youtube-dl longevity...
Dear TFF:
In connection with my GUI for youtube for playing/downloading videos, I contacted the makers of the Python app to inquire about the long-term prospects for the support of Python 2.7 (last one that will work for Tiger) and they replied that their script will support it till 2016 minimum, and likely till 2024!! If there was a way to bundle it will TFF, it could easily become a very sustainable web-video handler for systems able to run QuickTime with Perian. Who knows, it might even be possible to include Perian and the Python Interpreter with it as an accessory install (or set up a shell script to get them both easily)?? Responses to it have been very positive from everyone.
At a certain point, when videodownload helper ceases, this might be the only game in town, and it is a pretty good one.
If I can be of any help, let me know.
Adam :0)
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1 Posted by Adam Albrec on 17 Feb, 2014 04:00 PM
P.S. I tested all of the (non-naughty) sites listed in youtube-dl's compatibility list and it handled a SOLID 75% of them on our older PPC systems very well. The lack of a PPC version of rtmpdump, limited a fair number of them, but who knows, maybe that could be ported too??
BTW, on an extreme test, it was able to stream 854x480 Vimeo at full speed to QT, when simultaneously downloading a second video in the background (50MB) on a vintage Dual 533MB G4 Digital Audio without missing a beat. Good Stuff Maynard!!
Support Staff 2 Posted by Cameron Kaiser on 22 Feb, 2014 09:44 PM
I'm sorry it took me so long to reply. Before I get to my concerns, let me first say that I'm glad you're working on such a project, and I agree that youtube-dl is a good tool. If it can be given a more user-friendly skin, I think that will be a plus.
That said, I am generally very resistant to bundling anything with TenFourFox -- notice that even the QTE and the MTE are not bundled. I am particularly resistant to putting something along with it that I don't maintain, because it makes us responsible for its support. If something comes with it, people are going to assume we're taking responsibility for it.
Furthermore, I can't recommend youtube-dl in its current form, for a general reason and several specific reasons. Generally, I think there are better ways to handle the progress display than a terminal window, even a distinctive one. A sub-application included in your app bundle using a tool like Platypus would be a lot better, and would be more Mac-like.
More specifically, there are two big glitches with my G5 running the script. This is the command line your AppleScript runs in the terminal window and the error message:
% /usr/local/bin/python2.7 /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wusklcNKDZc --max-quality=18 -o ~/Desktop/"%(title)s.%(ext)s" tcsh: /usr/local/bin/python2.7: No match.
First off, I use tcsh, not bash -- you should quote the URL. Second, I use MacPorts python and it would be nice if your script could detect this instead of requiring an unnecessary additional Python to be installed (it's in /opt/local/bin/python2.7).
However, even if I fix those problems, you still require users to download and install youtube-dl themselves to /usr/local/bin and that's just not a reasonable expectation for our user base. (And while I understand why you're using curl --insecure, it still makes me grit my teeth.) Why not include youtube-dl inside your app bundle and run that?
Finally, it would be helpful to allow some direct interchange between TenFourFox and your app. You could pattern such an add-on off the MTE. It's not required, of course, but it would be nice style points.
I appreciate the work you're doing, and I hope you take this in the spirit it's intended, but although PPC Media Center.app is a very promising approach it will require some significant additional work before I can recommend it to our users. You didn't provide a URL, but I found it from Dan DeVoto's blog, so hopefully I am using the most current version. Please let me know if I've misunderstood anything, or if you've already addressed these issues.
Support Staff 3 Posted by theos911 on 23 Feb, 2014 02:38 PM
I use both Bash and Tigerbrew, so I simply did a brew install python and the same for youtube-dl and everything was where it needed to be.
This is very convenient for me, but as pointed not, not for MacPorts users.
4 Posted by Adam Albrec on 07 Mar, 2014 04:31 AM
Finalized the app today and have added support for multi-segmented videos (normally separated by commercials). Currently contains codes for all of Comedy Central's current shows. Once the first segment is finished, all you have to do is close the QuickTime window, and the app detects it and automatically opens the next segment in a new window. Works like a charm! Cameron: if the last version I sent you worked, with the modified Python calls, let me know, and I can email you this final version.