Another way to stream/download YouTube videos through Amiga browsers...

Hi guys,

While things work themselves out with SMtube and YouTube, the talk of
a using a website to get to those vids got me to thinking and looking
around a bit.

I found that the site http://keepvid.com/ largely works... even in
IBrowse (especially if you have a beta of the OS4 version). Just feed
KeepVid a Youtube (or Vimeo, Dailymotion, etc.) video URL and gives you
back a page with downloadable links.

Good stuff!

So I got to work seeing how well I could integrate all that into my
Amiga usage. Of course, that would mean using our fastest browser,
IBrowse. ;) But it also works in Odyssey, if you insist.

I got the process down to the point that I just right click on any
YouTube video link, I'm presented with a new tab where I can download
files and a second menu item lets me stream those files with MPlayer.

Here's how you can do this too... Assuming I wrote it all down correctly...
;)

---

FIRST: SCRIPT TO GET TO THE KeepVid PAGE

First, save a little ARexx script that will mildly process the URL of
the video you want to see into the KeepVid page with the downloads.

In IBrowse you need to create a file called "OpenWithKeepVid.ibrx"
in your S:ARexx/ directory (without the ----'s, of course):
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
/* Script to send a KeepVid page URL back to IBrowse with a given video URL */

options results
parse arg url

ADDRESS 'IBROWSE'

url = substr(url,2,length(url)-2)
url = 'NEWBROWSER "http://keepvid.com/?url=' || (url) || '"'

(url)
exit
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

In Odditity... err... Odyssey... you need to create the "OpenWithKeepVid.rx"
file in your S:ARexx/ directory like this (again, without the ---'s):
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
/* Script to send a KeepVid page URL back to Odditity with a given video URL */

options results
parse arg url

ADDRESS 'ODYSSEY.1'

url = 'OPEN NAME="http://keepvid.com/?url=' || (url) || '" NEWPAGE'

(url)

exit
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now on to how to access those scripts...

---

HOW TO SET UP DOWNLOADING:

Next, set up your browser's context menus so you can get to the page
with the video URL's you want to access:

In IBrowse:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Open "Preferences/Settings..." (RAmiga-Z).
2. Click to the "GUI/FAB Menus" page
3. Unfold the "Link" entry in the right column (click the "+").
4. Drag "Custom" from the left column to the "Link" section on the right.
5. Click on the new "Custom" entry you dropped on the right side.
6. Down below the columns change the values to:

Name = KeepVid link...
Action (from left to right) =
cycle gadet = [ARexx]
action field = s:ARexx/OpenWithKeepVid.ibrx
arguments = %l

7. Click the "OK" button at the bottom left of the Settings window.
8. Do the "Prefernces/Save Settings" menu item to save what you did.

You can do the same steps with the "ImageLink" section so you can
right-click and get to videos from their thumbnail pictures. Finally,
you can do almost the same steps under the "Page" entry, just change
the Arguments value to %u instead.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

In Odyssey:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Open "Settings/Preferences..."
2. Click to the "Contextural Menus" page
3. Click the "Add" button at the bottom
4. In the area below, set the values to:

Category = Link
Label = KeepVid link...
Action = c:rx s:ARexx/OpenWithKeepVid.rx %l

5. Click the "Save" button in the bottom left.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

That will give you a menu item labeled "KeepVid link..." when you
right-click on any underlined link in a webpage.

Those context menus will take you to a webpage on the KeepVid website
which gives you download links to the video you right-clicked on.
Just click on any of the links shown there and you can download
those videos to your Amiga.

---

HOW TO SET UP STREAMING:

But what if you want to stream a video from YouTube?

In that case you need a second context menu which will let you
stream from the linked videos on the KeepVid web page using MPlayer.
The steps are similar to those above...

In IBrowse:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Open "Preferences/Settings..." (RAmiga-Z).
2. Click to the "GUI/FAB Menus" page
3. Unfold the "Link" entry in the right column (click the "+").
4. Drag "Custom" from the left column to the "Link" section.
5. Click on the new "Custom" entry you dropped on the right side.
6. Down below the columns change the values to:

Name = Play in MPlayer...
Action (from left to right) =
cycle gadet = [Command]
action field = <the full pathname to your MPlayer> (use the ASL button)
arguments = %l

7. Click the "OK" button at the bottom left of the Settings window.
8. Do the "Prefernces/Save Settings" menu item to save what you did.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

In Odyssey:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Open "Settings/Preferences..."
2. Click to the "Contextural Menus" page
3. Click the "Add" button at the bottom
4. In the area below, set the values to:

Category = Link
Label = Play in MPlayer...
Action = <the full pathname to your MPlayer> %l

5. Click the "Save" button in the bottom left.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

When you right-click on a linked video, these steps will give you another
context menu item that will stream/play the linked file in MPlayer.
Obviousyly this menu item would be useful with all the other stuff that
MPlayer can stream - radio stations, audio files, etc.

---

So there you have it. Two clicks. The first pop-up menu gives you a
page from which you can download videos. The second pop-up menu lets
you stream a videos from that page straight into MPlayer.

:)

Once I get tired of all this clicking, it should be pretty easy to
automate all this into one ARexx script that pops up a single requester
and does what you tell it to do. After all, we are on Amigas here!

