Reference
Questions and answers
The things people want to know before they trust a tool with a video they care about, and the handful of things that go wrong.
Getting started
- Do I need an account?
- No. There is no sign-up, no email box and no paywall. Open the page, paste a link and start looping.
- Does this download videos?
- No. The video is streamed and played by YouTube in YouTube’s own embedded player. TubeRepeat only tells that player where to jump. Nothing is saved to your device and nothing is copied off YouTube.
- What can I paste into the box?
- Anything that identifies a YouTube video: a full watch URL, a youtu.be share link, an embed URL, a Shorts URL, a live URL, or the bare eleven-character video ID. A timestamp in the link is picked up automatically.
- Does it cost anything?
- No. TubeRepeat is free to use and there is no premium tier holding features back.
- Does it work on a phone or tablet?
- Yes. The layout stacks on small screens, the A and B buttons are sized for thumbs, and the timeline markers can be dragged with a finger. You can add the page to your home screen and it opens like an app.
Looping
- How precise can the loop points be?
- To a hundredth of a second. Drag the markers for a rough range, then hold Shift with the arrow keys, or type an exact timecode such as 1:04.25 into the A or B box.
- What is A-B repeat?
- A way of repeating one stretch of a recording rather than the whole thing. You mark the start as A and the end as B, and playback bounces between them. The idea comes from cassette and CD practice decks, where musicians used it to drill a passage.
- Can I loop more than one section of the same video?
- Save as many ranges as you like against a video and switch between them with a click, or with the number keys 1 to 9. Only one section plays at a time; TubeRepeat does not stitch several ranges into a single pass.
- Can I make it stop after a set number of repeats?
- Yes. In the practice settings, set “Stop after” to the number of passes you want. Playback pauses on its own when it gets there. Leave it at zero to repeat indefinitely.
- Why does the loop sometimes overshoot by a fraction?
- The browser reports the playback position a few times per frame, and YouTube seeks to the nearest keyframe rather than an arbitrary instant. TubeRepeat catches the B point about 40 milliseconds early to absorb that. On a slow connection the video may buffer at the jump, which reads as a slightly longer gap.
- What is the lead-in setting for?
- It rewinds a little past A on each pass, so the first note is never clipped by the seek. Musicians usually want between a quarter and a half second; dancers often want a full count.
Speed and sound
- How slow can it go?
- Down to a quarter speed and up to double, in steps of 0.05×. YouTube’s player handles the rate change, so the pitch is corrected automatically at the common speeds — half speed sounds an octave lower on a tape machine, but not here.
- What is the speed ramp?
- A way of getting faster without touching anything. Set a step, say 0.02×, and a ceiling, say 1×. Each completed pass adds the step until the ceiling is reached. It is the metronome-creep method, applied to a video.
- Can I change the pitch or the key?
- No. TubeRepeat controls the YouTube player, and that player does not expose a pitch control. Speed changes preserve pitch rather than shifting it.
Troubleshooting
- Why will one particular video not play?
- Some uploaders turn off embedding, which means their video can only be watched on youtube.com. Private, age-restricted and region-blocked videos behave the same way. There is no way around it — the restriction is set by the video owner.
- The keyboard shortcuts are not doing anything.
- Shortcuts are ignored while the focus is inside a text box, so nothing fires while you are typing a link or renaming a section. Click once on the page background and try again.
- The video plays but the timeline stays empty.
- The timeline needs the video duration, which arrives a moment after the player starts. If it never appears, an extension — usually an ad blocker or a privacy shield — is blocking the YouTube player script. Allow www.youtube.com and reload.
- My saved sections disappeared.
- They are kept in this browser only. Clearing site data, using private browsing, or switching browser or device will leave them behind. Export them from the settings panel and import the file wherever you need them.
Still stuck?
The two guides cover most of what is not answered here: how to loop a video and how to slow one down. If you are looking for a method rather than a mechanism, the practice guides are written per discipline.
Try it on the thing you are actually working on.
Paste a link, press A, press B. Nothing to install, nothing to sign up for.