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YouTubeDrive: Store files as YouTube videos

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Re: YouTubeDrive: Store files as YouTube videos

#122
post #62

Not immediately obvious from the Readme, but does this rely on YT always saving a providing download of the original un-altered video file? If not, then it must be saving the data in a manner that is retrievable even after compression and re-encoding, which is very interesting.

[deleted]

Re: YouTubeDrive: Store files as YouTube videos

#123
post #118

I only looked at the example video, but is the concept just "big enough pixels"? Would be neater (and much more efficient) to encode the data such that it's exactly untouched by the compression algorithm, e.g. by encoding the data in wavelets and possibly motion vectors that the algorithm is known to keep[1]. Of course that would also be a lot of work, and likely fall apart once the video is re-encoded. [1] If that's…

YT might still recompress your video, possibly using proprietary algorithms that are not necessarily DCT based

Re: YouTubeDrive: Store files as YouTube videos

#124
post #123
post #118

I only looked at the example video, but is the concept just "big enough pixels"? Would be neater (and much more efficient) to encode the data such that it's exactly untouched by the compression algorithm, e.g. by encoding the data in wavelets and possibly motion vectors that the algorithm is known to keep[1]. Of course that would also be a lot of work, and likely fall apart once the video is re-encoded. [1] If that's…

YT might still recompress your video, possibly using proprietary algorithms that are not necessarily DCT based

As said, falls apart with re-encoding. But is a bit more interesting than what is more or less QR codes.

Re: YouTubeDrive: Store files as YouTube videos

#125
post #26

Turns out any site that allows users to submit and retrieve data can be abused in the same way: - FacebookDrive: "Store files as base64 facebook posts" - TwitterDrive: "Store files as base64 tweets" - SoundCloudDrive: "Store files as mp3 audio" - WikipediaDrive: "Store files in wikipedia article histories"

[deleted]

Re: YouTubeDrive: Store files as YouTube videos

#126

This reminds me of an old hacky product that would let you use cheap VHS tapes as backup storage: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ArVid You would hit Record on a VCR and the computer data would be encoded as video data on the tape. People are clever.

This is old school. When I first wrote code back in the Stone Age we used to store our stuff on cassette tape.

Re: YouTubeDrive: Store files as YouTube videos

#127
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back in the day when @gmail was famous for their massive free storage for email, ppl wrote scripts to chunk large files and store them as email attachments.

I used this as a backup target for the longest time. Simply split the backup file into 10 MB chunks and send as mails to a gmail account. Encrypted so no privacy problems. Rock solid for years. And as it was just storing emails it was even using gmail for it's intended purpose so no TOS problems..

Yup, did the exact same thing to back up all of the Wordpress installs on a free server I ran for friends.

Re: YouTubeDrive: Store files as YouTube videos

#128

This reminds me of an old hacky product that would let you use cheap VHS tapes as backup storage: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ArVid You would hit Record on a VCR and the computer data would be encoded as video data on the tape. People are clever.

This is old school. When I first wrote code back in the Stone Age we used to store our stuff on cassette tape.

I still have my Atari 400 and tape drive!
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