• browser playlist in sequence on another computer

    From Patrick@21:1/5 to All on Mon Dec 25 21:11:09 2023
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox, alt.comp.freeware

    Is there a windows program that can create on one desktop a youtube
    playlist text file (of maybe a dozen or two dozen video urls) which can be copied as a file to another laptop to play in sequence in the firefox or
    chrome web browser (without needing to log into the youtube web site)?

    Another way to ask that question is to ask how does Firefox play a
    pre-planned bunch of youtube videos in sequence?

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  • From Andy Burns@21:1/5 to Patrick on Tue Dec 26 08:53:55 2023
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox, alt.comp.freeware

    Patrick wrote:

    Is there a windows program that can create on one desktop a youtube
    playlist text file (of maybe a dozen or two dozen video urls) which can be copied as a file to another laptop to play in sequence in the firefox or chrome web browser (without needing to log into the youtube web site)?

    Another way to ask that question is to ask how does Firefox play a pre-planned bunch of youtube videos in sequence?

    why not create a playlist within youtube, then you can send that URL to
    any computer?

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Herbert Kleebauer@21:1/5 to Patrick on Tue Dec 26 11:17:55 2023
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox, alt.comp.freeware

    On 26.12.2023 04:11, Patrick wrote:

    Is there a windows program that can create on one desktop a youtube
    playlist text file (of maybe a dozen or two dozen video urls) which can be copied as a file to another laptop to play in sequence in the firefox or chrome web browser (without needing to log into the youtube web site)?

    Don't create the playlist but download the videos on your PC
    and store them on an USB stick. Then you can watch the videos
    on your laptop without any advertising and you can use a real
    video player (with fast forward, adjustment of brightness and
    contrast, equalizer and more).

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Andy Burns@21:1/5 to Patrick on Tue Dec 26 19:13:41 2023
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox, alt.comp.freeware

    Patrick wrote:

    Andy Burns wrote:

    why not create a playlist within youtube

    If it was easy to do it wouldn't need a hundred videos telling you how.
    I tried all those first but none work without having you create an account. That is absurd if you need Google involved just to create a list of URLs.

    Is it too much hassle to create a throw-away google account *just* for
    your playlists? If so, then maybe something other than youtube is
    suited for you?

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  • From Patrick@21:1/5 to Andy Burns on Tue Dec 26 12:47:41 2023
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox, alt.comp.freeware

    On Tue, 26 Dec 2023 08:53:55 +0000, Andy Burns wrote:
    Another way to ask that question is to ask how does Firefox play a
    pre-planned bunch of youtube videos in sequence?

    why not create a playlist within youtube, then you can send that URL to
    any computer?

    If it was easy to do it wouldn't need a hundred videos telling you how. :-( https://youtu.be/0Ox-D5ZbWos
    https://youtu.be/jB1VYescG50
    https://youtu.be/ft7iL8nMXAQ
    https://youtu.be/z6WiPTuTg9E
    https://youtu.be/3M6WJw01lmw

    I tried all those first but none work without having you create an account. That is absurd if you need Google involved just to create a list of URLs.

    It should work from a text file with the browser opening up each video in
    its own separate tab with only the current focused on tab being what plays.

    I found this before I had asked the question which sort of works ok. https://superuser.com/questions/385207/how-to-open-a-list-of-urls-in-firefox-or-seamonkey

    There are 2 solutions there, one of which is this multiurl.bat batch file. @echo off
    for /F "eol=c tokens=1" %%i in (%1) do "C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" %%i
    Which you run by issuing the Windows command "multiurl.bat urls.txt".

    The other of which is this html file which works on all browsers including Chrome and on all the operating systems so it's a more universal solution.

    You first create this "multiurl.html" file and then you open it in Firefox
    with file:///c:/share/multiurl.html (using the forward slases as shown). <!doctype html>
    <html>
    <head>
    <title>Open Windows</title>
    <script>
    function openWindow(){
    var x = document.getElementById('a').value.split('\n');
    for (var i = 0; i < x.length; i++)
    if (x[i].indexOf('.') > 0)
    if (x[i].indexOf('://') < 0)
    window.open('http://'+x[i]);
    else
    window.open(x[i]);
    }
    </script>
    <style>
    html, body
    {
    height : 99%;
    width : 99%;
    }

    textarea
    {
    height : 80%;
    width : 90%;
    }
    </style>
    </head>
    <body>
    <textarea id="a"></textarea>

    <input type="button" value="Open Windows" onClick="openWindow()">
    <input type="button" value="Clear" onClick="document.getElementById('a').value=''">
    </body>
    </html>

    You paste the "urls.txt" into the entry window & press the "Open Windows" button to open each youtube url in a separate browser tab. It has a problem depending on how you've set up your browser to open multiple tabs though.

    Both those are working so far (with a bit of browser setup changes to allow multiple windows to open at the same time) where I'm kind of stuck in
    Windows 10 not seeing the share that I made to put the urls.txt file.

    The problem I'm running into now is the Microsoft instructions for setting
    up a share between two Windows 10 computers on the same network assume you
    have many other things already done which I don't have on my computers. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/file-sharing-over-a-network-in-windows-b58704b2-f53a-4b82-7bc1-80f9994725bf

    These sharing instructions are a little better because they take into
    account that I have different user names and different passwords on the two computers on the network but I haven't gotten the sharing to work yet. https://www.technewstoday.com/how-to-access-files-from-another-computer-on-the-same-network/

    So right now it's only working on the desktop but not on the laptop.

    I'm trying to keep everything inside my home as there's no need to hop thousands of miles to Google headquarters just to pass a text file from downstairs to upstairs on my own private local area network, is there?

    The laptop isn't even seeing the share so something must be wrong.
    It should be easy to pass a file on my own network & open in Firefox.

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    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Patrick@21:1/5 to Herbert Kleebauer on Tue Dec 26 13:04:39 2023
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox, alt.comp.freeware

    On Tue, 26 Dec 2023 11:17:55 +0100, Herbert Kleebauer wrote:
    Don't create the playlist but download the videos on your PC
    and store them on an USB stick. Then you can watch the videos
    on your laptop without any advertising and you can use a real
    video player (with fast forward, adjustment of brightness and
    contrast, equalizer and more).

    That works and in fact is what I do currently which is I use a program
    called youtube downloader (yt-dlp.exe,ffmpeg.exe,ffplay.exe,ffprobe.exe)
    to download/rip/convert & then play videos in sequence with MPC-BE64.exe.

    As you said, that requires either sharing to work or a USB stick
    where I'm trying to be as efficient & universal so sharing is better.

    But I can't get Windows sharing to work yet because, I think, you need a
    lot of setup that Microsoft doesn't seem to think you need to do but you do because who has the same user name & password on every PC in the house? https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18442846/how-to-access-shared-folder-without-giving-username-and-password

    I don't. I wanted to set it up as "guest" without a password but the second computer (a laptop) doesn't even see the share on the first PC (a desktop).

    So sharing isn't as simple as Microsoft makes it out to seem to be. https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/111783-share-files-folders-over-network-windows-10-a.html

    What I want to do is create a daily playlist while I'm on the desktop downstairs which is just a text file filled with URLs to last the night.

    Then I want to open the laptop on the night table and access that text
    playlist file over my local lan and have it play the videos in order.

    Right now (see my other post) I have it playing one video only per tab.

    And it only does that on the desktop because I can't yet get the laptop to
    even see the share (let alone the file) I made following instructions. https://www.geeksinphoenix.com/blog/post/2020/02/28/how-to-share-a-folder-on-a-private-network-in-windows-10

    So I have a long way to go to get Firefox to play a list of videos in
    sequence from a text file that I put in they desktop share folder.
    @echo off
    for /F "eol=c tokens=1" %%i in (%1) do "C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" %%i
    Which you run by issuing the Windows command "multiurl.bat urls.txt".

    It should be easy. But it's not. But maybe it is. I don't know yet.
    That's why I'm asking for help.

    The two tasks are creating a command for Firefox to play a list of URLs in sequence & the second is getting that url text file from one PC to another.

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  • From Carl Fink@21:1/5 to Patrick on Tue Dec 26 19:37:13 2023
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox, alt.comp.freeware

    On 2023-12-26, Patrick <patrick@oleary.com> wrote:

    All Firefox has to do is play a series of given youtube URLs in sequence.
    [snip]

    If there was a Windows youtube app that played a list of youtube URLs, that would work (which is why I had also added the freeware newsgroup to this).

    Have you tried the free VLC, which can play YouTube videos when handed a
    URL?
    --
    Carl Fink carl@finknetwork.com https://reasonablyliterate.com https://nitpicking.com If you want to make a point, somebody will take the point and stab you with it.
    -Kenne Estes

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  • From Patrick@21:1/5 to Andy Burns on Tue Dec 26 13:29:27 2023
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox, alt.comp.freeware

    On Tue, 26 Dec 2023 19:13:41 +0000, Andy Burns wrote:
    If it was easy to do it wouldn't need a hundred videos telling you how.
    I tried all those first but none work without having you create an account. >> That is absurd if you need Google involved just to create a list of URLs.

    Is it too much hassle to create a throw-away google account *just* for
    your playlists? If so, then maybe something other than youtube is
    suited for you?

    All Firefox has to do is play a series of given youtube URLs in sequence.

    I know some people who only make right turns when they're driving in the
    city because left turns are a little harder to make than right turns.

    It's the same that you're suggesting, since it's a little easier to log
    into a Google server so that you can create a daily playlist on youtube.

    But logging into Google should be unnecessary to create a daily playlist.
    Just like always turning right to go left is unnecessary to just turn left.

    If there was a Windows youtube app that played a list of youtube URLs, that would work (which is why I had also added the freeware newsgroup to this).

    Is there a Windows youtube app that will play a list of URLs in sequence?
    If not, I'm stuck with doing it in Firefox reading from a url text file.

    Unfortunately, I don't yet have a Windows command that plays the URLs in sequence using the Firefox web browser to read in the text file of URLs.

    The closest I can find so far (which isn't the same) are these suggestions. https://superuser.com/questions/385207/how-to-open-a-list-of-urls-in-firefox-or-seamonkey

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  • From Big Al@21:1/5 to Patrick on Tue Dec 26 14:38:58 2023
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox, alt.comp.freeware

    On 12/26/23 02:29 PM, Patrick wrote:
    On Tue, 26 Dec 2023 19:13:41 +0000, Andy Burns wrote:
    If it was easy to do it wouldn't need a hundred videos telling you how. I tried all those first but none work without
    having you create an account.
    That is absurd if you need Google involved just to create a list of URLs. >>
    Is it too much hassle to create a throw-away google account *just* for your playlists?  If so, then maybe something
    other than youtube is suited for you?

    All Firefox has to do is play a series of given youtube URLs in sequence.

    I know some people who only make right turns when they're driving in the
    city because left turns are a little harder to make than right turns.

    It's the same that you're suggesting, since it's a little easier to log
    into a Google server so that you can create a daily playlist on youtube.

    But logging into Google should be unnecessary to create a daily playlist. Just like always turning right to go left is unnecessary to just turn left.

    If there was a Windows youtube app that played a list of youtube URLs, that would work (which is why I had also added the freeware newsgroup to this).

    Is there a Windows youtube app that will play a list of URLs in sequence?
    If not, I'm stuck with doing it in Firefox reading from a url text file.

    Unfortunately, I don't yet have a Windows command that plays the URLs in sequence using the Firefox web browser to read in the text file of URLs.

    The closest I can find so far (which isn't the same) are these suggestions. https://superuser.com/questions/385207/how-to-open-a-list-of-urls-in-firefox-or-seamonkey
    My son has his own youtube videos he posts, family, kids etc. They all go to his 'account' in youtube.
    If I search for his name in youtube, I get all his videos and youtube will just play them in order.

    If you can expand on that.... or if it even helps.
    --
    Linux Mint 21.2 Cinnamon
    Al

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  • From Big Al@21:1/5 to Patrick on Tue Dec 26 14:42:52 2023
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox, alt.comp.freeware

    On 12/26/23 02:04 PM, Patrick wrote:
    On Tue, 26 Dec 2023 11:17:55 +0100, Herbert Kleebauer wrote:
    Don't create the playlist but download the videos on your PC
    and store them on an USB stick. Then you can watch the videos
    on your laptop without any advertising and you can use a real
    video player (with fast forward, adjustment of brightness and
    contrast, equalizer and more).

    That works and in fact is what I do currently which is I use a program
    called youtube downloader (yt-dlp.exe,ffmpeg.exe,ffplay.exe,ffprobe.exe)
    to download/rip/convert & then play videos in sequence with MPC-BE64.exe.

    As you said, that requires either sharing to work or a USB stick
    where I'm trying to be as efficient & universal so sharing is better.

    But I can't get Windows sharing to work yet because, I think, you need a
    lot of setup that Microsoft doesn't seem to think you need to do but you do because who has the same user name & password on every PC in the house? https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18442846/how-to-access-shared-folder-without-giving-username-and-password

    I don't. I wanted to set it up as "guest" without a password but the second computer (a laptop) doesn't even see the share on the first PC (a desktop).

    So sharing isn't as simple as Microsoft makes it out to seem to be. https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/111783-share-files-folders-over-network-windows-10-a.html

    What I want to do is create a daily playlist while I'm on the desktop downstairs which is just a text file filled with URLs to last the night.

    Then I want to open the laptop on the night table and access that text playlist file over my local lan and have it play the videos in order.

    Right now (see my other post) I have it playing one video only per tab.

    And it only does that on the desktop because I can't yet get the laptop to even see the share (let alone the file) I made following instructions. https://www.geeksinphoenix.com/blog/post/2020/02/28/how-to-share-a-folder-on-a-private-network-in-windows-10

    So I have a long way to go to get Firefox to play a list of videos in sequence from a text file that I put in they desktop share folder.
    @echo off for /F "eol=c tokens=1" %%i in (%1) do "C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" %%i
    Which you run by issuing the Windows command "multiurl.bat urls.txt".

    It should be easy. But it's not. But maybe it is. I don't know yet.
    That's why I'm asking for help.

    The two tasks are creating a command for Firefox to play a list of URLs in sequence & the second is getting that url text file from one PC to another.
    Do you have one drive or google drive to share around the pc's?

    --
    Linux Mint 21.2 Cinnamon
    Al

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Herbert Kleebauer@21:1/5 to Patrick on Tue Dec 26 21:49:00 2023
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox, alt.comp.freeware

    On 26.12.2023 20:04, Patrick wrote:


    That works and in fact is what I do currently which is I use a program called youtube downloader (yt-dlp.exe,ffmpeg.exe,ffplay.exe,ffprobe.exe)
    to download/rip/convert & then play videos in sequence with MPC-BE64.exe.

    There is no need to "rip/convert" anything. Just use youtube downloader
    (or a Firefox plug-in) to download the videos.


    As you said, that requires either sharing to work or a USB stick
    where I'm trying to be as efficient & universal so sharing is better.

    But you can share the USB stick. Just plug the USB stick into the
    DSL modem/router and you can access it by any PC in the local network.


