Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Yt-dlp: External JavaScript runtime now required for full YouTube support

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

431–440 of 646 posts

Re: Yt-dlp: External JavaScript runtime now required for full YouTube support

#431

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

"Support for YouTube without a JavaScript runtime is now considered "deprecated." It does still work somewhat; however, format availability will be limited, and severely so in some cases (e.g. for logged-in users). "

The devil is in the details

There are some formats, perhaps the one(s) the user wants, that do not require a JS runtime

Interesting that "signing up" for a website publishing public infomation and "logging in" may not always work in the user's favor. For example, here they claim it limits format availability

"Format availability without a JS runtime is expected to worsen as time goes on, and this will not be considered a "bug" but rather an inevitability for which there is no solution. It's also expected that, eventually, support for YouTube will not be possible at all without a JS runtime."

It is speculated that this format availability might change in the future

Re: Yt-dlp: External JavaScript runtime now required for full YouTube support

#432

Post by gloosx »

I wonder how the whole thing works when I open a youtube video from a preview inside a chat application on my mobile phone.

It looks like the video loads and starts playing in some kind of in-app browser, but there is just full-screen video and nothing else. I also never faced any ads in this "mode" of playing a video, yet recently some strange things started happening where the playback would start together with an audio-track from the advertisement. The video itself would start playing but the sound would be replaced with the sound from ad which seemed very odd and much like a bug, only when advertisement audio track ends it will be replaced with audio track from the video itself.

I'm genuinely curious how is the whole playback process different when I watch a video from the Telegram preview, can I somehow achieve the same "just fullscreen video" kind of playback on the desktop as well? Does anyone have any insight?

Re: Yt-dlp: External JavaScript runtime now required for full YouTube support

#433

Post by Wowfunhappy »

embedding-shape wrote: post #294
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What environment are you using that: - Has access to Youtube - Can run Python code - Can’t run JS code If the concern is security, it sounds like the team went to great lengths to ensure the JS was sandboxed (as long as you’re using Deno). If you’re using some sort of weird OS or architecture that Deno/Node doesn’t support, you might consider QuickJS, which is written in pure C and should work on anything. (Although…

> What environment are you using that: - Has access to Youtube - Can run Python code - Can’t run JS code Nothing specific, just tend to run tools in restricted VMs where things are whitelisted and it's pretty much as locked down as it can be. It can run whatever I want it to run, including JS, and as the logs in my previous comment shows, it is in fact running both Python and JS, and has access to YouTube, otherwise…

> The JS script being downloaded is from the yt-dlp GitHub organization

I meant the challenge that is the reason they need the Javascript in the first place.

You can’t very well run yt-dlp without trusting yt-dlp code.

Re: Yt-dlp: External JavaScript runtime now required for full YouTube support

#434

Post by jdewerd »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #431

"Support for YouTube without a JavaScript runtime is now considered "deprecated." It does still work somewhat; however, format availability will be limited, and severely so in some cases (e.g. for logged-in users). " The devil is in the details There are some formats, perhaps the one(s) the user wants, that do not require a JS runtime Interesting that "signing up" for a website publishing public infomation and "loggi…

How long until it comes with a DRM AI and then my anti-DRM AI will have to fight it in a virtual arena (with neon lights and killer soundtrack, of course)?

Re: Yt-dlp: External JavaScript runtime now required for full YouTube support

#435

Post by bitpush »

engeljohnb wrote: post #428
bitpush wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Second once the paper's in my hands, I get to do what I want with it, and the expectations of the paper company has no bearing on it. Absolutely! I run an adblocker as well! At the same time, you'd agree they have the right to refuse to serve you (access denied) or make you jump through hoops (solve a challenge etc)

Sure. YouTube can put everything behind a paywall one day and I won't complain. But I reject the increasingly common belief that it's somehow wrong to block ads.

Again, not wrong to block ads. But they can make it very difficult to have you and I access to videos if we're running adblocker.

We're right, and they're right as well.

Re: Yt-dlp: External JavaScript runtime now required for full YouTube support

#436

Post by fsflover »

icpmoles wrote: post #119
fsflover wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is why Windows 11 requires TPM.

DRM protection schemes usually don't rely on TPM, the real magic happens inside your GPU and the monitor.

They can use all available tools at the same time.

Re: Yt-dlp: External JavaScript runtime now required for full YouTube support

#437

Post by dev0p »

amelius wrote: post #300
dev0p wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YouTube should have been a distributed p2p system with local storage of your favorite videos. A man can dream...

Didn't work because asymmetric upload/download speeds (which now are a thing of the past; however, it gave youtube an early advantage).

Now largely more feasible. We should try again.

Re: Yt-dlp: External JavaScript runtime now required for full YouTube support

#438

Post by xandrius »

BenGosub wrote: post #137
xeonmc wrote: post #3

In ten years time YouTube will be entirely inaccessible from the browser as the iPad kids generation are used to doomscrolling the tablet app and Google feels confident enough to cut off the aging demographic.

One constant about Google, they always bet on the web.

Until the profits tells them not to.

Re: Yt-dlp: External JavaScript runtime now required for full YouTube support

#439

Post by viftodi »

MrNeon wrote: post #421
PuercoPop wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is likely you use Chrome or a browser that uses Blink for its engine and the OP uses a non-blink browser like Firefox. I use Firefox and I can cofirm since the last few months Youtube usability borders on usable

I use Firefox with uBlock and besides a couple of times where video start was delayed by a few seconds it has been working as well as before.

Google does A/B testing for anti ad blockers.

Not only do I get slowdowns and some videos don't load at all at times, but I also get a notification that explains that the reason is using adblockers.

Re: Yt-dlp: External JavaScript runtime now required for full YouTube support

#440

Post by gloosx »

armchairhacker wrote: post #281
Tabular-Iceberg wrote: post #51

I remember when QuickTime came out in 1991 and it was obvious to everyone that video should be copied, pasted and saved like any arbitrary data. It's absolutely insane to me how bad the user experience is with video nowadays, even video that's not encumbered by DRM or complex JavaScript clients.

A specific issue with video data is that it’s much denser: the same concept in video takes up more bytes than in text or image. Therefore hosting is more expensive, so less people host and the ones that do (e.g. YouTube) expect revenue. Furthermore, because videos are dense, people want to download them streaming, which means hosts must not just have storage but reliable bandwidth. Even then, there are a few competit…

The real problem is that YouTube built a model where the platform, not the creators, controls the money flow. They could have charged creators directly for hosting and left monetisation up to them, but by inserting themselves as the middleman, they gained leverage and authority over content itself. The "cost of hosting" is just the technical excuse for such centralisation.
Post reply on HN