DownloadServer - Youtube

BREAKING NEWS: Might be time to switch to yt-dlp

There are a few good reasons to be set up to download YouTube videos.

• Geofencing
• Reliability
• Bandwidth Management

Fortunately, it's pretty easy to do.

But you may need to install python first...

• sudo apt install python

youtube-dl

youtube-dl is a pretty awesome tool.

But don't install it through the package manager. It gets incredibly regular updates & the package manager kinda borks this.

Instead, install it directly:

• sudo wget https://yt-dl.org/downloads/latest/youtube-dl -O /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
• sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl

This allows you to regularly update (maybe even through cron) it with the command:

• sudo youtube-dl -U

Which guarantees you keep up with the multitude of random changes made at YouTube.

scripting

Example of a useful script to update a local copy of a YouTube Channel:

youtube-dl -w --download-archive 11111111-ARCHIVE --write-description -f mp4 -o "%(upload_date)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s" https://www.youtube.com/user/LastWeekTonight

This particular little script maintains a local archive of a channel that YouTube thinks Canadians should not be allowed to watch... (needless to say, it gets run on the VPN equipped Download Server.)

Troubleshooting

ERROR: Did not get any data blocks

This is often caused by YouTube being weird...

Adding -f "bestvideo[height<=720]+bestaudio/best" --merge-output-format mp4 into the command line sometimes fixes it.

(Reference)