    I don't. I wanted to set it up as "guest" without a password but the second computer (a laptop) doesn't even see the share on the first PC (a desktop).

    You only have to enter the password once, Windows does remember it.


    What I want to do is create a daily playlist while I'm on the desktop downstairs which is just a text file filled with URLs to last the night.

    Then I want to open the laptop on the night table and access that text playlist file over my local lan and have it play the videos in order.

    But then you have to manually press the play button and switch to
    full screen mode for every video. It is much simpler to store all the
    videos on the shared USB stick and use a video player which plays
    them all in sequence and full screen mode. I use the portable version
    of Pot-Player as video player. If you exit the player, it resumes
    next day at the same position you stopped the video.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Patrick@21:1/5 to Carl Fink on Tue Dec 26 16:59:36 2023
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox, alt.comp.freeware

    On Tue, 26 Dec 2023 19:37:13 -0000 (UTC), Carl Fink wrote:
    If there was a Windows youtube app that played a list of youtube URLs, that >> would work (which is why I had also added the freeware newsgroup to this).

    Have you tried the free VLC, which can play YouTube videos when handed a
    URL?

    What? Really? I just ran VLC (which has been installed forever, and it came
    up with a Santa hat on the orange traffic cone - how do they know it's Christmas in an app that was installed years ago?) to pop in the URL file.

    I put these into url.txt and used VLC 3.0.11 Vetinari on Windows 10 to
    Media -> Open File -> url.txt but it gave errors for every URL in the file.

    Your input can't be opened:
    VLC is unable to open the MRL 'https://www.youtube.com/get_video_info?video_id=jB1VYescG50'. Check the
    log for details.
    Your input can't be opened:
    VLC is unable to open the MRL 'https://www.youtube.com/get_video_info?video_id=z6WiPTuTg9E'. Check the
    log for details.
    Your input can't be opened:
    VLC is unable to open the MRL 'https://www.youtube.com/get_video_info?video_id=3M6WJw01lmw'. Check the
    log for details.

    It kept looping so I stopped it after a while. Digging around I see that
    there is a Media -> Open Network Stream where I pasted the youtube URL but
    it gave the same errors as it did when I tried to open the url text file.

    I noticed there's one extension and a host of plugins where all mine must
    have been put there by default long ago when VLC was originally installed.

    Googling for the VLC error message I found this helpful hint https://youtu.be/jkazUn3Muig
    Which suggests replacing the old youtube.lua with an updated youtube.lua. https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=161198
    C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\lua\playlist\youtube.lua
    Which I didn't have (mine had youtube.luac from 6/4/2020).

    Googling around, this site tells me to delete the "youtube.luac" file. https://thegeekpage.com/vlc-media-player-cannot-play-youtube-videos/
    And to replace it with this youtube.lua file instead (missing the "c"). https://code.videolan.org/videolan/vlc/-/raw/master/share/lua/playlist/youtube.lua

    The first test worked when I pasted in the youtube URL
    Media -> Open Network Stream -> https://youtu.be/90TBjR6ik50
    But every test using that menu failed when I tried multiple youtube URLs.

    But then I went back to my original approach now that the youtube.luac file
    was deleted in favor of the new youtube.lua file (whatever these files do). Media -> Open File -> url.txt

    That actually seems to work now but I wasn't sure as these are long youtube videos so it may take me a few tries to see if they automatically go to the next video after the first ends. What I need is a series of short videos. https://youtu.be/Zcum65ln6sk (10 seconds long)
    https://youtu.be/AicvHdWIDP8 (13 seconds long)
    https://youtu.be/22z31vdqnWI (20 seconds long)

    It seems to work. Thank you for figuring out that there is a youtube player
    on Windows which will read in a url.txt file and sequentially play videos.

    The separate problem of setting up a share I can take up elsewhere now that
    I have a dedicated Windows youtube url player that reads from a text file.

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  • From VanguardLH@21:1/5 to Patrick on Tue Dec 26 20:37:49 2023
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox, alt.comp.freeware

    Patrick <patrick@oleary.com> wrote:

    There are 2 solutions there, one of which is this multiurl.bat batch file. @echo off
    for /F "eol=c tokens=1" %%i in (%1) do "C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" %%i
    Which you run by issuing the Windows command "multiurl.bat urls.txt".

    I don't see that will pend video playing until the current video ends
    playing. There is no sequence. The for-loop will open N instances of
    the web browser for the N entries in the text file. You are passing a
    URL to the web browser, and then opening another instance of the web
    browser to load the next URL, and so on. Have you actually tried this
    batch script?

    The other of which is this html file which works on all browsers
    including Chrome and on all the operating systems so it's a more
    universal solution.

    You first create this "multiurl.html" file and then you open it in Firefox with file:///c:/share/multiurl.html (using the forward slases as shown). <!doctype html>
    <html>
    <head>
    <title>Open Windows</title>
    <script>
    function openWindow(){
    var x = document.getElementById('a').value.split('\n');
    for (var i = 0; i < x.length; i++)
    if (x[i].indexOf('.') > 0)
    if (x[i].indexOf('://') < 0)
    window.open('http://'+x[i]);
    else
    window.open(x[i]);
    }
    </script>
    <style>
    html, body
    {
    height : 99%;
    width : 99%;
    }

    textarea
    {
    height : 80%;
    width : 90%;
    }
    </style>
    </head>
    <body>
    <textarea id="a"></textarea>

    <input type="button" value="Open Windows" onClick="openWindow()">
    <input type="button" value="Clear" onClick="document.getElementById('a').value=''">
    </body>
    </html>

    That opens a new window (or tab) for each entry in the input list.
    Again, that does not open 1 window to play 1 video and pend the next
    video playback until the current one completes. Without actually
    running the HTML code, looks like it will open a new window (or tab) for
    each item in the list. You end up with multiple browser windows all concurrently playing videos.

    You asked "to play in sequence". Opening multiple windows or tabs at
    the same time with each concurrently playing a video is not playing them
    "in sequence". To play in sequence means to start playing the 1st entry
    in the list until the video ends, and then start playing the 2nd video
    until it ends, and so on.

    Seems you need to compile a list of URLs to the videos to put in a file,
    and then feed that file to a local media player as its playlist. I see
    you tried that with VLC, but incurred errors in VLC finding the video
    stream source.

    I just tried to copy some Youtube videos using jaksta Media Recorder.
    It captures the video stream to record it instead of having to play it
    in a web browser, or capture the screen or doc window in a web browser
    (which is screen capturing which results in also recording artifacts,
    like stalls, jitter, noise, ads, the mouse pointer moving across the
    screen, and so on). It could not capture any Youtube videos. It's been
    months since I last recorded anything from Youtube. After some troubleshooting, I found Google did something to make it difficult for
    stream capture tools to snare videos from Youtube. Once I updated the extraction engine in jaksta, Youtube videos were captured okay. But
    other tools, like VLC trying to playing with a given MRL (Media Resource Locator) may still fail.

    When I visit, for example, https://youtu.be/uI_lssmBvyQ, and right click
    to use "Copy video URL", this is the URL it gives. After captured using
    jaksta Media Recorder, and looking at the properties of the captured
    video, it says the source for the video stream was an MP4 file at:

    https://rr1---sn-vgqsknse.googlevideo.com/videoplayback?expire=1703665432&ei=uIqLZcmQFYWslu8PuJ-_2AY&ip=66.41.205.181&id=o-ACvz2xB4cJutbPCfnm_cembLwsw9mr0-M3Ap_182l5gX&itag=137&source=youtube&requiressl=yes&xpc=EgVo2aDSNQ%3D%3D&mh=RY&mm=31%2C29&mn=sn-
    vgqsknse%2Csn-vgqsrnsd&ms=au%2Crdu&mv=m&mvi=1&pl=19&initcwndbps=1317500&vprv=1&svpuc=1&mime=video%2Fmp4&gir=yes&clen=1760449&dur=31.999&lmt=1677772404191850&mt=1703643423&fvip=5&keepalive=yes&fexp=24007246&beids=24350018&c=IOS&txp=6219224&sparams=expire%
    2Cei%2Cip%2Cid%2Citag%2Csource%2Crequiressl%2Cxpc%2Cvprv%2Csvpuc%2Cmime%2Cgir%2Cclen%2Cdur%2Clmt&sig=AJfQdSswRgIhAI9cRTL7rMjje5EIrPx9aKFpUKTJUgc3SIXAKJS6QWIsAiEAowzlEDpSwR-0NDAoWJMoMr8RpFzL4vVwVYD5xcuUmjs%3D&lsparams=mh%2Cmm%2Cmn%2Cms%2Cmv%2Cmvi%2Cpl%
    2Cinitcwndbps&lsig=AAO5W4owRgIhAOUMYnkESmhprkWTmhIRchWJYGxuQlw9PFGL4eYMPJycAiEAzBABhV7LUrtfJTrseo3L8H00nI3lt61woPhKLZ9dSq4%3D

    Youtube doesn't let me use the source URL for the video stream, because
    Google doesn't want direct links. They want you to use their index
    pointers (i.e., the URLs they give you). You don't get to use their
    file. You get their pointer for streaming the file. The web browser,
    and jaksta, connect to the streaming source, but through the redirection
    Google gives you.

    For "in sequence" playback to work means the player has to pend loading subsequent videos until the current one completes. Seems you might need
    an add-on in the web browser to let you have it read from a list of URLs
    to play them in sequence, but that means installing the same add-on in
    every web browser on the other computers where you want to view the
    playlist.

    If you don't want to use a web browser add-on, there are apps that will
    let you specify a playlist, and play the URLs in the order you want. I
    suspect they use an entry in the URL list to open the web browser with
    that URL as the web browser's argument, and wait for the video top stop
    playing before going to the next URL in its input list. I don't and
    have not used any web browser add-ons to do sequential playback from a
    list of URLs in a file, so I cannot recommend any. Same for using
    external apps to read a file to load URLs sequentially in a web browser.

    Why not add the URLs to a bookmark folder (to group them together). You
    can export and import that bookmark folder. Then use the bookmark
    folder to select a URL in whatever order you want to watch. If you use
    Firefox Sync, that bookmark folder should show up under Bookmarks under
    your other instances of Firefox that sync to the same Mozilla account;
    however, since you expressed disgust at using a Google account to save a playlist to a Youtube account to access from other web browsers, you
    probably don't want a Mozilla account, either. In that case, export and
    import the bookmarks folder. That'll work with the same web browser,
    but you'll have a problem if exporting from Firefox to use in Chrome
    although exporting in HTML might resolve that issue.

    If you don't want to carry around a USB drive with the exported
    bookmarks folder, you could upload it at one host to download at another
    host. OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox, and so one can let you sync your
    cloud storage across computers, but you have to install their clients on
    each computer (that doesn't already have them), plus, again, you'll need accounts there to use their file storage/sync service.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Andy Burns@21:1/5 to Patrick on Wed Dec 27 06:58:14 2023
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox, alt.comp.freeware

    Patrick wrote:

    All Firefox has to do is play a series of given youtube URLs in sequence.

    Why is it up to firefox to provide youtube features, which google
    already provide if you're signed-in?

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  • From Andy Burns@21:1/5 to Patrick on Wed Dec 27 09:34:11 2023
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox, alt.comp.freeware

    Patrick wrote:

    Is there a Windows youtube app that will play a list of URLs in sequence?
    If not, I'm stuck with doing it in Firefox reading from a url text file.

    You don't need to login to youtube to play a playlist, only to create
    it. Any windows app for youtube is going to be unofficial.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Ken Blake@21:1/5 to All on Wed Dec 27 08:42:24 2023
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox, alt.comp.freeware

    On Tue, 26 Dec 2023 19:37:13 -0000 (UTC), Carl Fink <carlf@panix.com>
    wrote:

    On 2023-12-26, Patrick <patrick@oleary.com> wrote:

    All Firefox has to do is play a series of given youtube URLs in sequence. >[snip]

    If there was a Windows youtube app that played a list of youtube URLs, that >> would work (which is why I had also added the freeware newsgroup to this).

    Have you tried the free VLC, which can play YouTube videos when handed a
    URL?


    I just looked at VLC, but I don't see where I can give it a YouTube
    URL. Can you tell me?

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Ken Blake@21:1/5 to All on Wed Dec 27 08:45:45 2023
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox, alt.comp.freeware

    On Wed, 27 Dec 2023 08:42:24 -0700, Ken Blake <Ken@invalid.news.com>
    wrote:

    On Tue, 26 Dec 2023 19:37:13 -0000 (UTC), Carl Fink <carlf@panix.com>
    wrote:

    On 2023-12-26, Patrick <patrick@oleary.com> wrote:

    All Firefox has to do is play a series of given youtube URLs in sequence. >>[snip]

    If there was a Windows youtube app that played a list of youtube URLs, that >>> would work (which is why I had also added the freeware newsgroup to this). >>
    Have you tried the free VLC, which can play YouTube videos when handed a >>URL?


    I just looked at VLC, but I don't see where I can give it a YouTube
    URL. Can you tell me?


    Never mind. A web search just found the answer to my question: You can
    use the Media Open Network Stream feature and enter the video URL to
    play it. You just enter a YouTube address like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfndS5SKUs4 and it will stream and
    play the video for you. It also supports many other video sharing
    websites.

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  • From Patrick@21:1/5 to Herbert Kleebauer on Wed Dec 27 12:16:52 2023
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox, alt.comp.freeware

    On Tue, 26 Dec 2023 21:49:00 +0100, Herbert Kleebauer wrote:
    Then I want to open the laptop on the night table and access that text playlist file over my local lan and have it play the videos in order.

    But then you have to manually press the play button and switch to
    full screen mode for every video.

    Not really. Firefox can play youtube in sequence. And keep the settings. Firefox just can't (yet) play a /locally stored/ youtube playlist.

    Once you have Firefox set up to play any one youtube video, the youtube
    site (unfortunately or not) /remembers/ what you've played before (even
    without having established an account) and it continuously plays what it
    thinks are related videos (some of which are related, some not) all night.

    You only have to set the volume, captions, full-screen, etc once per night.

    Once you've set up Firefox, it stays set up, so if the pixel rate is 144p,
    it stays at those settings for the scores of videos which play in sequence.

    This means both youtube and Windows Firefox are /capable/ of playing videos
    in sequence, but it won't do it (yet) for the playlist that /you/ want.

    If there was a way to point Windows Firefox to a playlist file stored on
    the Windows PC, that would be an instant solution to this playlist problem.

    Luckily there is already a better solution than Firefox that Carl Fink proposed, which pretty much negates needing Windows Firefox to play youtube
    (if I can get VLC to stay at the lower pixel rate which Firefox will do).

    Since Firefox can't play a locally stored youtube playlist in sequence,
    I'll remove the FF newsgroup as I only now need to tweak the VLC settings
    to make every video play in a lower resolution (VLC uses youtube defaults).

    We might find out later that Firefox can play the locally stored playlist
    file that VLC outputs (xspf,m3u,m3u8,html) and then we can include it back.

