[HN Gopher] Yt-dlp - A YouTube-dl fork with additional features ... ___________________________________________________________________ Yt-dlp - A YouTube-dl fork with additional features and fixes Author : makeworld Score : 240 points Date : 2021-08-26 19:42 UTC (3 hours ago) (HTM) web link (github.com) (TXT) w3m dump (github.com) | Y_Y wrote: | So how come a fork was necessary? | ozarkerD wrote: | Devs on yt-dl have been inactive for a few months iirc | julienpalard wrote: | Does not look inactive to me: https://github.com/ytdl- | org/youtube-dl/graphs/contributors | nannal wrote: | Jun 29, 2021 - Aug 26, 2021: 0 commits | rtkwe wrote: | It does look like there's little activity in the last | couple months and none in the last almost 2 months. | MrDOS wrote: | For longer than that. 846 open PRs, 3.7k open issues. And | this long predates the GitHub takedown debacle. This isn't to | say that they're totally AWOL: they do a really good job | keeping on top of the boring break/fix work, like keeping on | top of the ever-changing interfaces of video providers. But | they're very conservative about expanding functionality, and | even fixing more minor bugs. | nonbirithm wrote: | And they've closed many issues as duplicates with no | further explanation given: | | https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/issues/23860 | rovr138 wrote: | Have they been duplicates? | nonbirithm wrote: | The linked issue contains several issues describing the | same problem, but what I meant to say was that _which_ | duplicate they were of was never made clear. The | maintainers seemed to assume that everyone knew what it | was and never provided a link to the original issue. | SevenSigs wrote: | my youtube-dl still works fine for youtube.com but I haven't | tested many other supported sites... | the-dude wrote: | Wasn't the repo taken down for a while? | banana_giraffe wrote: | Yes, but it was brought back on November 16, 2020, and | there was plenty of activity after that, till this recent | drought of dead air. | kunagi7 wrote: | youtube-dl has been inactive for the last 2 months. | | Most things still work but support of different services is | something that needs daily updates to not break. Even if most | popular websites still work, pages like Newgrounds are | breaking. | | There's 3.7k open issues right now and nothing gets merged [0]. | | [0] https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/issues | jrm4 wrote: | Love it. | | The question, especially for the folks around here. | | When Github _eventually_ takes a stronger stand against this sort | of thing, because it is 100% going to happen, are folks going to | properly fight it? | Macha wrote: | They were DMCAed, they got bad press out of it, they eventually | stood up for the developer in exchange for a token concession | (deleting test data that referred to copyrighted music and was | named in the complaint): | https://github.blog/2020-11-16-standing-up-for-developers-yo... | , and reversed the takedown unilaterally (which would mean the | claimant could take github/microsoft to court if they felt like | it). | | Whether it's a matter of principles or just the bad press from | the initial takedown is less clear, but I think it'll be a | while before they re litigate this issue. | totetsu wrote: | I still can't access my fork of YouTube DL with all my custom | plugin work on GitHub | nebula8804 wrote: | Thanks for this post! First I am hearing about this fork! | | Darn...unfortunately still can't download Joe Rogan Spotify. | Guess they haven't found a way around the widevine | encryption...(Right now it seems like only a few podcasts are | encrypted so other Spotify streams work) | nerdponx wrote: | It's always strange to think that there is encrypted data | flowing through my software, through my operating system, into | my hardware, that somehow I, the user, I am unable to access, | but that the hardware can handle just fine. | | How does this work? | kuschku wrote: | You can access it just fine. It's just processed by very | obfuscated code that constantly changes. | gillytech wrote: | This is going to cost me karma but don't waste your time with | Joe Rogan. | _arvin wrote: | Don't tell people what to do. People don't watch JRE for Joe | (mostly), but for more his guests. Not only that, Joe is | great and you're a hater. Try harder. He's not perfect but | you likely sure aren't either. Rogan podcast is fine and I | recommend it. | gillytech wrote: | > Try harder. | | See my response to nebula8804 | nebula8804 wrote: | I enjoy some of his podcasts. Yeah some are a waste of time | but many have been spectacular. | gillytech wrote: | To be fair I would agree with you that some of his guests | are great (e.g. Quentin Tarantino) and I do enjoy the long- | form interviewing. But Rogan himself, to me, gives off bad | vibes. Not really sincere