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Bypassing YouTube video download throttling

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Re: Bypassing YouTube video download throttling

#71

Post by bmicraft »

mrtksn wrote: post #20
jgtrosh wrote: post #10

Technically, all interesting. Ethically, if you don't only think “fuck Google”, I feel like it's reasonable to stop after the first optimization (“pass the real browser test to get regular browser speeds”). There you're not “wasting” any more of YouTube's resources than a browser user with ad-block. Getting full Gb/s without paying anything feels to me like you're pushing all the ad-blocked users' luck. But then agai…

Technically, everyone pays for connecting to the network. I wouldn't say it's unethical to slam YouTube with full speed downloads but at the same time I wouldn't judge YouTube if they take measures against it. I'm using a browser extension to show full size of images on social media when hover and Instagram went crazy about it, warning about unusual activities and threatening to lock my account. I looked into it to s…

> I'm using a browser extension to show full size of images on social media when hover and Instagram went crazy about it, warning about unusual activities and threatening to lock my account. I looked into it to see if the extension does any scrapping behind but no, it all seems fine.

I've used such an extension and found dragging the curser over your screen might fire like 25 requests. You might simply be rate-limited.

Re: Bypassing YouTube video download throttling

#72

Post by izacus »

speedgoose wrote: post #59
Mindwipe wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - Forces software video decoding, which is slow No it doesn't. Heck, forcing software decoding is actually one of the ways to force Widevine down to lower protection levels on general purpose hardware. > - Web browsers only support the weakest form of Widevine which is ineffective It's not fullproof but it would certainly make tools to bypass it clearly illegal in most of the world. There are efficacy reasons for n…

It may not be illegal in France: https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/codes/article_lc/LEGIARTI0000...

Read up on meaning of word "most" when you feel the need to snipe contrarianism without adding to debate.

Re: Bypassing YouTube video download throttling

#73

Post by p0w3n3d »

jgtrosh wrote: post #10

Technically, all interesting. Ethically, if you don't only think “fuck Google”, I feel like it's reasonable to stop after the first optimization (“pass the real browser test to get regular browser speeds”). There you're not “wasting” any more of YouTube's resources than a browser user with ad-block. Getting full Gb/s without paying anything feels to me like you're pushing all the ad-blocked users' luck. But then agai…

technically you should be able to download video and you should not be prevented from this, at least to have a proof somebody was spreading hate speech or insulting you or your relatives. Of course you can camcord the screen but this sounds like a stone age solution.

Do you know for example that you cannot take screenshots of netflix in your browser on Mac, and therefore cannot make a meme, which is a fair use that has been taken from you?

Re: Bypassing YouTube video download throttling

#74

Post by no_time »

probably_wrong wrote: post #28

I've never tried YouTube, but I have downloaded videos from sketchier streaming websites using the web developer tools. Almost all of them have the same protection: some code that triggers only when you open the tools and stops the video by creating a debugger statement you cannot skip and triggering some cpu-heavy code (probably an infinite loop, although I wouldn't discard cryptominers). More importantly this code…

>Almost all of them have the same protection: some code that triggers only when you open the tools and stops the video by creating a debugger statement you cannot skip

If you missed it, not so long ago there was a submission that evaded exactly this. Their solution is so simple yet effective: Recompiling the browser with the debugger keyword renamed. Made me smile.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36961445

Re: Bypassing YouTube video download throttling

#75

Post by stavros »

probably_wrong wrote: post #28

I've never tried YouTube, but I have downloaded videos from sketchier streaming websites using the web developer tools. Almost all of them have the same protection: some code that triggers only when you open the tools and stops the video by creating a debugger statement you cannot skip and triggering some cpu-heavy code (probably an infinite loop, although I wouldn't discard cryptominers). More importantly this code…

You can use something like mitmproxy or HTTP Toolkit to examine things exactly, as those can't be interacted with or detected like the dev tools can.

Re: Bypassing YouTube video download throttling

#76

Post by [deleted] »

no_time wrote: post #74
probably_wrong wrote: post #28

I've never tried YouTube, but I have downloaded videos from sketchier streaming websites using the web developer tools. Almost all of them have the same protection: some code that triggers only when you open the tools and stops the video by creating a debugger statement you cannot skip and triggering some cpu-heavy code (probably an infinite loop, although I wouldn't discard cryptominers). More importantly this code…

>Almost all of them have the same protection: some code that triggers only when you open the tools and stops the video by creating a debugger statement you cannot skip If you missed it, not so long ago there was a submission that evaded exactly this. Their solution is so simple yet effective: Recompiling the browser with the debugger keyword renamed. Made me smile. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36961445

[deleted]

Re: Bypassing YouTube video download throttling

#77

Post by mgdlbp »

AltruisticGapHN wrote: post #48

On a sidenote am I imagining things or do videos actually look a tiny bit better in YouTube? This really has puzzled me. I downloaded a few favourites and watch them on VLC or Infuse on my AppleTV. In the YouTube app I can use the "nerd stats" to confirm I am viewing the exact same video/audio streams... ... it could be my imagination but it seems like YouTube does a really subtle kind of filter that makes the "block…

What filter the player uses for scaling (and chroma scaling) affects sharpness. Playing a native resolution stream fullscreen should eliminate differences here for monochrome edges. Depending on OS you might be able to toggle rapidly between two fullscreen apps to test for differences (cf ISO 29170-2, which recommends 5 Hz).

Colour shifts (as in, input != output, not gradients) can come from bad handling of video colour space or monitor profile. Also, shenanigans here can have screenshots looking different from the actual application.

'jitters' might be dropped frames, but then you mention resolution. Since you also mention edges, if you're noticing pixellation in the edges of coloured objects, that would be nearest-neighbour chroma upscaling, which I do remember some player using at some point.

Re: Bypassing YouTube video download throttling

#78

Post by londons_explore »

chii wrote: post #66
londons_explore wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think youtube really cares if you pirate their content or use a 3rd party client. What they care about is you wasting their bandwidth. For an ad-supported video streaming site, bandwidth is normally more expensive than revenue - Google only manages to make it just about work because they have probably the worlds cheapest bandwidth due to being able to bully ISP's into peering with them for free. (they don't l…

Sooner or later, youtube will do the same thing as twitch, which is to dynamically splice ads into the video stream - making it impossible to block with current mechanisms. They don't do it yet, probably because they don't see the need quite yet. But i have no doubts that it will happen sooner or later. Adblocking will have to evolve to a new level to block such things.

splicing video is pretty easy - there are certain points - key frames - where video streams can be spliced with nearly zero computational overhead, no loss of quality, no loading delay, etc.

Re: Bypassing YouTube video download throttling

#79

Post by speedgoose »

izacus wrote: post #72
speedgoose wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may not be illegal in France: https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/codes/article_lc/LEGIARTI0000...

Read up on meaning of word "most" when you feel the need to snipe contrarianism without adding to debate.

Things such as libdvdcss or libaacs are maintained by VideoLan in France. It’s not a random country in this context.

https://www.videolan.org/developers/libdvdcss.html

https://www.videolan.org/developers/libaacs.html

Re: Bypassing YouTube video download throttling

#80

Post by realusername »

izacus wrote: post #72
speedgoose wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may not be illegal in France: https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/codes/article_lc/LEGIARTI0000...

Read up on meaning of word "most" when you feel the need to snipe contrarianism without adding to debate.

That's not contrarianism, most of the EU is in this situation. Basically everywhere where you have taxes on private copies, you must still be able to make the copies somehow, otherwise the tax would be repealed.
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