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  • From Patrick@21:1/5 to Andy Burns on Wed Dec 27 12:20:05 2023
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox, alt.comp.freeware

    On Wed, 27 Dec 2023 06:58:14 +0000, Andy Burns wrote:
    All Firefox has to do is play a series of given youtube URLs in sequence.

    Why is it up to firefox to provide youtube features, which google
    already provide if you're signed-in?

    This isn't a blame situation. I wanted to use firefox to watch youtube.

    If Firefox can't play a locally stored set of URLs in sequence, then I will
    use something else that can play a locally stored file of youtube URLs.

    It would seem to be something that Windows Firefox /should/ be able to do.

    But we already found a (mostly working) solution in Carl Fink's suggestion
    that there is a free youtube player on Windows that I had not known about.

    So I don't need Widnows Firefox to play youtube videos ever again because
    the VLC solution works better in that it can sequence the videos as I wish.

    Since FF can't sequence urls, I'll drop the Firefox ng from future replies. (But Firefox did have one advantage that I haven't gotten VLC to do yet.)

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Patrick@21:1/5 to VanguardLH on Wed Dec 27 12:14:39 2023
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox, alt.comp.freeware

    On Tue, 26 Dec 2023 20:37:49 -0600, VanguardLH wrote:
    Patrick <patrick@oleary.com> wrote:

    There are 2 solutions there, one of which is this multiurl.bat batch file. >> @echo off
    for /F "eol=c tokens=1" %%i in (%1) do "C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" %%i
    Which you run by issuing the Windows command "multiurl.bat urls.txt".

    I don't see that will pend video playing until the current video ends playing. There is no sequence.

    You're right. I was too hopeful for Windows Firefox. So far I haven't found
    a way to make Firefox play a locally stored youtube playlist in sequence.

    That opens a new window (or tab) for each entry in the input list.
    Again, that does not open 1 window to play 1 video and pend the next
    video playback until the current one completes.

    You're right. There must be some other way to get Windows Firefox to sequentially play a locally stored playlist containing a list of urls.

    You asked "to play in sequence". Opening multiple windows or tabs at
    the same time with each concurrently playing a video is not playing them
    "in sequence". To play in sequence means to start playing the 1st entry
    in the list until the video ends, and then start playing the 2nd video
    until it ends, and so on.

    So far the only suggestion that plays a locally stored playlist file of
    youtube urls in sequence was Carl Fink's VideoLan Client player suggestion. https://get.videolan.org/vlc/3.0.20/win64/vlc-3.0.20-win64.exe

    Seems you need to compile a list of URLs to the videos to put in a file,
    and then feed that file to a local media player as its playlist. I see
    you tried that with VLC, but incurred errors in VLC finding the video
    stream source.

    Everyone, not just me, will incur VLC lua errors but they're easily fixed. https://thegeekpage.com/vlc-media-player-cannot-play-youtube-videos/

    I started with a brand new VLC installation on my old HP Stream laptop. https://mirror.rasanegar.com/videolan/vlc/3.0.20/win64/vlc-3.0.20-win64.exe

    After installing the newest VLC on the D: drive (which is a flash sd card because the HP Stream C drives are filled up with the Windows system), VLC worked even without the youtube.lua file on some videos but not on others.
    VLC: Media -> Open Network Stream -> https://youtu.be/rB_r2uhRu2Q

    Which means even on a brand new VLC installation, you still should delete & replace the VLC youtube.luac file with the downloaded youtube.lua file. https://code.videolan.org/videolan/vlc/-/raw/master/share/lua/playlist/youtube.lua

    After you replace the VLC\lua\playlist\youtube.luac file with the
    downloaded youtube.lua file, VLC works /almost perfectly/ to play any set
    of locally stored youtube url playlists in sequence all night long.

    The only problem is it plays in full resolution which is OK on the desktop
    but on the lousy processing power of the HP stream, it stutters too much.

    I just tried to copy some Youtube videos using jaksta Media Recorder.
    It captures the video stream to record it instead of having to play it
    in a web browser, or capture the screen or doc window in a web browser
    (which is screen capturing which results in also recording artifacts,
    like stalls, jitter, noise, ads, the mouse pointer moving across the
    screen, and so on). It could not capture any Youtube videos.

    The VLC player seems to "capture" an automatic playlist which it can then
    save in a variety of fancy formats which might solve some of the issues.

    The VLC player has its own robust playlist function which I didn't try yet
    so I'm hoping the hiccups can be solved when I start using that feature.
    VLC: Media -> Save Playlist to File (xspf,m3u,m3u8,html) -> urls

    One of those formats might even work with FF if it turns out that Windows
    FF is capable of reading them to play youtube videos in sequence from it.

    The problem I'm working on now is laptop specific, in that the HP Stream hardware is so slow that default-sized youtube videos stutter on high res.

    When I visit, for example, https://youtu.be/uI_lssmBvyQ, and right click
    to use "Copy video URL", this is the URL it gives. After captured using jaksta Media Recorder, and looking at the properties of the captured
    video, it says the source for the video stream was an MP4 file at:

    https://rr1---sn-vgqsknse.googlevideo.com/videoplayback?(commands)

    You are a good troubleshooter because that's exactly the kind of solution I need to tell VLC on the HP Stream laptop to play youtube at low resolution.

    I saw somewhere the way to set a lower youtube resolution may be to change https://youtu.be/mcUu3SjYRtE
    to add a low resolution command at the end of the url, which might be this https://youtu.be/mcUu3SjYRtE&afmt=55

    But I have to check that out so someone already knows how, let the rest of
    us in on the secret as you want to set your options in the youtube url.

    Otherwise VLC plays the video at full resolution all the time, which works
    for my desktop but it is too much for the cheap HP Stream laptop to play. https://youtu.be/l0CftKYeVXc (Auto is 480p according to this video)

    That video shows how to use a Chrome extension to permanently set quality. https://youtu.be/l0CftKYeVXc?t=75

    The problem is the quality gear icon isn't in the VLC player anywhere,
    but there is a caching setting set to 1000ms which I changed to 9000ms.

    Youtube doesn't let me use the source URL for the video stream, because Google doesn't want direct links. They want you to use their index
    pointers (i.e., the URLs they give you). You don't get to use their
    file. You get their pointer for streaming the file. The web browser,
    and jaksta, connect to the streaming source, but through the redirection Google gives you.

    On a desktop, VLC works fine streaming this kind of default youtube URL. https://youtu.be/TAhTttsQZ54

    But on my very-low-end HP Stream hardware, a default youtube video stutters
    too much at the default 480p resolution (which didn't happen in FF because
    I was able to set it to low resolution inside the Firefox youtube web gui).

    I first set the VLC cache to 9000ms but even that didn't stop stuttering.
    VLC: Media -> Stream -> Network -> Show more options -> Caching -> 9000ms

    What I need to look up is how to select low resolution in the youtube URL.

    For "in sequence" playback to work means the player has to pend loading subsequent videos until the current one completes. Seems you might need
    an add-on in the web browser to let you have it read from a list of URLs
    to play them in sequence, but that means installing the same add-on in
    every web browser on the other computers where you want to view the
    playlist.

    Like many people, I dislike plugins/extensions as much as I dislike being required to log into servers just to access a locally stored playlist file.

    I think either Firefox or a Windows youtube player should be able to do something as simple as sequence a set of video urls in a local file.

    It's not like a playlist is something from Mars to a Firefox developer.
    In my opinion, it should be as simple as "Firefox: File -> Open playlist".

    I wouldn't be so hard on Firefox if there was a dedicated youtube player,
    but if there was, there would never be a need to use FF for youtube.

    If you don't want to use a web browser add-on, there are apps that will
    let you specify a playlist, and play the URLs in the order you want. I suspect they use an entry in the URL list to open the web browser with
    that URL as the web browser's argument, and wait for the video top stop playing before going to the next URL in its input list. I don't and
    have not used any web browser add-ons to do sequential playback from a
    list of URLs in a file, so I cannot recommend any. Same for using
    external apps to read a file to load URLs sequentially in a web browser.

    You are correct there is a de-facto youtube player on Windows, as I was
    mostly successful using Carl Fink's VLC suggestion on the old HP Stream
    laptop, which is essentially my all-night automatic youtube player.

    VLC: Media -> Open File -> url.txt
    Where url.txt is a locally stored text file of the form https://youtu.be/sRn7WAGFlyg
    https://youtu.be/vl780QrAdMU
    https://youtu.be/kzlcq69yOLA

    It works perfect on the more powerful desktop as the VideoLan Client player
    is playing those videos in sequence in the default youtube resolution.

    I need to add to the end of the youtube url the command to stream a lower resolution which I saw somewhere is this cryptic command "&afmt=55".

    But most others won't have that problem on better hardware which can handle 480p, but the fact that laptop isn't powerful is why it's my video player.

    Why not add the URLs to a bookmark folder (to group them together). You
    can export and import that bookmark folder. Then use the bookmark
    folder to select a URL in whatever order you want to watch. If you use Firefox Sync, that bookmark folder should show up under Bookmarks under
    your other instances of Firefox that sync to the same Mozilla account; however, since you expressed disgust at using a Google account to save a playlist to a Youtube account to access from other web browsers, you
    probably don't want a Mozilla account, either. In that case, export and import the bookmarks folder. That'll work with the same web browser,
    but you'll have a problem if exporting from Firefox to use in Chrome
    although exporting in HTML might resolve that issue.

    I think we already have a solution for everyone on more powerful machine as
    the Windows VLC player plays a locally stored url playlist sequentially.

    I wonder if Firefox can read one of the locally stored playlist files that
    the VLC player is capable of outputting from the VLC playlist menus?
    VLC: Media -> Save Playlist to File (xspf,m3u,m3u8,html) -> urls

    I would think Firefox should be able to read the same local playist as VLC.

    If you don't want to carry around a USB drive with the exported
    bookmarks folder, you could upload it at one host to download at another host. OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox, and so one can let you sync your cloud storage across computers, but you have to install their clients on
    each computer (that doesn't already have them), plus, again, you'll need accounts there to use their file storage/sync service.

    There should be no reason that Windows software is designed that it only
    works if you store all your files on a computer somewhere out there.

    There's nothing so magical about a playlist file that it needs to be stored
    on the Internet - where Firefox should be able to access a local file too.

    The solution Carl Fink suggested will already work for most people as VLC
    is effectively the de-facto Windows youtube player as far as I can tell.

    My specific problem now (other than sharing that locally stored playlist
    file among PCs on my own local network, which is a separate issue) is that
    the hardware-starved HP Stream VLC is stuttering on the default resolution.

    I think I can set lower quality if I can learn what the URL options are
    where this worked but I have no idea what "fmt = 55" is telling VLC to do. https://youtu.be/TAhTttsQZ54&afmt=55

    Firefox has a setting in its internal youtube player to set it to low res
    but I can't seem to get the resulting low-res url out of the Firefox GUI.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Patrick@21:1/5 to Andy Burns on Wed Dec 27 13:37:34 2023
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox, alt.comp.freeware

    On Wed, 27 Dec 2023 09:34:11 +0000, Andy Burns wrote:
    Is there a Windows youtube app that will play a list of URLs in sequence?
    If not, I'm stuck with doing it in Firefox reading from a url text file.

    You don't need to login to youtube to play a playlist, only to create
    it.

    That's useful information because maybe then I can edit a local file to
    look like a youtube playlist as long as Firefox streams URLs in sequence.

    The Windows app for youtube that Carl Fink suggested seems to replace
    Firefox as a youtube playlist player because VLC does not require you to
    log into anything in order to stream locally stored youtube playlist URLs.

    Any windows app for youtube is going to be unofficial.

    Too bad there's no official youtube Windows app but the VLC player that
    Carl Fink suggested is effectively a free Windows youtube URL play anyway.

    That unofficial Windows youtube streamer does not require you to log into anything in order to create or stream a locally stored youtube playlist.

    Since VLC can save its playlist in multiple formats, maybe one of those
    formats can be loaded into Firefox to stream youtube urls in sequence?
    VLC: Media -> Save Playlist to File (xspf,m3u,m3u8,html) -> urls

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From david@21:1/5 to Big Al on Wed Dec 27 12:49:37 2023
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox, alt.comp.freeware

    Using <news:umfa4i$3j9bm$1@dont-email.me>, Big Al wrote:

    The closest I can find so far (which isn't the same) are these suggestions. >> https://superuser.com/questions/385207/how-to-open-a-list-of-urls-in-firefox-or-seamonkey
    My son has his own youtube videos he posts, family, kids etc. They all go to his 'account' in youtube.
    If I search for his name in youtube, I get all his videos and youtube will just play them in order.

    There might be a way to use the youtube 'fmt' directive to play all your
    videos in vlc at the low resolution that you're using when you added the
    fmt to the end of each of the youtube urls in the text playlist (&afmt=55).

    If you look at the youtube.lua file that is referred to in that link above [https://code.videolan.org/videolan/vlc/-/raw/master/share/lua/playlist/youtube.lua]
    you'll see it's just a text file that maybe you can tweak if you know lua.

    I don't know the lua language but it seems readable so maybe you can change
    the section on the 'fmt' directive so that it always plays at a low res?

    -- Pick the most suited format available
    function get_fmt( fmt_list )
    local prefres = vlc.var.inherit(nil, "preferred-resolution")
    if prefres < 0 then
    return nil
    end

    local fmt = nil
    for itag,height in string.gmatch( fmt_list, "(%d+)/%d+x(%d+)[^,]*" ) do
    -- Apparently formats are listed in quality
    -- order, so we take the first one that works,
    -- or fallback to the lowest quality
    fmt = itag
    if tonumber(height) <= prefres then
    break
    end
    end
    return fmt
    end

    The only other place I see 'preferred-resolution' used is this long section
    but this lua language is beyond my comprehension so others might help you.

    -- Pick suitable stream among available formats
    function pick_stream( formats, fmt )
    if not formats then
    return nil
    end

    -- Remove subobject fields to ease parsing of stream object array
    formats = string.gsub( formats, '"[^"]-":{[^{}]-},?', '' )

    if tonumber( fmt ) then
    -- Legacy match from URL parameter
    fmt = tonumber( fmt )
    for stream in string.gmatch( formats, '{(.-)}' ) do
    local itag = tonumber( string.match( stream, '"itag":(%d+)' ) )
    if fmt == itag then
    return stream
    end
    end
    return nil
    else
    -- Compare the different available formats listed with our
    -- quality targets
    local prefres = vlc.var.inherit( nil, "preferred-resolution" )
    local bestres, pick
    for stream in string.gmatch( formats, '{(.-)}' ) do
    local height = tonumber( string.match( stream, '"height":(%d+)' ) )

    -- We have no preference mechanism for audio formats,
    -- so just pick the first one
    if fmt == "audio" and not height then
    return stream
    end

    -- Better than nothing
    if ( not pick and fmt ~= "video" ) or ( height and ( not bestres
    -- Better quality within limits
    or ( ( prefres < 0 or height <= prefres ) and height > bestres )
    -- Lower quality more suited to limits
    or ( prefres > -1 and bestres > prefres and height < bestres )
    ) ) then
    bestres = height
    pick = stream
    end
    end
    return pick
    end
    end

    You might be able to set a 'preferred-resolution' in that lua language
    (if you can determine what the 'fmt' directive is for low resolution).