One should also be able to adapt the above steps to work within our
other browsers, depending on the configurabilty and ARexx command set.

Obviously, this also all dependent on the KeepVid website continuing to
work with the video sites and with our web browsers. /me not holding
his breath too long.

Enjoy,

PJS

Hi all,

A follow-up: I've been testing all this on a bunch of
linked vids this afternoon and it looks like there's a
drawback where some videos don't seem to be accessible.

:/

I'm guessing it may have something to do with DRM?
I dunno. The KeepVid site just throws up a page talking
about java, etc etc.

More testing needed, I guess.

Thanks,

PJS

@pjs

Here's a combined script with fallback to urlopen so it should work with aweb, firefox, netsurf as well:


/* Script to send a KeepVid page URL back to IBrowse or Odyssey with a given video URL */
/* Added fallback to use urlopen so the script can be used from dos when no browser is open */
options results
parse arg url
url = strip(url,,'"')

if show('ports', 'IBROWSE') then do
ADDRESS 'IBROWSE'
url = 'NEWBROWSER "http://keepvid.com/?url=' || (url) || '"'
(url)
exit
end
if show('ports', 'ODYSSEY.1') then do
ADDRESS 'ODYSSEY.1'
url = 'OPEN NAME="http://keepvid.com/?url=' || (url) || '" NEWPAGE'
(url)
exit
end
ADDRESS command
'urlopen http "keepvid.com/?url=' || (url) || '"'
exit

@pjs

There is an even easier way in IBrowse:

Open Settings.
Click GUI
Click URL Toolbar
Click Add
Enter:
Title: KeepVid
URL: http://keepvid.com/?url=%s
Button: Go
Click Save

Then just copy'n'paste the url into the search gadget after setting it to keepvid

Easier to setup, not as easy to use but you can paste urls from anywhere, eg emails, irc chats etc.

Another one is:

Title: Wapistan
URL: http://wapistan.info/youtube/search.php?q=%s
Button: Search

When I try to stream video using this method, the cache fills up at 0.10% of the video no matter what I try to watch. To what should I set -cache or -cache-min?

Thank you,

@interrogative

This method simply replies on MPlayer's default config
to stream from the video URL.

I suppose you could try adding more MPlayer parameters to
the command line arguments (where the %l URL is) or you
could edit the "conf" file in MPlayer's "conf" directory.

Thanks,

PJS

After a week of miscellaneous testing with this method
of accessing YT videos, I'm reminded it's only as reliable
as KeepVid's site.

When KeepVid is working well, this method works great. But
I'm also finding the KeepVid site seems to go out to lunch
from time to time.

I've emailed them but gotten no reply. Probably shouldn't
have mentioned "Amiga" to them? ;)

PJS

May I present Youtube URL Extractor (aka YT). Please read the top of the file. Use "html silent" (without quotes) if you want to use this script in a Context menu of a browser. Thanks to pjs for this current iteration of the HTML page design, slightly modified by me.

[Link removed. Imminent release]

A very worthwhile upload to OS4Depot....

http://www.os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=video/misc/yt.lha

@mbrantley

I've modified YT.rexx to allow it to either download, stream or print the url.

To do this yourself do the following...

Line 9 add: DownloadPath = "Downloads:"

comment out line 328 and add (top and bottom lines are original code):

/*IF Num~="" THEN Call ErrMsg(YURL.Num)*/
IF Num~="" THEN DO
myurl = YURL.Num
Call Say ("")
Call Say ("Do you want to:")
Call Say ("")
Call Say("1 Download File...")
Call Say("2 Stream File...")
Call Say("3 Print URL...")
Parse Pull Num
IF Num = "1" Then Do
VidTitle = COMPRESS(VidTitle,')}]?#~')
VidTitle = TRANSLATE(VidTitle, '---', '({[')
Address command
AppDir:wget myurl || ' -O "' || DownloadPath || VidTitle || '.mp4"'
Call ErrMsg("Finished.")
End
IF Num = "2" Then Do
Address Command
Mplayer '-fs ' || myurl
Call ErrMsg("Finished.")
end
IF Num = "3" Then Call ErrMsg(myurl)
Call ErrMsg("Invalid Entry")
end
SDone=SDone-1

Download uses .mp4 as default extension as that's all I bother to download. I might get around to putting the right extension on there eventually.

Edit: This of course cannot be incorporated into the original source and uploaded to OS4Depot as it probably breaks youtube rules but if a user accidentally pastes the above into the script it's nothing to do with the authors

@Severin

THX, works great!!!!!

I've just uploaded 1.1 to OS4Depot. Any modifications by others will probably need to be re-written. Streaming in MPlayer (with captions too) is supported now.

Edit: 2 bugs in 1.1. Timecodes aren't stripped. Add a hash to the translate function line 926, and you can add a line at 101 to strip it there too, but that's less important.

Thumbnails broken in SSL mode. Needs Compress(VidThumb,"\") to strip escape characters.

@MickJT

Really great use of the rhingio messaging system.

Cheers

Thanks. Unfortunately Ringhio is limited so I couldn't do what I would have preferred, which is to disable fading but more importantly keep a notification open and update it.

@MickJT

I don't think you need that in this instance.
Just being assured something was happening was great for me.

There is something else I would like to discuss with you next time you on IRC.

Cheers