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Yt-dlp: Upcoming new requirements for YouTube downloads

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Re: Yt-dlp: Upcoming new requirements for YouTube downloads

#301

Post by ddtaylor »

When I first got with my wife I seemed a bit crazier than I am because I am a media hoarder for 30+ years. I don't have any VHS, DVDs, etc. laying around because I only keep digital copies, but I have pretty decent archives. Nothing important really, just normal stuff and some rare or obscure stuff that disappears over time.

My wife was interested in the idea that I was running "Netfix from home" and enjoyed the lack of ads or BS when we watched any content. I never really thought I would be an "example" or anything like that - I fully expected everyone else to embrace streaming for the rest of time because I didn't think those companies would make so many mistakes. I've been telling people for the last decade "That's awesome I watch using my own thing, what shows are your favorites I want to make sure I have them"

In the last 2 years more family members and friends have requested access to my Jellyfin and asked me to setup a similar setup with less storage underneath their TV in the living room or in a closet.

Recently-ish we have expanded our Jellyfin to have some YouTube content on it. Each channel just gets a directory and gets this command ran:

    yt-dlp "$CHANNEL_URL" \
      --download-archive "downloaded.txt" \
      --playlist-end 10 \
      --match-filters "live_status = 'not_live' & webpage_url!*='/shorts/' & original_url!*='/shorts/'" \
      -f "bv*[height%Y-%m-%d)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s"
It actually fails to do what I want here and download h264 content so I have it re-encoded since I keep my media library in h264 until the majority of my devices support h265, etc. None of that really matters because these YouTube videos come in AV1 and none of my smart TVs support that yet AFAIK.

Re: Yt-dlp: Upcoming new requirements for YouTube downloads

#302

Post by mrguyorama »

jasode wrote: post #99
ACCount37 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you ever wondered why the likes of Google and Cloudflare want to restrict the web to a few signed, integrity-checked browser implementations? Now you know.

>If you ever wondered why the likes of Google and Cloudflare want to restrict the web I disagree with the framing of "us vs them". It's actually "us vs us". It's not just us plebians vs FAANG giants. The small-time independent publishers and creators also want to restrict the web because they don't want their content "stolen". They want to interact with real humans instead of bots. The following are manifestations of…

>The small-time independent publishers and creators also want to restrict the web

Oh really? Does Linus's Floatplane go to this extent to prevent users from downloading stuff? Does Nebula? Does whatever that gun youtuber's version of video site do this?

Does Patreon?

Re: Yt-dlp: Upcoming new requirements for YouTube downloads

#303

Post by Telaneo »

zelphirkalt wrote: post #126
degamad wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When did it start requiring one? It didn't require one the last time I used it a few months ago...

I think for me it has been this way for a year or so. Maybe it is because I am on a VPN. I also cannot view YouTube videos on YouTube any longer, because it always wants me to log in, to "prove I am not a bot". So I have switched to only using invidious instances, and if they don't work, then I just cannot watch the video. I wish content creators would think of their own good more, and start publishing on multiple pl…

It's a VPN thing, or a 'you've been downloading too much and are ratelimiting you' thing.

Re: Yt-dlp: Upcoming new requirements for YouTube downloads

#305

Post by knome »

jerf wrote: post #264
paxys wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm constantly baffled by how bad the implementation of YouTube Premium downloads is. Videos will buffer to 100% in a matter of seconds but get endlessly stuck when I hit the download button. Why? All the bytes are literally on my device already.

The whole YouTube app is weird. Sometimes it lets you do 1.0x-2.0x. Sometimes it lets you range from .25x-4x. Sometimes it pops up a text selection box with every .05x option from .1 to 4.0. Sometimes it has a nicer UI with shortcut selections for common choices and a sliding bar for speed. It recently picked up a bug where if you're listening to a downloaded video, but turn the screen off and on again, the video pla…

the control changes sound like you might have gotten caught in some kind of a-b testing

Re: Yt-dlp: Upcoming new requirements for YouTube downloads

#306

Post by entropie »

ddtaylor wrote: post #301

When I first got with my wife I seemed a bit crazier than I am because I am a media hoarder for 30+ years. I don't have any VHS, DVDs, etc. laying around because I only keep digital copies, but I have pretty decent archives. Nothing important really, just normal stuff and some rare or obscure stuff that disappears over time. My wife was interested in the idea that I was running "Netfix from home" and enjoyed the lack…

First I ran a simple script, now I use ytdltt [1] to allow my mother via telegram bot to download YT videos (in her case its more like audiobooks) and sort them in directories so she can access/download it via jellyfin. Shes at around 1.2TB audiobooks in like 3 years.

1: https://github.com/entropie/ytdltt

Re: Yt-dlp: Upcoming new requirements for YouTube downloads

#307

Post by ddtaylor »

jokoon wrote: post #295
est wrote: post #16

I really appreciate the engineering effort went into this "JavaScript interpreter" https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/blob/2025.09.23/yt_dlp/jsin...

Wait I thought they were running an entire browser engine

Over time they probably will require that. I believe YT still allows most of these things because of "legacy" apps, which they have been killing off bit by bit. I'm not sure if anyone is cataloging the oldest supported app, but most things like using YT from a slightly older game console don't work anymore.

Basically any publicly known method that can sip video content with doing the least work and authentication will be a common point of attack for this.

Re: Yt-dlp: Upcoming new requirements for YouTube downloads

#308

Post by Too »

random29ah wrote: post #111

It's almost funny, not to mention sad, that their player/page has been changed, filling it with tons of JS that makes less powerful machines lag. For a while now, I've been forced to change "watch?v=" to "/embed/" to watch something in 480p on an i3 Gen 4, where the same video, when downloaded, uses ~3% of the CPU. However, unfortunately, it doesn't always work anymore. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvFZjo5PgG0 htt…

Many performance problems on YouTube are because they now force everyone to use the latest heavy codecs, even when your hardware does not have acceleration for it. I have a laptop that is plenty powerful for everything else and plays 4K h264 no problem. 720p on YouTube on the other hand turns it into a hot slate after a minute and grinds everything to a halt.

There are browser extensions like h264ify that block newer codecs but WHY??? Is nobody at YouTube caring about the user experience? It’s easier and more reliable to just download the videos.

Re: Yt-dlp: Upcoming new requirements for YouTube downloads

#309

Post by ddtaylor »

codedokode wrote: post #179
est wrote: post #16

I really appreciate the engineering effort went into this "JavaScript interpreter" https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/blob/2025.09.23/yt_dlp/jsin...

I decided just to look at the code for a moment and discovered ChainMap in Python.

This is excellent for some of my usages. I want to have my AI agents "fork" their context in some ways, this could be useful for that instead of juggling a tree of dictionaries.

Re: Yt-dlp: Upcoming new requirements for YouTube downloads

#310

Post by ohdeargodno »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #277
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything trends towards centralization on a long enough period. I laugh at people who think ActivityPub or Mastodon or BlueSky will save us. We already had that, it was called e-mail, look what happened once everyone started using it. If we couldn't stop the centralization effects that occurred on e-mail, any attempt to stop centralization in general is honestly a utopian fool's errand. Regulation is easier.

I am a big supporter of AT Protocol, and I contribute some money to a fund to build on it. Why laugh at running experiments? Nothing will "save us," it is a constant effort as long as humans desire to use these systems to connect. Email exists today, and is very usable still as a platform that cannot be captured. The consolidation occurred because people do not want to run their own servers, so we should build for th…

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