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Patrick@21:1/5 to Big Al on Thu Dec 28 00:04:33 2023
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox, alt.comp.freeware

    On Tue, 26 Dec 2023 14:42:52 -0500, Big Al wrote:
    The two tasks are creating a command for Firefox to play a list of URLs in >> sequence & the second is getting that url text file from one PC to another.

    Do you have one drive or google drive to share around the pc's?

    Thanks for that question but I don't have any google accounts and I don't
    want them because I think I should be able to do what I want without them.

    All I am doing is sharing a file between two computers on my own local
    network but I'll take that up separately as Windows does share files
    (I just haven't gotten it to work yet - but it's probably a setup issue).

    As for streaming youtube videos in sequence, it's a so commonly done that I
    was very surprised to find Firefox is unable to do something that simple
    but the Video Lan Client youtube player seems to stream almost perfect.

    So for most people the problem is solved by either creating a youtube
    playlist inside of VLC exported as urls.(xspf,m3u,m3u8,html) or by
    creating a plain old text file (urls.txt) with the youtube URLs in order.

    While that works on the more powerful desktop, I have an additional problem that my HP Stream laptop is underpowered so I have to force a low quality, which, surprisingly can be done inside the Firefox GUI but not the VLC GUI.

    But all I need to do is learn what the youtube quality URL parameters are
    which I'll test tonight to see if VLC plays those videos without stutter.

    I was looking at the "fmt" command at the end of the youtube url which is
    only partially working I think because the "fmt=55" no longer seems to
    exist for youtube urls. It seems from this that fmt is being deprecated. https://gist.github.com/AgentOak/34d47c65b1d28829bb17c24c04a0096f#file-youtube_formats-md
    But it seems to be what the youtube downloader uses so maybe not. https://askubuntu.com/questions/486297/how-to-select-video-quality-from-youtube-dl

    But there's also a "vq" youtube video quality url extension also. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10229114/youtube-how-to-force-480p-video-quality-in-embed-link-iframe
    144p: &vq=tiny
    240p: &vq=small
    360p: &vq=medium
    480p: &vq=large
    720p: &vq=hd720
    1080p: &vq=hd1080
    1440p: vq=hd1440
    2160p: vq=hd2160
    auto: vq=auto

    The video quality is appended to the end of each url in the urls.txt file
    such that a youtube url of the form "https://youtu.be/pvE618FXuho" becomes 144p: https://youtu.be/pvE618FXuho&vq=tiny
    240p: https://youtu.be/pvE618FXuho&vq=small
    360p: https://youtu.be/pvE618FXuho&vq=medium
    480p: https://youtu.be/pvE618FXuho&vq=large
    720p: https://youtu.be/pvE618FXuho&vq=hd720
    1080p: https://youtu.be/pvE618FXuho&vq=hd1080
    1440p: https://youtu.be/pvE618FXuho&vq=hd1440
    2160p: https://youtu.be/pvE618FXuho&vq=hd2160
    auto: https://youtu.be/pvE618FXuho&vq=auto

    Lucky those are easy to remember (video quality = tiny,small,medium, etc).

    I'll try it tonight where the only problems left are sharing across PCs
    (which is a setup issue) and guessing at the right low-res video quality
    (as it has to be common enough so that youtube has that quality available).

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Carl Fink@21:1/5 to Patrick on Thu Dec 28 14:43:28 2023
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox, alt.comp.freeware

    On 2023-12-26, Patrick <patrick@oleary.com> wrote:

    It seems to work. Thank you for figuring out that there is a youtube player on Windows which will read in a url.txt file and sequentially play videos.

    Technically, I mentioned a player that is available on almost all non-proprietary platforms. I personally use it on Linux way more often than Windows. :-)

    Glad it worked.
    --
    Carl Fink carl@finknetwork.com https://reasonablyliterate.com https://nitpicking.com If you want to make a point, somebody will take the point and stab you with it.
    -Kenne Estes

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Andrew@21:1/5 to Ken Blake on Thu Dec 28 23:43:42 2023
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox, alt.comp.freeware

    On 27/12/2023, Ken Blake wrote:

    Never mind. A web search just found the answer to my question: You can
    use the Media Open Network Stream feature and enter the video URL to
    play it. You just enter a YouTube address like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfndS5SKUs4 and it will stream and
    play the video for you. It also supports many other video sharing
    websites.

    There must be a way to send firefox a url to stream and then to wait for
    the firefox process to finish. Once it finishes, you send it another url.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Patrick@21:1/5 to Carl Fink on Thu Dec 28 17:35:31 2023
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox, alt.comp.freeware

    On Thu, 28 Dec 2023 14:43:28 -0000 (UTC), Carl Fink wrote:
    Technically, I mentioned a player that is available on almost all non-proprietary platforms. I personally use it on Linux way more often than Windows. :-)

    Glad it worked.

    Thank you for helping me solve the problem of having a youtube player on a
    PC where the VLC solution you suggested works for every platform equally.

    All you do is create a urls.txt file with one line per streamed video. https://youtu.be/Cz1paozgy4k
    https://youtu.be/mcUu3SjYRtE
    https://youtu.be/kzlcq69yOLA
    https://youtu.be/rB_r2uhRu2Q

    There's no need to use Firefox (or any browser) to play youtube videos
    anymore, as the browsers are apparently incapable of /sequencing/ URLs.

    If someone asks the question of a youtube player, it effectively exists.
    Q: Is there a free youtube player on the pc?
    A: Yes. VLC can stream videos (or sequentially stream a series of URLs).

    With VLC, the main problem is solved where a side issue I have is sharing
    the URL.txt file between PCs on my local network (which I have been doing
    with a USB stick until I get Windows networking to work as a share).

    Also, the HP Stream laptop is anemic so I have to limit the streamed
    youtube video to less than that of the youtube default with a command.
    144p: https://youtu.be/vl780QrAdMU&vq=tiny
    240p: https://youtu.be/vl780QrAdMU&vq=small
    360p: https://youtu.be/vl780QrAdMU&vq=medium
    480p: https://youtu.be/vl780QrAdMU&vq=large
    720p: https://youtu.be/vl780QrAdMU&vq=hd720
    1080p: https://youtu.be/vl780QrAdMU&vq=hd1080
    1440p: https://youtu.be/vl780QrAdMU&vq=hd1440
    2160p: https://youtu.be/vl780QrAdMU&vq=hd2160
    auto: https://youtu.be/vl780QrAdMU&vq=auto

    Where I just have to find out by trial and error which is most supported.

    Each night I improve the process where last night I had appended "&vq=tiny"
    to each of the dozen or thereabouts video streams I wanted to play all
    night (because my HP Stream is underpowered and it stutters on large data).

    That worked for about 80% of the URLs, so I probably need to pick a larger
    size (such as "&vq=small" or "&vq=medium") to ensure better compatibility.

    To test if Firefox could eat the output from VLC, I saved the playlist as url.txt (this is the original playlist, one youtube URL per line)
    url.html
    url.m3u
    url.m3u8
    url.xspf

    Then I read each one in a separate tab in Firefox with "File -> Open File". url.txt (Firefox simply displayed each line item as it was in the file) url.html (Firefox numbered & displayed the title & time for each line item) url.m3u (Firefox asked to open up the file in VLC & then VLC played each) url.m3u8 (same as for m3u)
    url.xspf (Firefox displayed what appears to be XML source for each entry)

    While what I was hoping might happen did not happen (ie that Firefox would stream the youtube videos in sequence) two of the formats did provide data.

    The HTML format showed me zero times for those streams which failed,
    showing zero size for each of them, which is a good "log" file of which did
    not support the "&vq=tiny" command.

    The XSPF format gave quite a lot of detail (perhaps the original paragraph
    that the uploader provided) about each video.

    But unfortunately, none of the VLC output playlist formats when read
    directly into Firefox caused Firefox to stream the video URLs in sequence.

    Firefox can't sequentially stream a text file of a list of youtube URLs.
    But VLC can.

    Thanks!

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From wasbit@21:1/5 to Patrick on Fri Dec 29 09:46:24 2023
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox, alt.comp.freeware

    On 26/12/2023 03:11, Patrick wrote:
    Is there a windows program that can create on one desktop a youtube
    playlist text file (of maybe a dozen or two dozen video urls) which can be copied as a file to another laptop to play in sequence in the firefox or chrome web browser (without needing to log into the youtube web site)?

    Another way to ask that question is to ask how does Firefox play a pre-planned bunch of youtube videos in sequence?

    You took 8 posts before you told us about your hardware.
    You are asking too much of your laptop.

    HP Stream 14
    32GB eMMC memory = hard drive
    CPU - Intel Celeron N4020
    RAM - 4GB

    The above laptop played Youtube videos via a browser, Firefox Portable
    with the following results.

    720p - CPU 100%. Played until mouse moved then stalled
    480p - CPU 80-100% Memory 82%

    This doesn't address your playlist problem, for which you seem to have
    found a work around.

    I only know the specs of the HP Stream because I bought one for my
    grandson to use when he visits & was able to perform some tests.

    --
    Regards
    wasbit

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Patrick@21:1/5 to wasbit on Fri Dec 29 10:53:28 2023
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox, alt.comp.freeware

    On Fri, 29 Dec 2023 09:46:24 +0000, wasbit wrote:
    Another way to ask that question is to ask how does Firefox play a
    pre-planned bunch of youtube videos in sequence?

    You took 8 posts before you told us about your hardware.

    I apologize. Two things I didn't know at the beginning was I was going to
    use VLC and that VLC doesn't have a way inside the GUI to set the quality.

    The hardware didn't stutter until I used VLC but that was because in
    Firefox I could set the video quality such that it did not stutter.

    You are asking too much of your laptop.

    I did not realize the hardware was a problem until I used VLC, which is
    unable as far as I can find, to set the video quality in its own GUI.

    Each night since I opened this topic discussion, I test a new switch.
    Last night I tested the "&vq=small" switch which had only 1 failure.

    HP Stream 14
    32GB eMMC memory = hard drive
    CPU - Intel Celeron N4020
    RAM - 4GB

    The above laptop played Youtube videos via a browser, Firefox Portable
    with the following results.

    I don't know if it matters but I run everything portable on the D: drive.
    That D: drive is a flash card as you can't put anything on the C: drive.

    It's cumbersome when some programs default to the C: drive where most of
    the time when they do that, I uninstall the program since C: is too small.

    720p - CPU 100%. Played until mouse moved then stalled
    480p - CPU 80-100% Memory 82%

    Thank you for running that test, where I set the video quality usually to
    less than that most of the time (unless the video has a lot of text in it).

    What it shows is that the HP Stream 14 (same as mine) is really no good.
    But it's what I have to work with as it's the only laptop that I own.

    This doesn't address your playlist problem, for which you seem to have
    found a work around.

    Thanks for running that test as it shows it's not just mine that stutters.

    I like using VLC because it accepts a local text playlist of youtube urls
    which will sequentially stream all night (each appended with "&vq=small").

    I only know the specs of the HP Stream because I bought one for my
    grandson to use when he visits & was able to perform some tests.

    Since I'm immobile, I don't use a laptop much so I fell for the tiny aspect ratio and light weight but I would never buy another HP Stream ever again.

    If I could have gotten Firefox to sequentially stream the video URLs, I
    would have preferred that because the video quality can be set in the GUI.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Herbert Kleebauer@21:1/5 to Patrick on Fri Dec 29 20:02:09 2023
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox, alt.comp.freeware

    On 29.12.2023 17:53, Patrick wrote:

    You are asking too much of your laptop.

    I did not realize the hardware was a problem until I used VLC, which is unable as far as I can find, to set the video quality in its own GUI.

    Firefox also can't set the video quality. This is done by the code
    on the Youtube website.


    Each night since I opened this topic discussion, I test a new switch.
    Last night I tested the "&vq=small" switch which had only 1 failure.

    Even if you don't believe it, the much simpler way is to download
    the videos on your PC and use VLC (or any other video player) to
    watch the already downloaded videos on your laptop.


    yt-dlp.exe -F https://youtu.be/Cz1paozgy4k

    shows you all the available versions of the video:


    [youtube] Extracting URL: https://youtu.be/Cz1paozgy4k
    [youtube] Cz1paozgy4k: Downloading webpage
    [youtube] Cz1paozgy4k: Downloading ios player API JSON
    [youtube] Cz1paozgy4k: Downloading android player API JSON
    [youtube] Cz1paozgy4k: Downloading m3u8 information
    [info] Available formats for Cz1paozgy4k:
    ID EXT RESOLUTION FPS CH │ FILESIZE TBR PROTO │ VCODEC VBR ACODEC ABR ASR MORE INFO
    ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
    ───────────────────────────
    sb2 mhtml 48x27 1 │ mhtml │ images storyboard
    sb1 mhtml 80x45 1 │ mhtml │ images storyboard
    sb0 mhtml 160x90 1 │ mhtml │ images storyboard
    233 mp4 audio only │ m3u8 │ audio only unknown Default
    234 mp4 audio only │ m3u8 │ audio only unknown Default
    139 m4a audio only 2 │ 722.53KiB 49k https │ audio only mp4a.40.5 49k 22k low, m4a_dash
    140 m4a audio only 2 │ 1.87MiB 130k https │ audio only mp4a.40.2 130k 44k medium, m4a_dash
    251 webm audio only 2 │ 53.82KiB 4k https │ audio only opus 4k 48k medium, webm_dash
    17 3gp 176x144 12 1 │ 695.84KiB 47k https │ mp4v.20.3 mp4a.40.2 22k 144p
    269 mp4 256x136 15 │ ~ 1.60MiB 108k m3u8 │ avc1.4D400B 108k video only
    160 mp4 256x136 15 │ 320.52KiB 22k https │ avc1.4D400B 22k video only 144p, mp4_dash
    230 mp4 640x340 15 │ ~ 5.70MiB 386k m3u8 │ avc1.4D4016 386k video only
    134 mp4 640x340 15 │ 1.19MiB 83k https │ avc1.4D4016 83k video only 360p, mp4_dash
    18 mp4 640x340 15 2 │ ≈ 3.12MiB 211k https │ avc1.42001E mp4a.40.2 44k 360p
    605 mp4 640x340 15 │ ~ 4.26MiB 288k m3u8 │ vp09.00.21.08 288k video only
    22 mp4 1280x680 15 2 │ ≈ 5.43MiB 368k https │ avc1.64001F mp4a.40.2 44k 720p
    232 mp4 1280x680 15 │ ~ 13.06MiB 884k m3u8 │ avc1.64001F 884k video only
    136 mp4 1280x680 15 │ 3.45MiB 239k https │ avc1.64001F 239k video only 720p, mp4_dash
    270 mp4 1920x1022 15 │ ~ 22.15MiB 1500k m3u8 │ avc1.640028 1500k video only
    137 mp4 1920x1022 15 │ 6.27MiB 434k https │ avc1.640028 434k video only 1080p, mp4_dash

    And for example:

    yt-dlp.exe -f 269 https://youtu.be/Cz1paozgy4k

    downloads the video as 256x136 mp4 file, or

    yt-dlp.exe -f 22 https://youtu.be/Cz1paozgy4k

    downloads the video as 1280x680 mp4 file.

