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Something I've always wished Pocket would do is download an offline copy of videos I add to the list (using, say, youtube-dl [1]), so I can watch them on the su

Something I've always wished Pocket would do is download an offline copy of videos I add to the list (using, say, youtube-dl [1]), so I can watch them on the subway, etc. But they never did this, presumably either for legal reasons, or because it was a giant waste of bandwidth considering a huge percentage of Pocketed articles never get read. Now that Mozilla is promising to open-source this, I eagerly await adding this feature to my own fork :) -- [1]: https://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/ https://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/

baby 10y ago
It also kind of sucks with javascript when it downloads the page offline. Pages that use Mathjax or something for LaTeX never display correctly so I can enver read them offline :/
tertius 10y ago
See Youtube red.
- alainv 10y ago
  Youtube Red is not available in most of the world: > available in the United States, Australia, Mexico, New Zealand and South Korea.
  - tertius 10y ago
    I guess they'll have to wait.
- mplewis 10y ago
  That's a paid service. Youtube-DL is free and open source.
  - dbbk 10y ago
    It is YouTube's prerogative to offer that feature for their paid service.
    - haukilup 10y ago
      It sure is their prerogative. It's unfortunate their paid service is not available to most of the world.
    - stymaar 10y ago
      And it's the user's prerogative to build and use tools to circumvent artificial[1] limitations. [1]: reminder: technically, streaming isn't different from download, what your computer does when watching a video in streaming is downloading. Forcing users to delete the video they have downloaded (which is exactly what's happening with streaming) so they pay the premium service for off-line use, is not a legitimate way to do business. They can do it of course, if people are willing to pay for something they can have for free it's fine, but people who don't want to pay aren't doing anything wrong.
      - tertius 10y ago
        > is not a legitimate way to do business. You're not the arbiter of this. > but people who don't want to pay aren't doing anything wrong. Not wanting to pay isn't wrong. Circumventing the Youtube's restrictions is though.
        stymaar 10y ago
        > Circumventing the Youtube's restrictions is though. That's exactly my point: it's not. It may be bad for Youtube's business, but it's not morally wrong. We owe nothing to Google.
        tertius 10y ago
        https://www.youtube.com/static?template=terms https://www.youtube.com/static?template=terms Look at 5b. Downloading Youtube videos, except with Youtube Red, is a breach of contract. Breaking contract is wrong.
        stymaar 10y ago
- apetresc 10y ago
  My conscience is assuaged by the fact that I am already paying for Google Play Music, which would include YouTube Red at no additional cost, if I lived a few miles away on the other side of the Canada-USA border. And anyway, despite the name, youtube-dl supports a whole lot more than just YouTube.
wirddin 10y ago
This problem got solved when YouTube started allowing offline videos. Idk if it is available in your country, but in India you don't need to be a paying customer to save offline videos.
- pcnix 10y ago
  That's only on mobile afaik. How do you deal with it on the desktop?
  - bartvk 10y ago
    On macOS, do something like this: $ brew install youtube-dl
    - vetinari 10y ago
      On macOS, the following works as well: $ pip install youtube-dl even if you don't use brew. Python is there out of the box.
- m-p-3 10y ago
  India usually get those offline features much more faster than other countries for some reason. I wish we had these options in Canada, because mobile bandwidth is stupidly expensive over here.
  - thewhitetulip 10y ago
    > India usually get those offline features This is because Internet in India sucks
    - sah2ed 10y ago
      ... plus with a population of ~1.25 billion people, it's an incredibly large market to overlook.
dunham 10y ago
You could script this with a bookmarking service like pinboard.in (anything with an API) and a cron job.
dredmorbius 10y ago
If you're on Android, I've found a set of tricks which work for this pretty well. Ingredients: 1. Termux App. 2. Termux API App. 3. Termux CLI utilities. apt install termux-api 4. Python: apt install python 5. youtube-dl: pip install youtube-dl 6. VLC App. Install from app store. 7. A set of shell functions for clipboard and application access: alias xc='termux-clipboard-set' alias xp='termux-clipboard-get' open () { termux-share "$@" } I'll generally download videos to the Download folder, which I've symlinked from the Termux home directory: lrwxrwxrwx 1 u0_a204 u0_a204 29 Apr 26 2016 Download -> /storage/emulated/0/Download/ Oh, and how did I get those functions and aliases? (alias | egrep x[cp]; typeset -f open) | sed s/^/ / | xc (Pre-formatted for HN's code block.) With all of that, you can download and play, in one swell foop, a video (assuming you know the output format you prefer -- something you can set as a youtube-dl preference): open $( youtube-dl -f 18 "$(xp)" | awk -F':' '/Destination/ {print $2}' ) Or you can fetcha whole slew of content and queue it up on VLC. I'd still prefer to be able to use a commandline audio player with controls rather than the GUI client. There's a very simple "play-audio" command, but it has no controls -- <ctrl>-C to end is about it, even backgrounding doesn't actually stop playback. I've messed with the sox "play" command, but it doesn't have an assigned audio device, and I've been unable to convince it that such a thing exists (see StackExchange posts regarding Android for similar issues/discussions).
- bartvk 10y ago
  Seconding this for macOS. If you haven't installed Homebrew, do so: https://brew.sh/ https://brew.sh/ Then install youtube-dl as follows: $ brew install youtube-dl And download videos as follows: $ youtube-dl "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"
  - dredmorbius 10y ago
    The lack of a true, independent, freestanding multimedia application which can handle this sort of thing -- building and managing queues, interrupting, deleting, sorting, etc. -- puzzles me. The browser is such an obviously poor place to stick A/V. Other than, of course, the fact that advertisers slobber over cramming every more crap down some "channel" or other.
Aissen 10y ago
There are many apps that do that. A Pocket competitor, Spool, used to that. It was then acqui-hired by Facebook and shutdown. At least they had the decency of sending us our data by email.

