using an (Apple) iPhone or iPad to display onto a TV fitted with CHROMECAST:
Answer: You can. Click Here
#3-B: Using an (Apple) iPhone or iPad to display onto a TV fitted with a ROKU device:
Answer: (I would think so, but I'm not sure at all. (And I don't own any Apple mobile-devices to test this.)
So I leave this as an "exercise for the readers". Do some google-searching on your own for the answer.
Does it matter which web-browser that you use???
Before first use of a Roku or Chromecast device in a given household, you must first 'authorize' it to
access your household's wifi-network, by providing it your wifi's signal name (aka 'SSID') and password.
This initial 'setup' is also referred to as doing a 'Factory Reset'.
How to factory-reset Roku ...How to factory-reset Chromecast
[ This step can be intimidating for many people. If you need help, go find a geeky neighbor or relative. ]
A name that you may be asked to supply during these two device's setup is a device name and/or room
name, to help distinguish it from other 'castable devices' that might already be visible on your wifi network,
such as a 2nd Chromecast or a Roku device, or one of the industry's intelligent microphone/speaker
devices, such as Google's "Home" or Amazon's "Alexa", or Apple's "Siri". For those intelligent 'speaker' devices,
only the audio-channel will get transmitted across, so casting a movie isn't typically useful, (though a short
YouTube music video would be quite appropriate...see my 'music' page Click Here)
The concept: When you initiate a 'casting' session, you are using a PC or any of the various
'mobile-devices', to act as the 'remote controller' from which the video is being casted (controlled).
Here is Google's documentation for what they refer to as "tab-casting".
One caveat: If subtitles/captions are a 'must-have'. and you're using a PC device, be aware that going 'full-screen'
may prevent the subtitles from passing through onto the TV. This is because the default setting
for cast button is to "optimize full-screen videos", which, has the side-effect of causing the PC to use "media casting"
mode rather than "mirroring" mode, which may prevent the subtitles from passing through to the TV. To alter that, simply
un-check that option, as explained in the procedure here. Then, do a right-click on the cast-icon (and enable 'Always show icon') and
un-ckeck the "optimize full-screen videos" mode. [ Note: Android-based mobile devices have a 'Smart View'
mode available in their 'settings menu that will 'mirror' a phone/tablet screen onto Chromecast or Roku.]
Enjoy your 'casting/mirroring' experiences!
Geek-alert: Thumbnail implementation: I use video-sprite based thumbnails See detailed-info here
The video files are MP4 files (video-codec=H.264 and audio-codec=MP3)
Viewing of MP4 video files works fine in all major browsers...e.g. Chrome, Opera, Firefox, Edge, etc
The soft captions used here are VTT (text) files, which were converted from SRT (text) files
If you're involved in your own Internet video-production,
there's a free SRT->VTT converter avail at: https://subtitletools.com/convert-to-vtt-online
SRT files (in various languages) are available at "subscene.com" and "moviesubtitles.org"
If you have need to shift all SRT subtitles earlier or later, etc,etc, find the (free) software: "SE" (Subtitle Edit)