    And if you store the video on an USB stick connected to
    your router, it is accessible from any computer in the local
    network. There is no need to physical transfer the USB
    stick to the laptop or to power on the PC to access the
    video (stored on the PC) by the laptop.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Patrick@21:1/5 to Herbert Kleebauer on Fri Dec 29 15:00:14 2023
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox, alt.comp.freeware

    On Fri, 29 Dec 2023 20:02:09 +0100, Herbert Kleebauer wrote:
    Firefox also can't set the video quality. This is done by the code
    on the Youtube website.

    Thank you for clarifying which code is doing the video downsizing.

    I agree with your clarification that it's not Firefox, per se, which is
    setting the video quality - but the youtube code that runs inside Firefox.

    But isn't that the same youtube code that is running inside VLC?

    Assuming a base youtube url was fed to both Firefox and to VLC, why is it
    that Firefox can set the video quality on the fly - but VLC can't do that?

    Each night since I opened this topic discussion, I test a new switch.
    Last night I tested the "&vq=small" switch which had only 1 failure.

    Even if you don't believe it, the much simpler way is to download
    the videos on your PC and use VLC (or any other video player) to
    watch the already downloaded videos on your laptop.

    I appreciate that you feel batching the downloads is most efficient.
    But you have batch skills that I lack (and which most people lack).

    I can run a batch file that you write to make Firefox stream or to
    make ClipGrab download a given set of locally stored youtube URLs.

    But I can't write it.

    You can write batch.
    I can't.

    I've downloaded, converted and ripped AV files very many times in my life.

    I used the Microsoft C++ requiring youtube-dl.exe years before the much
    simpler to install yt-dlp.exe even existed (along with the requisite lame & ffmpeg & avconv conversion tools) so it's not at all a case of whether or
    not I "believe" you (but you do know batch commands better than I do).

    So it's not a question of beliefs.
    It's a question of batch.

    Specifically, how to batch Firefox to stream sequential URLs in a file.

    yt-dlp.exe -F https://youtu.be/Cz1paozgy4k

    shows you all the available versions of the video:

    [youtube] Extracting URL: https://youtu.be/Cz1paozgy4k
    [youtube] Cz1paozgy4k: Downloading webpage
    [youtube] Cz1paozgy4k: Downloading ios player API JSON
    [youtube] Cz1paozgy4k: Downloading android player API JSON
    [youtube] Cz1paozgy4k: Downloading m3u8 information
    [info] Available formats for Cz1paozgy4k:
    ID EXT RESOLUTION FPS CH FILESIZE TBR PROTO VCODEC VBR ACODEC ABR ASR MORE INFO

    sb2 mhtml 48x27 1 mhtml images storyboard
    sb1 mhtml 80x45 1 mhtml images storyboard
    sb0 mhtml 160x90 1 mhtml images storyboard
    233 mp4 audio only m3u8 audio only unknown Default
    234 mp4 audio only m3u8 audio only unknown Default
    139 m4a audio only 2 722.53KiB 49k https audio only mp4a.40.5 49k 22k low, m4a_dash
    140 m4a audio only 2 1.87MiB 130k https audio only mp4a.40.2 130k 44k medium, m4a_dash
    251 webm audio only 2 53.82KiB 4k https audio only opus 4k 48k medium, webm_dash
    17 3gp 176x144 12 1 695.84KiB 47k https mp4v.20.3 mp4a.40.2 22k 144p
    269 mp4 256x136 15 ~ 1.60MiB 108k m3u8 avc1.4D400B 108k video only
    160 mp4 256x136 15 320.52KiB 22k https avc1.4D400B 22k video only 144p, mp4_dash
    230 mp4 640x340 15 ~ 5.70MiB 386k m3u8 avc1.4D4016 386k video only
    134 mp4 640x340 15 1.19MiB 83k https avc1.4D4016 83k video only 360p, mp4_dash
    18 mp4 640x340 15 2 3.12MiB 211k https avc1.42001E mp4a.40.2 44k 360p
    605 mp4 640x340 15 ~ 4.26MiB 288k m3u8 vp09.00.21.08 288k video only
    22 mp4 1280x680 15 2 5.43MiB 368k https avc1.64001F mp4a.40.2 44k 720p
    232 mp4 1280x680 15 ~ 13.06MiB 884k m3u8 avc1.64001F 884k video only
    136 mp4 1280x680 15 3.45MiB 239k https avc1.64001F 239k video only 720p, mp4_dash
    270 mp4 1920x1022 15 ~ 22.15MiB 1500k m3u8 avc1.640028 1500k video only
    137 mp4 1920x1022 15 6.27MiB 434k https avc1.640028 434k video only 1080p, mp4_dash

    And for example:

    yt-dlp.exe -f 269 https://youtu.be/Cz1paozgy4k

    downloads the video as 256x136 mp4 file, or

    yt-dlp.exe -f 22 https://youtu.be/Cz1paozgy4k

    downloads the video as 1280x680 mp4 file.\

    It's not about believing.
    It's about batching.

    You batch better than I do, of course. But we believe the same.

    At the level that most people know them, I'm aware of all the tools
    you can think of for downloading, ripping & converting AV files.

    In the days before the Internet, I even used to play from a CD to
    output into a hardware AV conversion box, which I still have somewhere.

    I used to use youtube-dl to download videos based on a local playlist
    (well before the 2018 major Google change) but the non-python youtube-dl required the pita 2010 Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable package. youtube-dl.exe -ciwo "%(title)s.%(ext)s" -a urls.txt

    I'm sure downloading an entire playlist is just as easy with yt-dlp. https://ostechnix.com/yt-dlp-tutorial/ https://superuser.com/questions/1804415/how-to-get-playlist-title-with-yt-dlp

    // Download a YouTube video/playlist as mp3 or any audio format

    // Single File
    yt-dlp --no-part -x --audio-format mp3 -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ
    // Playlist
    yt-dlp --no-part -x --yes-playlist --audio-format mp3 -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLu4wnki9NI_8VmJ7Qz_byhKwCquXcy6u9


    // Download a YouTube video/playlist as a video file.

    // Single File
    yt-dlp -S "height:1080" https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ
    // Playlist
    yt-dlp --no-part -S "height:1080" --yes-playlist --playlist-items 1-100 --output "%(playlist_index)s-%(title)s.%(ext)s" https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLu4wnki9NI_8VmJ7Qz_byhKwCquXcy6u9

    Nowadays I prefer GUIs to obtain & stream videos (which is what Firefox is), where, for example, ClipGrab has a pulldown GUI selection for video quality.

    But I do not know if the ClipGrab GUI can download & play files from lists.

    Also I don't know if the Android Seal video downloader can handle play lists. https://github.com/JunkFood02/Seal https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.junkfood.seal/

    It's not a matter of believing you.
    It's a matter of batching skills.

    You have the batch skills I lack.

    And if you store the video on an USB stick connected to
    your router, it is accessible from any computer in the local
    network. There is no need to physical transfer the USB
    stick to the laptop or to power on the PC to access the
    video (stored on the PC) by the laptop.

    While batching yt-dlp.exe to download a bunch of videos is easy,
    what is needed is batching Firefox, VLC, or ClipGrab to do that.

    It's not a matter of believing.
    It's a matter of batching.

    You have those batch skills.
    I don't.

    You have the skills, for example, to batch Firefox so that FF
    plays a list of locally stored URLs. I don't have those skills.

    To your suggestion of downloading, you even likely have the
    skills to batch ClipGrab to downloads a locally stored set of videos.

    I don't have your batch skills.
    So I'm stuck with manual methods even as I prefer using a GUI.

    If there was a batch script that Firefox or ClipGrab used to
    stream or download videos from a set of URLs, I'd test it.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Andy Burns@21:1/5 to Patrick on Fri Dec 29 21:44:08 2023
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox, alt.comp.freeware

    Patrick wrote:

    I agree with your clarification that it's not Firefox, per se, which is setting the video quality - but the youtube code that runs inside Firefox.

    But isn't that the same youtube code that is running inside VLC?

    The code running in VLC is ffmpeg

    Assuming a base youtube url was fed to both Firefox and to VLC, why is
    it that Firefox can set the video quality on the fly - but VLC can't do
    that?

    youtube uses MPEG-DASH protocol (which I think is implemented in
    javascript) where the video is encoded at multiple resolutions/bitrates,
    the player decides if playback is keeping up OK, and shifts up/down
    accordingly every few seconds.

    This might be of interest?

    <https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/native-mpeg-dash-hls-playback/>

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From david@21:1/5 to Patrick on Fri Dec 29 17:01:03 2023
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox, alt.comp.freeware

    Using <news:umnc0t$1ils7$1@novabbs.org>, Patrick wrote:

    Also I don't know if the Android Seal video downloader can handle play lists. https://github.com/JunkFood02/Seal https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.junkfood.seal/

    I didn't know about that Android Seal video downloader which seems to be a
    new GUI wrapped around yt-dlp (much like ClipGrab is for the PC platform).

    Installing Seal and testing it with a &vq=small url worked but not really because it still asked what quality you wanted (although it has defaults).

    It does have a setting for downloading all the files in a playlist file.
    And it has custom commands in addition to a few dozen interesting settings.

    You still have to get video files from your phone to your laptop though.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From wasbit@21:1/5 to Patrick on Sat Dec 30 10:23:01 2023
    XPost: alt.comp.freeware

    On 29/12/2023 16:53, Patrick wrote:
    On Fri, 29 Dec 2023 09:46:24 +0000, wasbit wrote:
    Another way to ask that question is to ask how does Firefox play a
    pre-planned bunch of youtube videos in sequence?

    You took 8 posts before you told us about your hardware.

    I apologize. Two things I didn't know at the beginning was I was going to
    use VLC and that VLC doesn't have a way inside the GUI to set the quality.

    The hardware didn't stutter until I used VLC but that was because in
    Firefox I could set the video quality such that it did not stutter.

    You are asking too much of your laptop.

    I did not realize the hardware was a problem until I used VLC, which is unable as far as I can find, to set the video quality in its own GUI.

    Each night since I opened this topic discussion, I test a new switch.
    Last night I tested the "&vq=small" switch which had only 1 failure.

    HP Stream 14
    32GB eMMC memory = hard drive
    CPU - Intel Celeron N4020
    RAM - 4GB

    The above laptop played Youtube videos via a browser, Firefox Portable
    with the following results.

    I don't know if it matters but I run everything portable on the D: drive. That D: drive is a flash card as you can't put anything on the C: drive.

    It's cumbersome when some programs default to the C: drive where most of
    the time when they do that, I uninstall the program since C: is too small.

    720p - CPU 100%. Played until mouse moved then stalled
    480p - CPU 80-100% Memory 82%

    Thank you for running that test, where I set the video quality usually to less than that most of the time (unless the video has a lot of text in it).

    What it shows is that the HP Stream 14 (same as mine) is really no good.
    But it's what I have to work with as it's the only laptop that I own.

    This doesn't address your playlist problem, for which you seem to have
    found a work around.

    Thanks for running that test as it shows it's not just mine that stutters.

    I like using VLC because it accepts a local text playlist of youtube urls which will sequentially stream all night (each appended with "&vq=small").

    I only know the specs of the HP Stream because I bought one for my
    grandson to use when he visits & was able to perform some tests.

    Since I'm immobile, I don't use a laptop much so I fell for the tiny aspect ratio and light weight but I would never buy another HP Stream ever again.

    If I could have gotten Firefox to sequentially stream the video URLs, I
    would have preferred that because the video quality can be set in the GUI.

    No need for apologies but it is very nice of you to do so.

    I also use a 16GB micro SDHC card in an SD adaptor as a D: drive - it's
    what I had at the time. There is not really a suitable alternative.
    However I had forgotten it's a class 4 which may or may not make a
    difference to the test results.

    Most programme installs will default to the C: drive, & although
    annoying, most allow installing elsewhere. I've only ever had a few
    programmes, out of hundreds (currently around 300 installed) that had no
    option but to install on the C: drive & they were immediately
    uninstalled & an alternative found.

    This machine is basically a toy, bought for the grandson to keep him off
    my PC/laptop. It cost £10 ($11) second hand with a valid Windows 10
    installed. As he gets older we will probably reach the limitations of
    the machine & get a better one.

    I sympathize with you as the HP Stream 14 is about as basic as you can
    get & as you are finding, have to be very patient just to complete
    everyday tasks.

    If you need anything else tested, just ask.

    --
    Regards
    wasbit

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Patrick@21:1/5 to wasbit on Sat Dec 30 11:51:32 2023
    XPost: alt.comp.freeware

    On Sat, 30 Dec 2023 10:23:01 +0000, wasbit wrote:
    I also use a 16GB micro SDHC card in an SD adaptor as a D: drive - it's
    what I had at the time. There is not really a suitable alternative.
    However I had forgotten it's a class 4 which may or may not make a
    difference to the test results.

    I've had the HP Stream for a few years where I learned in the first week
    that you can't use it without adding an sd card which I got at that time.

    I have that card in the port on the right which is nicely done as in some laptops the card sticks out but in the HP Stream it is only a slight bump.

    Can I tell the class while it's in the computer?

    Instead, I'll shut it down and pull it to read the writing on the card as I don't know how to get the class (or even what it would mean once I get it).

    Popping it out, it's half red & tan with SanDisk Extreme on the red half & "400GB Micro/SD/XC I on top of each other & V30 (3 inside a U) A2" on the
    tan half. In back it has what looks like a 14-character serial number &
    then "Made in Malaysia" but no other information about a "class" type.

    Most programme installs will default to the C: drive, & although
    annoying, most allow installing elsewhere. I've only ever had a few programmes, out of hundreds (currently around 300 installed) that had no option but to install on the C: drive & they were immediately
    uninstalled & an alternative found.

    The C: drive is 32GB (roughly around 30GB in reality) with only 3GB of free space after Windows is installed, which is why I usually don't put on
    programs (such as Docker) which don't allow you to put them on the D:
    drive. Some of the Chrome-based browsers (like Epic) also do that so I
    don't install them if I can't find the button to choose the D: drive.

    Even though I don't install anything on the C: drive, there is still a lot
    of things in the Program Files folder such as this from a "dir /b" command. C:\Program Files>dir /b
    Common Files
    CopyTrans HEIC for Windows
    dotnet
    Ghostgum
    Hyper-V
    Internet Explorer
    Microsoft Office
    Microsoft Update Health Tools
    ModifiableWindowsApps
    Motorola Mobility LLC
    MSBuild
    Npcap
    NVIDIA Corporation
    OpenSSL-Win64
    Pale Moon
    PCHealthCheck
    Realtek
    Reference Assemblies
    RUXIM
    Windows Defender
    Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection
    Windows Mail
    Windows Multimedia Platform
    Windows NT
    Windows Photo Viewer
    Windows Portable Devices
    Windows Security
    WindowsPowerShell
    Wondershare

    I don't even know what some of that is, such as ruxim or dotnet.
    In the other program files directory seems to be mostly Windows utils.