baby 10y ago

It also kind of sucks with javascript when it downloads the page offline. Pages that use Mathjax or something for LaTeX never display correctly so I can enver read them offline :/

tertius 10y ago

See Youtube red.

alainv 10y ago
Youtube Red is not available in most of the world: > available in the United States, Australia, Mexico, New Zealand and South Korea.
- tertius 10y ago
  I guess they'll have to wait.
mplewis 10y ago
That's a paid service. Youtube-DL is free and open source.
- dbbk 10y ago
  It is YouTube's prerogative to offer that feature for their paid service.
  - haukilup 10y ago
    It sure is their prerogative. It's unfortunate their paid service is not available to most of the world.
  - stymaar 10y ago
    And it's the user's prerogative to build and use tools to circumvent artificial[1] limitations. [1]: reminder: technically, streaming isn't different from download, what your computer does when watching a video in streaming is downloading. Forcing users to delete the video they have downloaded (which is exactly what's happening with streaming) so they pay the premium service for off-line use, is not a legitimate way to do business. They can do it of course, if people are willing to pay for something they can have for free it's fine, but people who don't want to pay aren't doing anything wrong.
    - tertius 10y ago
      > is not a legitimate way to do business. You're not the arbiter of this. > but people who don't want to pay aren't doing anything wrong. Not wanting to pay isn't wrong. Circumventing the Youtube's restrictions is though.
      - stymaar 10y ago
        > Circumventing the Youtube's restrictions is though. That's exactly my point: it's not. It may be bad for Youtube's business, but it's not morally wrong. We owe nothing to Google.
        tertius 10y ago
        https://www.youtube.com/static?template=terms https://www.youtube.com/static?template=terms Look at 5b. Downloading Youtube videos, except with Youtube Red, is a breach of contract. Breaking contract is wrong.
        stymaar 10y ago
apetresc 10y ago
My conscience is assuaged by the fact that I am already paying for Google Play Music, which would include YouTube Red at no additional cost, if I lived a few miles away on the other side of the Canada-USA border. And anyway, despite the name, youtube-dl supports a whole lot more than just YouTube.

wirddin 10y ago

This problem got solved when YouTube started allowing offline videos. Idk if it is available in your country, but in India you don't need to be a paying customer to save offline videos.

pcnix 10y ago
That's only on mobile afaik. How do you deal with it on the desktop?
- bartvk 10y ago
  On macOS, do something like this: $ brew install youtube-dl
  - vetinari 10y ago
    On macOS, the following works as well: $ pip install youtube-dl even if you don't use brew. Python is there out of the box.
m-p-3 10y ago
India usually get those offline features much more faster than other countries for some reason. I wish we had these options in Canada, because mobile bandwidth is stupidly expensive over here.
- thewhitetulip 10y ago
  > India usually get those offline features This is because Internet in India sucks
  - sah2ed 10y ago
    ... plus with a population of ~1.25 billion people, it's an incredibly large market to overlook.

dunham 10y ago

You could script this with a bookmarking service like pinboard.in (anything with an API) and a cron job.

dredmorbius 10y ago

If you're on Android, I've found a set of tricks which work for this pretty well. Ingredients: 1. Termux App. 2. Termux API App. 3. Termux CLI utilities. apt install termux-api 4. Python: apt install python 5. youtube-dl: pip install youtube-dl 6. VLC App. Install from app store. 7. A set of shell functions for clipboard and application access: alias xc='termux-clipboard-set' alias xp='termux-clipboard-get' open () { termux-share "$@" } I'll generally download videos to the Download folder, which I've symlinked from the Termux home directory: lrwxrwxrwx 1 u0_a204 u0_a204 29 Apr 26 2016 Download -> /storage/emulated/0/Download/ Oh, and how did I get those functions and aliases? (alias | egrep x[cp]; typeset -f open) | sed s/^/ / | xc (Pre-formatted for HN's code block.) With all of that, you can download and play, in one swell foop, a video (assuming you know the output format you prefer -- something you can set as a youtube-dl preference): open $( youtube-dl -f 18 "$(xp)" | awk -F':' '/Destination/ {print $2}' ) Or you can fetcha whole slew of content and queue it up on VLC. I'd still prefer to be able to use a commandline audio player with controls rather than the GUI client. There's a very simple "play-audio" command, but it has no controls -- <ctrl>-C to end is about it, even backgrounding doesn't actually stop playback. I've messed with the sox "play" command, but it doesn't have an assigned audio device, and I've been unable to convince it that such a thing exists (see StackExchange posts regarding Android for similar issues/discussions).

bartvk 10y ago
Seconding this for macOS. If you haven't installed Homebrew, do so: https://brew.sh/ https://brew.sh/ Then install youtube-dl as follows: $ brew install youtube-dl And download videos as follows: $ youtube-dl "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"
- dredmorbius 10y ago
  The lack of a true, independent, freestanding multimedia application which can handle this sort of thing -- building and managing queues, interrupting, deleting, sorting, etc. -- puzzles me. The browser is such an obviously poor place to stick A/V. Other than, of course, the fact that advertisers slobber over cramming every more crap down some "channel" or other.

Aissen 10y ago

There are many apps that do that. A Pocket competitor, Spool, used to that. It was then acqui-hired by Facebook and shutdown. At least they had the decency of sending us our data by email.