I have a small number of YouTube channels and creators that I enjoy following, but I really dislike the experience of using YouTube on the web and on iOS. So, I whipped up a script that automatically downloads YouTube content and adds it to my Plex server. So much better!
Comments (19)
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Interesting. I have always just cast my YouTube content to my TV, never thought of downloading it to my Plex. Gist the script?
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@cleverdevil If (a matter of when, really, if we're being honest) Google kills that, do you have a plan in mind or will you tolerate the bad experience for the sake of the videos?
@simonwoods short of removing the entire web experience, it’d be very difficult, if not impossible, for YouTube to remove the ability to download videos. I don’t see this going away, but if it did, I’d go back to tolerating their crappy experience, though I’d watch less content.
@cleverdevil Sounds exactly like what Twitter has done. Also, consider AMP by Google themselves. There is no low I don't expect from the silos.
@simonwoods don’t get me wrong, I think they would restrict it if they could, but the way the web works makes it difficult for them to stop it. In the meantime, my approach works great :)
@cleverdevil That's brilliant. What does the script's flow look like? I assume grab the RSS feed at a predetermined interval, use a script to crawl for the video content, and download accordingly at a location of your choosing before having Plex scan for the new content?
I'd love to see the ability to subscribe to YouTube channels directly within Plex without the need to download the videos.
I was doing that for a while, but I want to make sure that my views are counted so that the creators get the credit (and ad revenue) and I'm not sure that downloading it that way still counts it.
I do pay for Premium so I can download in the YouTube app for offline watching, which does contribute to the view count.
@gannonburgett just posted on my site with an overview of how it works!
@cleverdevil cheers! I’ll take a peek!
@firetweet 👀
You are a serious nerd, and I love that about you.
@cleverdevil Wow, that’s a great idea!
I’m the most serious of nerds!
Man, you should hear about the crazy shit I've been up to.
@cleverdevil Have you ever used invidio.us ? I'm sure Google will eventually block the service, but a nicer UI, self hostable and provides channel RSS feeds.
@mcg nope, but thanks for sharing it looks pretty cool. I still think I prefer having everything in Plex, but nice to have an alternative.
@cleverdevil Yeah totally. There's still hope, I think.