How are videos downloaded off youtube?

[¨TrisT¨]

Hi.

I'm kind of getting sick of getting low quality audio if I try downloading a whole playlist or having to download each music individually, so I was looking at the possibility of making something that'd do that for me.

Problem is I actually have no idea how it's done by those websites/programs.

I'd assume it'd have something to do with just receiving the data stream directly and encoding it, but that's a wild guess.

So, what would be, simplifiedly, the process though which one would achieve ending up with a mp3 file off a youtube link?

 

Thank you.

[vorticalbox]

https://youtubedownloader.com/

 

haven't used in a while but it's what I used to use. If you get the pro it will auto convert the download or you can just do it manually clicking buttons.

[Nena Trinity]

http://www.clipconverter.cc/

[kirby99_2016]

on the youtube url. before youtube.com type 'ss' so ssyoutube.com

[Shivan]

put ss before youtube in the video link

[adm0n]

He wants to know how to program such an application himself. 

I'm not entirely sure, and I don't want to spend a lot of time digging through their source code, but those webpages probably just download the file off of the youtube servers.

It should be possible to find the file destination on the server. 

[¨TrisT¨]

I'm not asking for ways to download, I'm asking how those ways download it themselves, so that maybe I can code something similar of my own where I don't have to pay sh** and can do anything I want with it.

[Mark77]

youtube-dl works the best, and is command line.  You can give it the URL to a playlist and it can fill an entire HDD if you want. 

[¨TrisT¨]

Just now, adm0n said:

He wants to know how to program such an application himself. 

I'm not entirely sure, and I don't want to spend a lot of time digging through their source code, but those webpages probably just download the file off of the youtube servers.

It should be possible to find the file destination on the server. 

I don't think files would just be exposed on a server like that, otherwise you'd be able to download private videos easy.

Besides you'd still have to encode it to audio.

 

I also don't believe digging through source code would help, I'm pretty sure they do that server side and then allow you to download from their own servers, otherwise there wouldn't be much of a point to doing so, and I'm not sure js even has the power to do that.

[adm0n]

Just now, ¨TrisT¨ said:

I don't think files would just be exposed on a server like that, otherwise you'd be able to download private videos easy.

Besides you'd still have to encode it to audio.

 

I also don't believe digging through source code would help, I'm pretty sure they do that server side and then allow you to download from their own servers, otherwise there wouldn't be much of a point to doing so, and I'm not sure js even has the power to do that.

You are actually right. I just remember that I used to be able to just save the files on my phone ... 

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4032766/how-to-download-videos-from-youtube-on-java

Here you have some code : D go and figure out what they're doing yourself. But as far is i understood it, you were right with your first thought. 

[vorticalbox]

you can find the source video file by parsing the html for the src to the video then use a tool like ffpeg to convert it to mp3

[¨TrisT¨]

6 minutes ago, adm0n said:

You are actually right. I just remember that I used to be able to just save the files on my phone ... 

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4032766/how-to-download-videos-from-youtube-on-java

Here you have some code : D go and figure out what they're doing yourself. But as far is i understood it, you were right with your first thought. 

Yeh, that seems to be it. I don't do java and I'm not planning to in the near future, and this really seems too much work, dealing with media programmatically really is too much of a pain for an idea that isn't that important. I'll most likely just share folders with a VM and install all the "trashy" software I may want there, and pass the files through that folder, that way I won't get malware and I'll get the stuff done.

 

Once again, thank you

[¨TrisT¨]

3 minutes ago, vorticalbox said:

you can find the source video file by parsing the html for the src to the video then use a tool like ffpeg to convert it to mp3

How do you mean?

I don't think you're ever gonna find any source video file without diving into the youtube API itself, you can find thumbnails and stuff, but a whole video is a much more complex thing, given all the qualities and how youtube buffers between them. This doesn't seem like your typical <video> tag.

[adm0n]

I just checked. Every video has a unique ID, which doesn't correspond with the filename. So no video tags : D that is right : D

 

You probably would be able to code this in any language you want, maybe there are even tutorials for some other language. 
And the conversion in the end could even be done by your VLC Media player : D but there are more sophisticated methods : D

[prolemur]

you could make a script to run this one multiple times.

I was also thinking of making one because my bandwidth doesn't cound toward my cap from 2am - 8am, so (this script + a little cron job + list of youtube subscriptions + last time it was run) = awesome

[¨TrisT¨]

12 hours ago, prolemur said:

you could make a script to run this one multiple times.

I was also thinking of making one because my bandwidth doesn't cound toward my cap from 2am - 8am, so (this script + a little cron job + list of youtube subscriptions + last time it was run) = awesome

Thanks a lot!