    C:\Program Files (x86)>dir /b
    AV Media Player Morpher
    AVAST Software
    Common Files
    CopyTrans HEIC for Windows
    eM Client
    Ghostgum
    Google
    Internet Explorer
    Microsoft
    Microsoft Office
    Microsoft SDKs
    Microsoft Visual Studio
    Microsoft Works
    Microsoft.NET
    Motorola
    MSBuild
    MSECache
    MSXML 4.0
    NVIDIA Corporation
    Reference Assemblies
    Spybot - Search & Destroy 2
    Windows Defender
    Windows Mail
    Windows Multimedia Platform
    Windows NT
    Windows Photo Viewer
    Windows Portable Devices
    WindowsPowerShell

    In the beginning, of course, I installed programs but other than VLC, I
    can't remember the last time I needed to install a program (other than the
    HEIC stuff when I took the laptop on a trip and the pictures didn't load).

    I'm always afraid of deleting anything that's there.
    Do any of those above strike you as safely removable?

    This machine is basically a toy, bought for the grandson to keep him off
    my PC/laptop. It cost 10 ($11) second hand with a valid Windows 10 installed. As he gets older we will probably reach the limitations of
    the machine & get a better one.

    This one was about 75 dollars new plus I had to add the cost for the sd
    card. I don't remember the price a few years ago but today it's 47.89. https://www.picstop.co.uk/micro-sdxc/sandisk-ultra-microsdxc-card-120mbs-class-10-uhs-i-400gb.html

    I sympathize with you as the HP Stream 14 is about as basic as you can
    get & as you are finding, have to be very patient just to complete
    everyday tasks.

    It's anemic. I wouldn't recommend it. If someone is buying a chromebook, I might recommend it over that (I've never used the chromebook though).

    What it's good for is being really small so it travels easily.
    Since I am no longer ambulatory, I sit mostly at my desktop.

    At night I use the HP Stream to be my video player where I rarely look at
    the screen so all I really need is the audio but I use the screen to
    navigate and set up the playlists to play overnight.

    Last night I tried the "&vq=medium" which seems to work the best because
    it's supported by more videos than the "&vq=tiny" or "&vq=small" were.

    What would have been perfect would have been a batch command for Firefox to stream a list of locally stored URLs in sequence (as it accepts quality settings in the GUI). Even though VLC doesn't seem to have quality settings
    in the GUI, it can play a list of URLs in sequence if the quality setting
    is appended to each URL so that's working the best so far.

    I never knew there was a youtube player on Windows so it's nice to know as
    I've been asked this question by my family and now I have a better answer.

    Thank you for all your help & advices!

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Herbert Kleebauer@21:1/5 to Patrick on Sat Dec 30 21:41:23 2023
    XPost: alt.comp.freeware

    On 30.12.2023 18:51, Patrick wrote:
    On Sat, 30 Dec 2023 10:23:01 +0000, wasbit wrote:

    I also use a 16GB micro SDHC card in an SD adaptor as a D: drive - it's
    what I had at the time. There is not really a suitable alternative.
    However I had forgotten it's a class 4 which may or may not make a
    difference to the test results.

    I've had the HP Stream for a few years where I learned in the first week that you can't use it without adding an sd card which I got at that time.

    I also use a 14" Netbook with 4 GB RAM / 32 GB eMMC with a SD card
    as drive d:. It is running the whole day since more than 7 years
    because it makes absolutely no noise, doesn't consume much power
    and is sufficient for mail, news and web browsing. But you should be
    aware, that SD cards aren't designed as a drive replacement in a PC.
    About every two years the SD card stops working because the spare
    blocks are used up. It then switches to read-only mode. But you
    still can copy the content to a new SD card on an other PC and save
    the old one as read-only backup.



    At night I use the HP Stream to be my video player where I rarely look at

    I still don't understand your workflow. You use Firefox on your PC
    to browse YouTube videos and copy&paste the URLs of interesting videos
    to a text file for later use? But why not install a Firefox add-on to
    download the videos. All you have to do is, press the download button
    and select the preferred resolution. That is much faster than to use
    copy&past for the URL. The download is done in the background and
    you can immediately start searching other videos.

    the screen so all I really need is the audio but I use the screen to navigate and set up the playlists to play overnight.

    But if you only interested in the audio, why not just download
    the audio? Saves plenty download time and storage space.

    But if the downloads are music videos, why not use a internet
    radio stream instead:

    https://www.webradiostreams.nl/index.html https://www.webradiostreams.nl/streaming1.html https://www.webradiostreams.nl/streaming2.html https://www.webradiostreams.nl/streaming3.html https://www.webradiostreams.nl/streaming4.html https://www.webradiostreams.nl/streaming5.html

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Patrick@21:1/5 to Herbert Kleebauer on Sat Dec 30 15:40:53 2023
    XPost: alt.comp.freeware

    On Sat, 30 Dec 2023 21:41:23 +0100, Herbert Kleebauer wrote:
    I've had the HP Stream for a few years where I learned in the first week
    that you can't use it without adding an sd card which I got at that time.

    I also use a 14" Netbook with 4 GB RAM / 32 GB eMMC with a SD card
    as drive d:. It is running the whole day since more than 7 years
    because it makes absolutely no noise, doesn't consume much power
    and is sufficient for mail, news and web browsing.

    You're correct that the HP Stream laptop makes no noise. It's a good laptop
    for what laptops were originally intended for. But now, I think many
    laptops are often used as mostly-stationary-but-sometimes-portable PCs.

    But you should be
    aware, that SD cards aren't designed as a drive replacement in a PC.
    About every two years the SD card stops working because the spare
    blocks are used up. It then switches to read-only mode. But you
    still can copy the content to a new SD card on an other PC and save
    the old one as read-only backup.

    I've had that laptop for a few years. How would I know if the sd card
    "blocks are used up"? Is there a utility that will tell me that data?

    I also use the sd cards on my phones for years. I didn't know that they
    only last two years before the "blocks are used up". What can I do to
    prevent that from happening to the 64GB and 128GB sdcards I put in phones?

    At night I use the HP Stream to be my video player where I rarely look at

    I still don't understand your workflow. You use Firefox on your PC
    to browse YouTube videos and copy&paste the URLs of interesting videos
    to a text file for later use?

    Yes. On the desktop, I read the news and run web searches and do whatever
    it is I do all day, where whenever I run into an interesting video, I paste
    it into the text file (which by the end of the day, contains a dozen URLs).

    Then I want to stream those locally stored URLs in sequence in a youtube
    tool (which doesn't exist) so the next best thing is Firefox or VLC player.

    Sometimes, particularly early in the evening, I look at them, but if I wake
    up in the middle of the night, I normally just listen to what they have to
    say. They're usually expounding on topics that are quite detailed but of interest to me. Never will it ever be music. It's mostly documentaries and
    news and explanations of complexities such as how the universe works or how
    the earth was formed or what is in the world news or something like that.

    I do like the Telegraph podcasts, so some "videos" are actually only audio. https://www.youtube.com/@telegraph/podcasts https://www.youtube.com/@globalnewspodcast2113 https://www.youtube.com/@cfr/podcasts

    But why not install a Firefox add-on to download the videos.

    I understand exactly where you're coming from, and I thought I had
    responded to that saying I might know more about how to rip/download AV
    files than you do - since I've been doing it since BEFORE the Internet.

    Before I got the laptop, I used to download a set of videos on my phone
    using NewPipe (https://newpipe.net) but about a year ago a dedicated
    downloader using yt-dlp came out that was intended for batch downloads. https://github.com/JunkFood02/Seal

    In fact I use the phone whenever I'm desirous of listening to a video in situations when I'm not in bed since the laptop stays on the nighttable.

    But downloading versus streaming is like driving versus flying somewhere.

    I know about yt-dlp, youtube-dl, ffmpeg, lame, avconv, ClipGrab, 3dyd,
    Seal, NewPipe & the many advertised so-called youtube downloader sites. https://www.savethevideo.com/home https://youtubnow.co/online-youtube-converter/en https://www.acethinker.com/free-online-youtube-downloader

    For example, the https://www.3dyd.com/ site has its own batch downloader. https://ba.3dyd.com/

    The problem with downloading is that you're downloading before streaming.
    And then you're copying after downloading but before you can stream it.

    I used to do it all the time before yt-dlp replaced youtube-dl in fact. youtube-dl.exe --no-check-certificate --verbose -ciwo "%(title)s.%(ext)s" -a urls.txt

    When warranted, I believe in downloading files and then playing them.
    But I believe in the concept of streaming even more. Without downloading.

    I once tried to get ClipGrab to download a _set_ of youtube URLs, just by feeding it that list in the single line that the GUI provides, but I wasn't able to get ClipGrab to do that - but yt-dlp I'm sure easily can do it. yt-dlp.exe --no-check-certificate --verbose -ciwo "%(title)s.%(ext)s" -a urls.txt

    All you have to do is, press the download button
    and select the preferred resolution. That is much faster than to use copy&past for the URL. The download is done in the background and
    you can immediately start searching other videos.

    I'm against any web plugin or extension for the simple reason that you have
    to do it for all your various web browsers and that's too much to maintain.

    There are other issues of course (eg web addons can be exploited), but I'm
    all for a batch command that sends to the browser URLs to play in sequence.

    the screen so all I really need is the audio but I use the screen to navigate and set up the playlists to play overnight.

    But if you only interested in the audio, why not just download
    the audio? Saves plenty download time and storage space.

    This is a valid suggestion but it doesn't change that I believe in
    streaming more than I believe in first downloading and then streaming what
    I downloaded. All the downloaders can rip the audio if that's all I wanted.

    But if the downloads are music videos, why not use a internet
    radio stream instead:

    https://www.webradiostreams.nl/index.html https://www.webradiostreams.nl/streaming1.html https://www.webradiostreams.nl/streaming2.html https://www.webradiostreams.nl/streaming3.html https://www.webradiostreams.nl/streaming4.html https://www.webradiostreams.nl/streaming5.html

    Never once have I said or implied the videos were music but I can see why
    you might easily have assumed that since I listen to them at night.

    They're usually world news at first, and then they dive into complexities
    like what you'd find on these channels who put out new videos of interest.

    This is some of the world news that I might choose for nightly videos. https://www.youtube.com/@BBCNews
    https://www.youtube.com/@France24_en
    https://www.youtube.com/@PBSNewsHour

    And these are some of the documentaries I might be choosing videos from. https://www.youtube.com/@VICENews
    https://www.youtube.com/@60minutes
    https://www.youtube.com/@DWDocumentary

    Also there are almost always excellent historical videos to watch from. https://www.youtube.com/@TheIntelReport https://www.youtube.com/@KingsandGenerals https://www.youtube.com/@TheOperationsRoom

    The beauty of streaming is that it doesn't need to be downloaded first.

    What I had wanted at first was a way command to tell Firefox to stream
    locally stored URLs in sequence but I'm OK now with what VLC does.

    The only thing that surprised me is you can't set the quality in VLC.
    And that you can't tell Firefox to stream a bunch of URLs in sequence.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From VanguardLH@21:1/5 to Andrew on Sat Dec 30 16:16:29 2023
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox, alt.comp.freeware

    Andrew <andrew@spam.net> wrote:

    There must be a way to send firefox a url to stream and then to wait
    for the firefox process to finish. Once it finishes, you send it
    another url.

    The simplest solution, is to use the server-side playlist feature of
    Youtube; however, the OP is averse to creating or using a Google
    account, or wants a client-side solution rather than a server-side
    feature. The server-side feature of the Youtube web site's playlist
    would be available no matter what computer the OP uses. Any client-side solution requires the OP install the software on every computer where he
    wants the playlist.

    The OP already found a solution from a suggestion here about using VLC
    which is a media player, not a web browser. So, it was not a
    requirement to the OP that the web browser was a do-all app that
    includes client-side media player functions, just a preference. As for
    pending playback of the next video in a list until playback ceases for
    the currently playing video could be done in the web browser -- by
    installing an add-on that adds media player functionality to add a
    playlist feature. Nope, I didn't find one, but then I wasn't motivated
    to find one. Maybe no one else, or very few, wants Firefox to be a
    media player to gain a playlist feature.

    There's nothing stopping the OP from creating a batch file with commands
    that load Firefox, or any web browser, with a command-line argument of
    the URL to the Youtube video, or any other web page. The text file
    would be a series of:

    set ffpath="C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe"
    %ffpath% <url1>
    %ffpath% <url2>
    ...

    Firefox loads to the specified URL. When Firefox closes, the next
    Firefox instance loads to the next specified URL. The OP runs the batch
    file which loads sequential instances of Firefox pointing to a series of
    URLs. However, unlike a playlist in a media player that would
    automatically proceed to the next video in a list, the user would have
    to exit Firefox when done viewing whatever web page got loaded (Youtube,
    or otherwise). If the OP configured Firefox to not automatically play
    videos when visiting a web page with them, he would have to undo that
    config; else, when Firefox loaded, he would have to click on the video
    to start playing it.

    The problem is after Firefox loads, it doesn't halt execution of the
    batch file until Firefox exits. Each call to Firefox gets ran without
    pause, so you would have to add a 'pause' command after each Firefox
    load in the batch file.

    Alternatively, just run firefox.exe with a slew of URLs in the command
    line which has Firefox load with a tab opened for each URL. In that
    case, you do want Firefox configured to NOT automatically play videos;
    else, you'd hear a cacophony of noise from multiple tabs all
    concurrently playing videos that had sound, and all the videos are
    playing concurrently instead of waiting for you to watch them. You'd
    select a tab, tap the video to start playing it, let it end or tap it
    again to pause, and go to another tab to play the video in that one.

    So, you can get the web browser to play a sequence of videos in the
    order listed, but without the automation of a media player walking
    through a playlist. However, trying to twist Firefox into acting as a
    media player will not be as smooth or automated as using a media player designed for that purpose. You end up with a web browser trying to play
    a list of videos in sequence that looks something like Elaine Benis
    (from "Seinfeld") trying to dance.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQu_NLRvULM

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Herbert Kleebauer@21:1/5 to Patrick on Sat Dec 30 23:51:22 2023
    XPost: alt.comp.freeware

    On 30.12.2023 22:40, Patrick wrote:

    But you should be
    aware, that SD cards aren't designed as a drive replacement in a PC.
    About every two years the SD card stops working because the spare
    blocks are used up. It then switches to read-only mode. But you
    still can copy the content to a new SD card on an other PC and save
    the old one as read-only backup.

    I've had that laptop for a few years. How would I know if the sd card "blocks are used up"?

    You will know it, if you copy new files to the card and
    delete some old files and then, after a reboot of the laptop,
    the new files are missing but the deleted files returned.
    The SD card switched to read-only mode, but Windows doesn't know.