or actually interested in his | guests. I find he'll say he's interested and come back with | some show of how cultured and learned he is by bringing | something up on his own. I think he should be interested in | his guest and put them in the spotlight. Joe himself is an | unaccomplished stoner and promotes lifestyle choices that | are repugnant to me. | | Others do a much better job of the long form interview and | have themselves provided some value to society on their own | merits. Tim Ferriss, Dax Shepherd and Jordan Harbinger to | name a few. | Ansil849 wrote: | So does anyone know what happened to youtube-dl? Development | seems to have just abruptly ceased with no explanation. | dwrodri wrote: | I wouldn't be surprised if the drama surrounding the DMCA | takedown issued on the main git repository scared away a lot of | contributors. | | Here's some coverage from the EFF, in case you missed it: | https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/github-reinstates-yout... | arp242 wrote: | Quite the opposite; number of contributions increased: | https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/graphs/contributors | | Just seems a case of the same what usually happens: main | author loses interest, has other stuff to do, etc. and no one | really takes up the slack. | polote wrote: | Why don't they split youtube-dl in two parts: | | - The extractors part (all the scrappers basically) | | - The cli tool | | What would be wonderful is that the extractors part is splitted | out, so that anyone can use it without using youtube-dl. That | would be much easier to update it too, each extractor is | independent, so it is only a question, does this scrapper | (extractor) works or not. | | The next step would be to have a multi-language format to | describe a scrapper, instead of being coded in Python. But no | idea if this is possible or maybe that would make things much | more complex | FiloSottile wrote: | That is mostly already the case, you can invoke the extractors | through the Python API or through the CLI and do the download | yourself. | | Extractors regularly require custom logic, so they can't be | described in anything else than a programming language. | polote wrote: | Being two different projects has advantages, especially when | one part (need to) moves much faster. | | The fact that some requires custom logic doesn't prove that | you need a programming language, it is just custom logic | compared to the standard framework. | Scaevolus wrote: | > NEW FEATURES | | > Cookies from browser: Cookies can be automatically extracted | from all major web browsers using --cookies-from-browser | BROWSER[:PROFILE] | | Very nice. Having to manually copy cookies to get past login | walls is annoying. | pluc wrote: | There's this too: https://github.com/deepjyoti30/ytmdl | TillE wrote: | A neat tool, but YouTube is generally an abysmal source for | music. That's partly deliberate (from record labels) and partly | an inevitable consequence of recompression with different lossy | formats. | | Unless something is completely unavailable elsewhere, you'll | find far better audio quality from other (original) sources. | themodelplumber wrote: | It's not so much about availability or even quality as it is | convenience for a lot of us. Soviet funk here, favorite TV | news theme there, C64 remixes over here, NPR tiny desk over | this way, and a rendition of the full original vocal lyrics | to the M:I theme which is basically only available on YT | itself... | | I can't imagine trying to source this stuff independently and | keeping up with it, and if some commercial music crept in I | imagine it'd be easier to simply stay on YT and ask what | level of quality one subjectively needs for dental drilling, | or mindless work, or throne-in-lair-sitting, or whatever it | is... | Macha wrote: | > Unless something is completely unavailable elsewhere | | I do run into this from time to time. Let's say I want the | soundtrack to one of my favourite anime, from 2006. | | Some items from it are also on the source game soundtrack, so | are available on iTunes. This is actually kind of rare for | older anime which usually don't bother releasing in iTunes | outside Japan, but being a game adaptation helps it here, I | guess. Still, anything composed for the anime are not | included. | | Some of it is there on Spotify. Actually, at one point it all | was, and I can still see the tracks are there but grayed out | in other people's playlists, so I assume there exists some | region in which it was available, and the availability in my | region initially was a mistake by a licensee who forgot to | limit it to the regions they had rights for. Either way, it's | no longer legally available for me. | | So I could.... VPN to Japanese iTunes, thereby breaking the | terms of service, (assuming it's still there) or I could try | import some decade old special edition DVDs of the anime | which contained the OST. | | Or I could rip it from YouTube. Eventually, if you make no | effort to sell to me, I'm going to resort to other options. | input_sh wrote: | > So I could.... VPN to Japanese iTunes, thereby breaking | the terms of service... | | In my experience, you'd immediately enter "vacation mode", | which is limited to two weeks in free version, but | unlimited in premium. Spotify doesn't even complain when | you switch countries in a couple of seconds. They're very | lenient on enforcement, I've used it for like five years | before Spotify actually became available in my country | (though I couldn't pay for the premium with a card from a | different country). Just log in via VPN once, then it works | for two weeks. | Fogest wrote: | That and a lot of music I have found on there has a music | video version of the song which can sometimes be slightly | different than the original song. It's usually something like | a longer intro before the music starts or something like | cheering from a crowd or whatever to mimic it being a live | performance music video. So you're getting a subpar sound | quality combined with a sometimes differing song from the | original. | kevin_thibedeau wrote: | You can usually find a lyric version with the unedited | album track. | iainmerrick wrote: | YouTube has a ton of obscure music that can't be found on | Spotify, plus things like old TV specials, theme tunes, | outtakes and the like. | | The quality is usually pretty bad, it's true. But in many | cases, this stuff is almost impossible to buy even if you | wanted to, so YouTube is your only option. | | YT is also fairly unpleasant to use, which is why a lot of | people go for youtube-dl. | ChrisArchitect wrote: | haven't paid attention to this since all the drama last year but | again - what are all of you using youtube-dl for? Archiving your | channel subs? | ronnier wrote: | I made a tool for myself so I could 1 click download videos to | my iphone's camera roll. It's based on youtube-dl. I like to | share raw videos and do not like to share URLs. I use this tool | to make that easy -- I copy a url and run the iOS shortcut and | the video auto saves to my camera roll. | | https://github.com/rroller/media-roller | arp242 wrote: | My internet connection can be flaky, and just downloading stuff | and playing it locally works a lot better. YouTube tries very | hard to minimize the buffer size to only what's needed - which | makes a lot of sense at their scale - but it also means that | less-than-stable internet connections are difficult because | it'll never buffer enough to bridge the 3 minute outage. | formerly_proven wrote: | My experience is that the internet is really bad at forgetting | the stuff you want gone, but really good at turning all your | bookmarks into 404s and parked domains (another reason why | bookmarks are pretty much worthless). So if you don't save it, | it'll be gone next time you're trying to look it up. Doubly so | if it is something even mildly controversial (now or then). | boomboomsubban wrote: | Watching videos in my media player rather than my browser. | Hardware acceleration has better support in mpv than Firefox. | crazygringo wrote: | 1) Videos disappear. Anything I think I might want to watch | again in the future, I always download rather than bookmark. | Not just YouTube but any video site (e.g. Reddit). | | 2) When Internet is flaky or doesn't exist. I've downloaded | whole sets of tutorial videos for example to watch on a plane. | | 3) Stuff in 4K where my video player does a better job with | hardware acceleration than my web browser does | | I mean out of all the video I watch from the internet, 95% is | streaming, but youtube-dl is for that other 5% that falls into | the three categories above. | sralbert wrote: | I download Twitch vods and Youtube videos at home and copy them | to my work PC to listen to during the day. | Aachen wrote: | Safekeeping, offline viewing, producing derivative works (it's | all great to offer setting CC license on videos and then be | hostile to anyone trying to actually use their rights), and | viewing on platforms where the browser or player doesn't work | (that's been a few years by now though). | Larrikin wrote: | I've started saving anything I ever watch more than once. | Cooking recipes, music videos, learning materials, etc. | | I started when a group I listened to removed all the content | they had put up over the past is year and said it was | promotional material for their latest album which was garbage. | | Ads have gotten so bad that any videos over three minutes have | multiple ad breaks so watching longer music videos or sets are | just completely ruined when watching on YouTube. | | I wish there was a good set up for single watch videos since | the ad algorithm tries to anticipate good places for breaks, | which often times is right before punch lines to joke and when | you skip over the ad they tend to put you back a few | milliseconds ahead of where you stopped which can ruin jokes. I | rarely watch for enjoyment (as opposed to learning) on a | computer so I don't get the benefit of using an ad blocker like | Ad Nauseam. | Tistron wrote: | For me, something like this is exactly where Deno would shine. I | could just run `deno run <script url> --allow-net=YouTube.com | --allow-write=.