    I do it the opposite way than you: I use the netbook to
    download videos and then transfer them to the PC. This way
    the SD card is overwritten many times. If you don't have so
    much write access, then there shouldn't be a problem with
    the SD card.


    But downloading versus streaming is like driving versus flying somewhere.

    Streaming a YouTube video in Firefox in nothing but downloading
    the video and then displaying it. You don't have to wait until
    the complete video is downloaded but after a few seconds of
    download the video is already displayed. But it is still a
    download before playing. If you restart the video, it doesn't
    need to download it again but uses the local stored video file.

    But in your case, there is no need for an overlapped download/display
    of the video, so better download it on your PC and only display it
    on the laptop.

    Are you sure, the laptop is to slow to display high resolution
    videos? Maybe not, because the CPU has hardware support for
    decoding videos. But maybe the internet connection is to slow
    for high resolution videos. And if you separate the downloading
    from playing, then this problem is gone.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From VanguardLH@21:1/5 to Andy Burns on Sun Dec 31 04:09:38 2023
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox, alt.comp.freeware

    Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> wrote:

    VanguardLH wrote:

    set ffpath="C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe"
    %ffpath% <url1>
    %ffpath% <url2>
    ...

    Firefox loads to the specified URL. When Firefox closes, the next
    Firefox instance loads to the next specified URL.

    Browsers don't generally quit when they've done loading a page ...

    Why I said the user would have to start the video playback, and exit FF
    when done watching the video. However, FF does not pend execution of
    the batch script until it exits, and why I also mentioned a pause is
    needed between loads (to wait until the user is done watching the
    current instance before exiting, hitting a key for pause, and proceeding
    to load the next FF instance).

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Andy Burns@21:1/5 to VanguardLH on Sun Dec 31 09:49:39 2023
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox, alt.comp.freeware

    VanguardLH wrote:

    set ffpath="C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe"
    %ffpath% <url1>
    %ffpath% <url2>
    ...

    Firefox loads to the specified URL. When Firefox closes, the next
    Firefox instance loads to the next specified URL.

    Browsers don't generally quit when they've done loading a page ...

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From wasbit@21:1/5 to Patrick on Sun Dec 31 10:22:37 2023
    XPost: alt.comp.freeware

    On 30/12/2023 17:51, Patrick wrote:
    On Sat, 30 Dec 2023 10:23:01 +0000, wasbit wrote:
    I also use a 16GB micro SDHC card in an SD adaptor as a D: drive -
    it's what I had at the time. There is not really a suitable
    alternative. However I had forgotten it's a class 4 which may or may
    not make a difference to the test results.

    I've had the HP Stream for a few years where I learned in the first week
    that you can't use it without adding an sd card which I got at that time.

    I have that card in the port on the right which is nicely done as in some laptops the card sticks out but in the HP Stream it is only a slight bump.

    Can I tell the class while it's in the computer?
    Instead, I'll shut it down and pull it to read the writing on the card as I don't know how to get the class (or even what it would mean once I get it). Popping it out, it's half red & tan with SanDisk Extreme on the red half & "400GB Micro/SD/XC I on top of each other & V30 (3 inside a U) A2" on the
    tan half. In back it has what looks like a 14-character serial number &
    then "Made in Malaysia" but no other information about a "class" type.

    Most programme installs will default to the C: drive, & although
    annoying, most allow installing elsewhere. I've only ever had a few
    programmes, out of hundreds (currently around 300 installed) that had
    no option but to install on the C: drive & they were immediately
    uninstalled & an alternative found.

    The C: drive is 32GB (roughly around 30GB in reality) with only 3GB of free space after Windows is installed, which is why I usually don't put on programs (such as Docker) which don't allow you to put them on the D:
    drive. Some of the Chrome-based browsers (like Epic) also do that so I
    don't install them if I can't find the button to choose the D: drive.

    Even though I don't install anything on the C: drive, there is still a lot
    of things in the Program Files folder such as this from a "dir /b" command. C:\Program Files>dir /b
    Common Files
    CopyTrans HEIC for Windows
    dotnet
    Ghostgum
    Hyper-V
    Internet Explorer
    Microsoft Office
    Microsoft Update Health Tools
    ModifiableWindowsApps
    Motorola Mobility LLC
    MSBuild
    Npcap
    NVIDIA Corporation
    OpenSSL-Win64
    Pale Moon
    PCHealthCheck
    Realtek
    Reference Assemblies
    RUXIM
    Windows Defender
    Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection
    Windows Mail
    Windows Multimedia Platform
    Windows NT
    Windows Photo Viewer
    Windows Portable Devices
    Windows Security
    WindowsPowerShell
    Wondershare

    I don't even know what some of that is, such as ruxim or dotnet.
    In the other program files directory seems to be mostly Windows utils.

    C:\Program Files (x86)>dir /b
    AV Media Player Morpher
    AVAST Software
    Common Files
    CopyTrans HEIC for Windows
    eM Client
    Ghostgum
    Google
    Internet Explorer
    Microsoft
    Microsoft Office
    Microsoft SDKs
    Microsoft Visual Studio
    Microsoft Works
    Microsoft.NET
    Motorola
    MSBuild
    MSECache
    MSXML 4.0
    NVIDIA Corporation
    Reference Assemblies
    Spybot - Search & Destroy 2
    Windows Defender
    Windows Mail
    Windows Multimedia Platform
    Windows NT
    Windows Photo Viewer
    Windows Portable Devices
    WindowsPowerShell

    In the beginning, of course, I installed programs but other than VLC, I
    can't remember the last time I needed to install a program (other than the HEIC stuff when I took the laptop on a trip and the pictures didn't load).

    I'm always afraid of deleting anything that's there.
    Do any of those above strike you as safely removable?

    This machine is basically a toy, bought for the grandson to keep him
    off my PC/laptop. It cost £10 ($11) second hand with a valid Windows
    10 installed. As he gets older we will probably reach the limitations
    of the machine & get a better one.

    This one was about 75 dollars new plus I had to add the cost for the sd
    card. I don't remember the price a few years ago but today it's £47.89. https://www.picstop.co.uk/micro-sdxc/sandisk-ultra-microsdxc-card-120mbs-class-10-uhs-i-400gb.html


    I sympathize with you as the HP Stream 14 is about as basic as you can
    get & as you are finding, have to be very patient just to complete
    everyday tasks.

    It's anemic. I wouldn't recommend it. If someone is buying a chromebook, I might recommend it over that (I've never used the chromebook though).
    What it's good for is being really small so it travels easily. Since I
    am no longer ambulatory, I sit mostly at my desktop.

    At night I use the HP Stream to be my video player where I rarely look at
    the screen so all I really need is the audio but I use the screen to
    navigate and set up the playlists to play overnight.

    Last night I tried the "&vq=medium" which seems to work the best because
    it's supported by more videos than the "&vq=tiny" or "&vq=small" were.

    What would have been perfect would have been a batch command for Firefox to stream a list of locally stored URLs in sequence (as it accepts quality settings in the GUI). Even though VLC doesn't seem to have quality settings in the GUI, it can play a list of URLs in sequence if the quality setting
    is appended to each URL so that's working the best so far.

    I never knew there was a youtube player on Windows so it's nice to know as I've been asked this question by my family and now I have a better answer.

    Thank you for all your help & advices!

    Your Sandisk Extreme is a class 3, (3 in a U), "suitable for 4K Ultra HD recording" So no worries there.

    Even though we install programmes to another drive some parts have to go
    to the C: drive.

    Ruxim & dotnet (.NET) are part of Windows.

    "RUXIM is a program that helps Windows Update collect data to keep
    Windows up to date and performing properly. It is a part of the Windows
    10 Pro 19043.1110 (build 21H1) system and has no way to uninstall it."

    Ghostgum I didn't recognise but it looks like it's something you have installed, perhaps GSview, & is likely to be quite small.

    Wondershare do a free PDF Reader amongst their commercial programmes.

    AV Media Player Morpher I don't recognise.

    Avast, I would suggest, you don't need. Windows 10 has Windows Defender
    & it's own 'Security'.

    Spybot gained a reputation for being a resource hog but may have
    improved. Again, remove it if you don't need it.

    --
    Regards
    wasbit

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  • From Paul@21:1/5 to VanguardLH on Sun Dec 31 07:02:54 2023
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox, alt.comp.freeware

    On 12/31/2023 5:09 AM, VanguardLH wrote:
    Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> wrote:

    VanguardLH wrote:

    set ffpath="C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe"
    %ffpath% <url1>
    %ffpath% <url2>
    ...

    Firefox loads to the specified URL. When Firefox closes, the next
    Firefox instance loads to the next specified URL.

    Browsers don't generally quit when they've done loading a page ...

    Why I said the user would have to start the video playback, and exit FF
    when done watching the video. However, FF does not pend execution of
    the batch script until it exits, and why I also mentioned a pause is
    needed between loads (to wait until the user is done watching the
    current instance before exiting, hitting a key for pause, and proceeding
    to load the next FF instance).


    I launched Firefox from a shell window, and it seems to
    disconnect from the parent. The parent is no longer the
    shell window. Trace collected in Windows 10 with Process Explorer,
    press ctrl-T for Tree View, then do Properties on the
    parent task.

    [Picture]

    https://i.postimg.cc/FsxBfRY0/firefox-parent-PID.gif

    This means it's not a good candidate for script control particularly.

    I don't know how you would rein a puppy like this in.

    The nice thing about Process Explorer, is in Tree View, it clearly
    shows the Parent Task, who is the PPID of all the children, and
    killing the parent, causes the browser to exit properly. If you play whack-a-mole with the children, that does not work. You really need a
    tool that shows the PPID value, to figure out the best candidate for
    killing at a PID level. Some of the views on Windows, show you the
    parent anyway, which is why you may not have had a problem killing it.
    But if you see seven "things" and you kill just one of them, that
    does not particularly put you in control.

    Launching terminal (the black window)
    \
    sub-shell <=== sub-shell is killed after parent has escaped
    \
    Firefox parent (floats freely)
    \
    Firefox children (dependent on parent)

    Windows doesn't have fork/exec like Linux, but it does seem to
    have enough process control, to "make an escape".

    And this kind of pattern is not an oddity. Lots of stuff has the
    processes arranged this way, so killing the controlling terminal,
    does not cause them to abend when that was not your intention.

    In the diagram, there may well be more than one level of
    sub-shell, so the diagram is a "minimal" diagram. It might
    actually look worse than that.

    Paul

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  • From Joerg Walther@21:1/5 to Patrick on Sun Dec 31 14:37:28 2023
    Patrick wrote:

    The only thing that surprised me is you can't set the quality in VLC.
    And that you can't tell Firefox to stream a bunch of URLs in sequence.

    Well, I just stumbled upon a video player which I didn't know before but
    which probably will meet all of your demands; it is QmPlay2: https://github.com/zaps166/QMPlay2?tab=readme-ov-file#youtube
    Is use it on Linux, but it is also available for Windows. It supports streaming, playlists and video quality settings and is highly
    configurable. Maybe give it a try?

    -jw-

    --

    And now for something completely different...

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  • From Andy Burns@21:1/5 to Paul on Sun Dec 31 13:29:48 2023
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox, alt.comp.freeware

    Paul wrote:

    I launched Firefox from a shell window, and it seems to
    disconnect from the parent. The parent is no longer the
    shell window. Trace collected in Windows 10 with Process Explorer,
    press ctrl-T for Tree View, then do Properties on the
    parent task.

    https://i.postimg.cc/FsxBfRY0/firefox-parent-PID.gif

    This means it's not a good candidate for script control particularly.

    And if you launch a second instance of firefox, it won't create a second
    parent firefox for the new window, it'll just add a new child to the
    original parent, but after a few seconds that child dies, while the
    window remains.

    I meant to mention this sort of behaviour a week or so ago, when someone mentioned a preference for starting new windows instead of new tabs,
    behind the scenes I don't think there's much difference.

    For fun, I just installed firefox1.0, a freshly launched window
    displaying about:blank is a single process with five idle threads, I
    think my mouse driver is using more memory and cpu than firefox!

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  • From Paul@21:1/5 to Joerg Walther on Sun Dec 31 12:08:21 2023
    On 12/31/2023 8:37 AM, Joerg Walther wrote:
    Patrick wrote:

    The only thing that surprised me is you can't set the quality in VLC.
    And that you can't tell Firefox to stream a bunch of URLs in sequence.

    Well, I just stumbled upon a video player which I didn't know before but which probably will meet all of your demands; it is QmPlay2: https://github.com/zaps166/QMPlay2?tab=readme-ov-file#youtube
    Is use it on Linux, but it is also available for Windows. It supports streaming, playlists and video quality settings and is highly
    configurable. Maybe give it a try?

    -jw-


    It's built on QT5 or QT6. That's how it can be cross-platform.

    It uses yt-dlp and ffmpeg.

    If it stops playing Youtube, then the yt-dlp files need to be updated.

    It's going to use more bytes than viewing Youtube in a browser
    would use. That's because yt-dlp would tend to select "Best" format
    when it downloads content to be viewed.

    Paul

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  • From Patrick@21:1/5 to Joerg Walther on Mon Jan 1 00:49:54 2024
    XPost: alt.comp.freeware

    Joerg Walther <joerg.walther@magenta.de> wrote

    Well, I just stumbled upon a video player which I didn't know before but which probably will meet all of your demands; it is QmPlay2: https://github.com/zaps166/QMPlay2?tab=readme-ov-file#youtube
    Is use it on Linux, but it is also available for Windows. It supports streaming, playlists and video quality settings and is highly
    configurable. Maybe give it a try?

    On Sun, 31 Dec 2023 12:08:21 -0500, Paul wrote:
    It's built on QT5 or QT6. That's how it can be cross-platform.

    It uses yt-dlp and ffmpeg.

    If it stops playing Youtube, then the yt-dlp files need to be updated.

    Thank you Joerg Walther and Paul for fleshing out QMPlay2 which videohelp doesn't say handles youtube video streaming but github does say it does. https://www.videohelp.com/software/QMPlay2
    "QMPlay2 is a video and audio player. It can play all formats supported
    by FFmpeg, libmodplug (including J2B and SFX). It also supports
    Audio CD, raw files, Rayman 2 music and chiptunes."

    https://github.com/zaps166/QMPlay2
    "QMPlay2 is a video and audio player. It can play all formats supported
    by FFmpeg, libmodplug (including J2B and SFX). It also supports
    Audio CD, raw files, Rayman 2 music and chiptunes.
    It contains YouTube and MyFreeMP3 browser."

    What's nice is this sentence https://github.com/zaps166/QMPlay2?tab=readme-ov-file#youtube
    "You can change the default audio and video quality of YouTube contents.
    Click on the "Settings" icon on the left of the search bar,
    change the order of audio and/or video quality priorities
    and apply changes. If the chosen quality can't be found on YouTube
    content, QMPlay2 will try using the next entry on the quality list."