` and not worry about that it could do anything | dangerous. Probably the url list would be a bit more complicated, | but I could also just blanket allow net without worrying, since | allow-read isn't needed. | banana_giraffe wrote: | One of the nice features added to yt-dlp recently: It integrates | with sponskrub to call into the SponsorBlock database and with | the right options will strip the sponsor segments from downloaded | videos. | | Edit: Correct typo | themodelplumber wrote: | dlc? Don't tell me that's a different one... | LeoPanthera wrote: | dlc is abandoned and dlp integrates its features. | banana_giraffe wrote: | Whoops, typo on my part. Sorry about that. | azinman2 wrote: | Are the sponsor parts really so bad? To me not only is it easy | to skip, I want indie people to make enough money to produce | high quality content; otherwise media is just what a few | biggies want to fund. They're not enough from YouTube itself | unless you're in the top percentile. | | Also what sponsored content are people downloading versus just | streaming live? I don't get the use case. | sen wrote: | I pay for YouTube premium but still see them. That's not OK, | especially when the creators make 10x more money off YouTube | Premium users than from ad-based users. | | YouTube needs to make a way for creators to label the sponsor | sections and it skips it for Premium users. | | As for why downloading, I download any/every video I find | useful so I don't have to go back to YouTube to watch it | later. Everything from blender tutorials to car build videos | that taught me something to music video clips and generally | just anything interesting. It all goes to my NAS and I can | instantly pull it up for reference and scrub quicker and | don't have to deal with YouTube's increasingly annoying | website. | kortilla wrote: | Yes, they are just ads in an even worse form because it's not | clear when to skip to to pass over them. | lawl wrote: | > Are the sponsor parts really so bad? To me not only is it | easy to skip, I want indie people to make enough money to | produce high quality content; otherwise media is just what a | few biggies want to fund. | | In my experience, it's the same with ads everywhere else. It | (usually) starts out not being overly obnoxious, with just a | "this video is sponsored by [garbage tier mobile | game/earphones/vpn/whatever] more about them at the end of | the video" and then the pitch at the end. | | I don't mind these. They quickly get the name out at the | beginning and then don't interrupt the video. What really | annoys me are the ones that interrupt the video. At some | point a few of them annoyed me enough that I installed | SponsorBlock. Because I don't _want_ to hear or see these | ads, but i tolerated them. But once that threshold is crossed | where I don 't tolerate all of them anymore, why would I not | just block all of them? I'm not going to unblock specific | channels that are well-behaved to listen to ads for products | i will definitely never buy. | | It's the exact same thing with regular ad-blocking. Sometimes | when I'm on a fresh OS I start browsing the web and only | notice I don't have an adblocker once I visit a page with | super obnoxious ads (e.g. google on mobile and realize | there's only ads and no organic results for like the first 5 | screens). | input_sh wrote: | > What really annoys me are the ones that interrupt the | video. | | Especially when those interruptions take two minutes. I | don't mind them up to 30 seconds, but their length does get | pretty ridiculous from time to time. | | There's no medium that's gonna make watch two minutes ad | without looking away or trying to skip it. You either sell | it quickly or don't. | azinman2 wrote: | But what then do you think is a realistic alternative? | YouTube costing $20/mo or more? Can't watch videos without | a patron? | | If your answer is nothing -- I expect everything for free, | then that's both unrealistic and parasitic. | lawl wrote: | > But what then do you think is a realistic alternative? | | Not my department. I'm perfectly happy being a parasite. | I used to watch Twitch every now and then. Twitch | introduced server side ads and made ad-blocking | unreliable and annoying - so i stopped using twitch. | | My life doesn't depend on youtube, and if they decide to | shut me out or the platform stops existing, that's fine | with me. Maybe other video platforms can try out other | models instead of that effective monopoly google has on | online video currently. | | I've also already said that I tolerate non-obnoxious ads. | But looking at the rest of the web, it doesn't seem to go | in that direction, so I'll keep blocking until they kick | me out. | ithinkso wrote: | 'This video was sponsored by X' is ok. | | And that is ho... 