    To download, they have a 32-bit, 64-bit and portable version in Assets https://github.com/zaps166/QMPlay2/releases/tag/23.10.22

    I'll put the installer on the desktop (which has a large C: drive). https://github.com/zaps166/QMPlay2/releases/download/23.10.22/QMPlay2-Win64-23.10.22.exe

    But I'll put the portable on the laptop (which has to be in the D: drive). https://github.com/zaps166/QMPlay2/releases/download/23.10.22/QMPlay2-Win64-23.10.22-portable.7z

    On the desktop I went to the
    QMPlay2: Playlist -> Add -> Address (and pasted in a YouTube URL). https://youtu.be/ox1Cy9BGxVU

    It downloaded the youtube-dl (which I had thought was deprecated).
    And then it played the youtube video (probably after downloading it).

    I then tried to feed QMPlay2 a short youtube playlist saved to urls.txt QMPlay2: Playlist -> Load list (but it only sees pls,m3u,m3u8,xspf files)

    urls.txt
    https://youtu.be/57gqD_nPeaw
    https://youtu.be/OLL2grYoE8o
    https://youtu.be/HOZ-KrHgU4c

    I tried to load the text file using QMPlay2: Playlist -> Add -> Files
    but that failed. Then I tried QMPlay2: Playlist -> Add -> Address (and then pasted in that set of YouTube URLs each separated only by a space) which
    seemed to work at first but it only played the first video & nothing else.

    So I went back to QMPlay2: Playlist -> Add -> Address (and added the
    youtube URLs one by one) but again it only played the first in the list.

    Later on I realized you have to "Enqueue" the playlist.
    QMPlay2: Playlist -> Enqueue

    But by then I had saved the playlist using QMPlay2: Playlist -> Save list urls.m3u
    #EXTM3U
    #EXTINF:213,"Remember playback position" in QMPlay2 YouTube://{https://youtu.be/57gqD_nPeaw}
    #EXTINF:202,How to install QMPlay2 5.6.3 on Ubuntu 18.04 YouTube://{https://youtu.be/OLL2grYoE8o}
    #EXTINF:90,How to install QMPlay2 on Ubuntu YouTube://{https://youtu.be/HOZ-KrHgU4c}

    urls.m3u8
    #EXTM3U
    #EXTINF:213,"Remember playback position" in QMPlay2 YouTube://{https://youtu.be/57gqD_nPeaw}
    #EXTINF:202,How to install QMPlay2 5.6.3 on Ubuntu 18.04 YouTube://{https://youtu.be/OLL2grYoE8o}
    #EXTINF:90,How to install QMPlay2 on Ubuntu YouTube://{https://youtu.be/HOZ-KrHgU4c}

    urls.pls
    [playlist]
    NumberOfEntries=3
    File1=YouTube://{https://youtu.be/57gqD_nPeaw}
    Title1="Remember playback position" in QMPlay2
    Length1=213
    QMPlay_length1=212.981
    File2=YouTube://{https://youtu.be/OLL2grYoE8o}
    Title2=How to install QMPlay2 5.6.3 on Ubuntu 18.04
    Length2=202
    QMPlay_length2=202.081
    File3=YouTube://{https://youtu.be/HOZ-KrHgU4c}
    Title3=How to install QMPlay2 on Ubuntu
    Length3=90
    QMPlay_length3=89.981
    QMPlay_flags3=1

    urls.xspf
    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
    <playlist>
    <trackList>
    <track>

    <location>YouTube://{https://youtu.be/57gqD_nPeaw}</location>
    <title>&quot;Remember playback position&quot; in QMPlay2</title>
    <duration>212981</duration>
    </track>
    <track>

    <location>YouTube://{https://youtu.be/OLL2grYoE8o}</location>
    <title>How to install QMPlay2 5.6.3 on Ubuntu 18.04</title>
    <duration>202081</duration>
    </track>
    <track>

    <location>YouTube://{https://youtu.be/HOZ-KrHgU4c}</location>
    <title>How to install QMPlay2 on Ubuntu</title>
    <duration>89981</duration>
    <extension application="QMPlay2">
    <f>1</f>
    </extension>
    </track>
    </trackList>
    </playlist>

    I will copy those over to my laptop to see if/how they play overnight.

    Thanks to Joerg Walther for the QMPlay2 suggestion, which will take as an
    input the youtube URL and it downloads and plays the files in that list.

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  • From Joerg Walther@21:1/5 to Patrick on Mon Jan 1 09:48:21 2024
    Patrick wrote:

    I will copy those over to my laptop to see if/how they play overnight.

    Thanks to Joerg Walther for the QMPlay2 suggestion, which will take as an >input the youtube URL and it downloads and plays the files in that list.

    You are welcome, and as I said, I only stumbled upon this and didn't
    have the time to fully test every detail, but it looks promising.

    -jw-

    --

    And now for something completely different...

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  • From Kees Nuyt@21:1/5 to All on Mon Jan 1 16:10:30 2024
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox, alt.comp.freeware

    On Tue, 26 Dec 2023 13:29:27 -0600, Patrick <patrick@oleary.com>
    wrote:

    [...]

    I know some people who only make right turns when they're driving in the
    city because left turns are a little harder to make than right turns.

    It's the same that you're suggesting, since it's a little easier to log
    into a Google server so that you can create a daily playlist on youtube.

    But logging into Google should be unnecessary to create a daily playlist. Just like always turning right to go left is unnecessary to just turn left.
    [...]

    Even if you are not logged in in YouTube, you can still use the
    "Add to queue" chice in the 3-vertical-dots-menu on right side
    of a video entry in YouTube search results or video listing.
    Worth a try, I would say.

    Note: the 3-vertical-dots-menu only show when you hover over an
    entry.

    If you change the settings (resolution, caption, ...) of the
    first video you open, most of these will be applied to every
    successive video.
    I think that works best when you start playing the first video
    and change settings before you build the queue.

    --
    Regards,
    Kees Nuyt

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  • From VanguardLH@21:1/5 to Kees Nuyt on Mon Jan 1 09:21:13 2024
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox, alt.comp.freeware

    Kees Nuyt <k.nuyt@nospam.demon.nl> wrote:

    On Tue, 26 Dec 2023 13:29:27 -0600, Patrick <patrick@oleary.com>
    wrote:

    [...]

    I know some people who only make right turns when they're driving in the
    city because left turns are a little harder to make than right turns.

    It's the same that you're suggesting, since it's a little easier to log
    into a Google server so that you can create a daily playlist on youtube.

    But logging into Google should be unnecessary to create a daily playlist.
    Just like always turning right to go left is unnecessary to just turn left.
    [...]

    Even if you are not logged in in YouTube, you can still use the
    "Add to queue" chice in the 3-vertical-dots-menu on right side
    of a video entry in YouTube search results or video listing.
    Worth a try, I would say.

    Note: the 3-vertical-dots-menu only show when you hover over an
    entry.

    If you change the settings (resolution, caption, ...) of the
    first video you open, most of these will be applied to every
    successive video.
    I think that works best when you start playing the first video
    and change settings before you build the queue.

    Can that playlist be saved/exported for reuse on a later visit to the
    Youtube web site? I think the OP wants a playlist to reuse later or on
    a different computer, not something compiled at the time which is only
    usable during the current Youtube visit.

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  • From Kees Nuyt@21:1/5 to All on Mon Jan 1 17:42:20 2024
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox, alt.comp.freeware

    On Mon, 1 Jan 2024 09:21:13 -0600, VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH>
    wrote:


    Can that playlist be saved/exported for reuse on a later visit to the
    Youtube web site? I think the OP wants a playlist to reuse later or on
    a different computer, not something compiled at the time which is only
    usable during the current Youtube visit.

    No, it can't. I think it just uses cookies.
    I know it does not fit the OPs' requirements,
    but sometimes requirements are not 100% strict.

    --
    Regards,
    Kees Nuyt

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  • From Patrick@21:1/5 to Kees Nuyt on Mon Jan 1 11:39:44 2024
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox, alt.comp.freeware

    On Mon, 01 Jan 2024 16:10:30 +0100, Kees Nuyt wrote:

    Even if you are not logged in in YouTube, you can still use the
    "Add to queue" chice in the 3-vertical-dots-menu on right side
    of a video entry in YouTube search results or video listing.
    Worth a try, I would say.

    Thank you for that virtual playlist idea as I had given up on Firefox,
    using instead VLC for a few days and then last night I tested the QMPlay2 youtube player which was suggested on the Windows newsgroup yesterday.

    https://github.com/zaps166/QMPlay2?tab=readme-ov-file#youtube
    "You can change the default audio and video quality of YouTube contents.
    Click on the "Settings" icon on the left of the search bar,
    change the order of audio and/or video quality priorities
    and apply changes. If the chosen quality can't be found on YouTube
    content, QMPlay2 will try using the next entry on the quality list."

    Both work to play a locally stored text playlist where QMPlay2 downloads & plays in queue from the respective youtube URLs while VLC streams youtube.

    In testing the virtual youtube queue you described, the three dots do
    appear (and disappear) when you hover over displayed search results.

    You get two options for the virtual queue (Add to queue) and (Share).

    It starts off as a corner window popup but it can be resized to the whole screen inside of the browser, and it indeed does stream the virtually
    stored playlist which I assume is saved on the users Firefox cache.

    In fullscreen mode, the virtual playlist shows up at the top right.
    It's easy to see each video in the playlist as it shows up in thumbnail.

    You can change the order of streaming if you wish by sliding a selected
    video up or down within that virtual youtube playlist streaming queue.

    That's the easiest way yet to create an organize a playlist.
    Where does Firefox store it so that it can be copied to the laptop?

    I tried "view source" and I found where the videos were listed but the code
    is horrendously long so I can't paste it and have it still be meaningful.

    Now to find where Firefox is storing that queue so it can be copied.
    (Firefox 3bars -> More Tools -> Page Source) is hard to figure out.

    (Firefox 3bars -> More Tools -> Task Manager) shows the virtual queue in
    the top of the process manager but it doesn't allow copying to another PC.

    When I put Firefox into debug mode to try to find where it stores the
    virtual playlist, it seems to use "ytd-playlist-panel-video-renderer"
    a lot but at this point I'm just guessing how to find where it's stored.

    Where is the virtual playlist stored on my local machine?
    Is it only in memory?

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  • From david@21:1/5 to Andy Burns on Fri Jan 5 18:20:00 2024
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox, alt.comp.freeware

    Using <news:kvd8mcF8k5hU8@mid.individual.net>, Andy Burns wrote:

    https://i.postimg.cc/FsxBfRY0/firefox-parent-PID.gif

    This means it's not a good candidate for script control particularly.

    And if you launch a second instance of firefox, it won't create a second parent firefox for the new window, it'll just add a new child to the
    original parent, but after a few seconds that child dies, while the
    window remains.

    I noticed YTD Video Downloader 7.0.0.9 while looking for something else https://www.ytddownloader.com/
    "Download video, audio, playlists for later watch.
    Convert video to MP3 and video to MP4."

    "Simply paste the URL in YTD and our app will automatically save them to
    your hard drive."

    "Download the entire video playlist with YTD Video Downloader. Download
    videos from any playlist from streaming sites and convert your video to
    MP4, 3GP, MPEG and even to AVI."

    Azureus Software, Inc. YTD Video Downloader Release info:
    Latest Version: 7.6.1
    Released: 31/08/2023
    Size: 22 MB
    Licence: Freemium
    General Points
    Download free videos from 50+ sites
    Convert Most Video Formats: mp3, mp4, wmv, flv, mov, 3gp, avi
    Watch free videos later on other devices: iPad, iPhone, iPod, Samsung
    Galaxy, HTC, Kindle Fire, Blackberry and many others
    Integrated video player to watch your videos right away
    Free video downloader
    YTD video converter
    Super easy to use and fast
    System Requirements for YTD Video Converter
    Windows XP/Vista/7/8/10/11
    Internet Explorer 6.0 or higher

    https://www.ytddownloader.com/download.html https://cdn.ytddownloader.com/stub.php?ytdd
    Name: YTDSetup.exe
    Size: 25144720 bytes (23 MiB)
    SHA256: 29DC8C40C301D3E3F09054BC35177A751EB4FD57803BF8EBBCB6120F426F14C8

    https://www.ytddownloader.com/faq.html

    The free version has limited capabilities. For more details regarding the differences between YTD Basic and YTD Premium, please visit the following
    link: https://www.ytddownloader.com/buy_now.php.

    It has a restricted installer that only installs to the C drive though.
    As a test, I downloaded this video but I couldn't understand a thing. https://youtu.be/2fCNL5CXzEg

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  • From Joerg Walther@21:1/5 to david on Sat Jan 6 10:59:30 2024
    david wrote:

    I noticed YTD Video Downloader 7.0.0.9 while looking for something else >https://www.ytddownloader.com/

    Looking at the specs of this I am quite sure that this is a pirated
    version of the open source programme yt-dlp: https://github.com/yt-dlp/
    Why pirated: They are using an open source programme for their own
    graphical user interface without ever mentioning the open source
    whereabouts, which is mandatory. Do not waste money on their "pro"
    version. I have yt-dlp installed on my Linux machine here and it's
    working like a charm from the command line.

    -jw-

    --

    And now for something completely different...

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  • From david@21:1/5 to Joerg Walther on Sun Jan 7 22:44:53 2024
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox, alt.comp.freeware

    Using <news:rp8ipi9bgvdohrn7fitbnapmkmntr7poe0@joergwalther.my-fqdn.de>,
    Joerg Walther wrote:

    I noticed YTD Video Downloader 7.0.0.9 while looking for something else >>https://www.ytddownloader.com/

    Looking at the specs of this I am quite sure that this is a pirated
    version of the open source programme yt-dlp: https://github.com/yt-dlp/
    Why pirated: They are using an open source programme for their own
    graphical user interface without ever mentioning the open source
    whereabouts, which is mandatory. Do not waste money on their "pro"
    version. I have yt-dlp installed on my Linux machine here and it's
    working like a charm from the command line.

    Thanks for looking at that free youtube downloader GUI as I also noticed
    some sneaky stuff in that I couldn't find a comparison of free vs pro.

    No matter how much I was re-directed to their FAQ, it didn't even tell me.
    All it said was the free version was 'restricted' (whatever that means).

    So even if it isn't a ripoff of the yt-dlp (which, let's remember, ClipGrab also uses yt-dlp under the covers in its GUI too), it seems suspicious.

    Other sneaky things were it phoned home after the installation (I had the Ethernet pulled out so the browser came up empty of course). https://www.ytddownloader.com/thankyou.html?&isn=###&lang=1033&oldVer=&newVer=7.6.3.3&kt=YTDD&pv=0

    And it had a brain dead installer that didn't even ask where to put it in addition to the fact it doesn't tell you how the versions differ in use.

    I think the only advantage it might have over Clipgrab is if it downloads
    an entire playlist (either as a single URL or a list of separate URLs).

    I don't know if ClipGrab does multiple youtube video URLs at once? https://clipgrab.org/faqs/howto-download-youtube-video

    From what it says above, I think ClipGrab is limited to a single video.

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