'HEY! Don't forget to check out X!' is not | Ansil849 wrote: | > Are the sponsor parts really so bad? | | Yes. Some of us don't like being assaulted with sales pitches | everywhere we look. | kaladin-jasnah wrote: | I think for some us pro-sponsor-segment people, I feel like | regular ads are particularly dry and more of an "assault." | But sponsor segments... can be creative, funny, and | sometimes make me actually want to buy the product (...not | the generic Raid: Shadow Legends ones... but even those if | they're well done). I appreciate well-made ads, so I don't | mind sponsor segments. | | Here's an example of one that is... nonsensical and perhaps | a bit humorous (well, at least I liked it): | https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0jPLRtEEjhU | Ansil849 wrote: | > I appreciate well-made ads, so I don't mind sponsor | segments. | | Then don't use the sponsor segment removal portion of the | tool. Simple as that. | | Those of us who don't want "clever" advertising any more | than "annoying" advertising can use it. And that's that. | nerdponx wrote: | Maybe these creators should post sponsor-free versions of | their videos on Patreon? | | If you are watching for free, and you're that annoyed by | ads, then maybe you just feel entitled. | judge2020 wrote: | Sure, but creators don't have many other avenues for | revenue when you're already using YouTube-dl(p) to download | videos without watching ads. I imagine sponsor spots will | be devalued over time as sponsorblock usage continues to | grow, especially for creators with audiences that watch | content on desktop more than mobile. | Forbo wrote: | Is it apparent to the sponsor when someone is watching | using youtube-dlp versus a regular view? I'd imagine most | sponsored segments are negotiated based on subscriber | count or view numbers. | crtasm wrote: | I don't believe the view counter gets incremented when | using any unofficial downloader or front-end. | banana_giraffe wrote: | For me, yes, they're bad. I get it's not the end of the | world, but a lot of the ad copy in sponsor segments really | grates on me, like VPN ones. I try to get rid of ads from my | life where I can, this is part of it. | | And for me, a lot of the videos I download are played back, | audio only, while I go for walks or am otherwise away from | the Internet. YouTube lets you download videos, but my audio | comes from multiple sources, YouTube is just one source. I | can integrate yt-dlp into my feed reader so I don't need to | think about the source anymore than I need to worry about | going to a random podcast's website to listen to those. | | In the end though, a tool like SponsorBlock is just another | way I remove the annoyances from the modern Internet. | arghwhat wrote: | Ugh, the blatant lies in VPN ads. | | "MAKES IT SO YOUR ISP CAN'T SEE YOUR TRAFFIC" - yeah, | congrats, now it's just another ISP that sees your traffic, | which was probably protected by TLS anyway... | | Heck, they even keep recommending the utility of Terms of | Service violations like accessing contents from other | regions. | | VPN companies are scammy as hell. | ajdude wrote: | I always remember the HN comment[0] where developer explained | which video was the breaking point that pushed them into | creating this app, and it was kurzgesagt of all authors. | | I am personally wondering if Yourube themselves are going to | start implementing some thing like this sooner or later; | after all, you are paying for an ad free experience on | YouTube premium, just to watch all of those new videos become | filled with in-video advertisements. | | [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20781415 | nebula8804 wrote: | Man I thought I was in heaven when I accidentally stumbled upon | SponsorBlock. Now you're telling me about this?! Amazing! How | does the video quality fare after stripping? Is it re-encoding | the video or somehow stripping it without altering the quality? | banana_giraffe wrote: | It re-encodes. Actually, I think it defaults to marking the | sponsor bits ... somehow. Whatever it's doing wasn't enough | for my player to notice. | | That said, for this stuff, I've only downloaded audio, and of | that mostly talking head type stuff, where I let it cut out | the segments. Whatever re-encoding is done would have to be | pretty bad before I'd care. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-08-26 23:00 UTC)