5 ms·

Not everyone has fast enough bandwidth to watch live videos. Many people rely on downloaders to actually watch the video.

naibafo 8y ago
But they don't download the ads, so I doubt they matter very much as far as google is concerned
- moviuro 8y ago
  FWIW, youtube-dl can download from a ton of sites... https://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/supportedsites.html https://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/supportedsites.html
- zacmps 8y ago
  You can actually download the ads with YouTube-dl... I believe it's YouTube only and still named as 'experimental', but theoretically it could be a default to appease the big G.
  - savoytruffle 8y ago
    But surely they arrive as separate files, and not interspersed in the main video. So it's implausible they'd ever be watched.
    - skinnymuch 8y ago
      Yes they would most likely arrive as separate files. Though YouTube-dl could force their main codebase to merge the videos. Regardless from looking around it doesn’t look like ads are downloaded.
  - skinnymuch 8y ago
    Do you know where to find this or if this is definitely true? I tried looking around before and YouTube-dl didn’t have any ad downloading ability. I just tried looking now and at first glance it doesn’t look like it does. Nothing in the changelog for past year either.
    - naikrovek 8y ago
      It can download ads. It is a command line option.
agumonkey 8y ago
In my case a vast majority of use is just to be able to pipe the original stream to mpv/vlc in order to reduce the cpu usage. In the past there was a clear benefit, maybe less so these days.
leni536 8y ago
And by not everyone you can very well mean Youtube itself. I'm in Hungary, sometimes I watch gameplay videos that are only enjoyable in at least 720p and Youtube can't keep up with the bandwidth. I have a 1 gbit connection. And Youtube won't buffer the whole video if you pause it. youtube-dl is really a must in this situation.
- thirdsun 8y ago
  I'm not familiar with the situation in hungary but isn't it more likely that your ISP is throttling or otherwise artificially limiting the connection to Youtube, Netflix and other services with bandwith-heavy content.
  - leni536 8y ago
    Well, they don't throttle torrent in any noticeable way (torrenting with 10-20 MB/s or even more is not uncommon). And torrenting is pretty active in Hungary. They also provide ipv6 addresses too, I really can't say anything bad about my ISP. But it could very well be them who do the throttling to Youtube, I can't any way verify that.
    - anderspitman 8y ago
      Try running it through a VPN. I recommend NordVPN these days. Had good luck with Torguard in the past as well.

naibafo 8y ago

But they don't download the ads, so I doubt they matter very much as far as google is concerned

moviuro 8y ago
FWIW, youtube-dl can download from a ton of sites... https://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/supportedsites.html https://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/supportedsites.html
zacmps 8y ago
You can actually download the ads with YouTube-dl... I believe it's YouTube only and still named as 'experimental', but theoretically it could be a default to appease the big G.
- savoytruffle 8y ago
  But surely they arrive as separate files, and not interspersed in the main video. So it's implausible they'd ever be watched.
  - skinnymuch 8y ago
    Yes they would most likely arrive as separate files. Though YouTube-dl could force their main codebase to merge the videos. Regardless from looking around it doesn’t look like ads are downloaded.
- skinnymuch 8y ago
  Do you know where to find this or if this is definitely true? I tried looking around before and YouTube-dl didn’t have any ad downloading ability. I just tried looking now and at first glance it doesn’t look like it does. Nothing in the changelog for past year either.
  - naikrovek 8y ago
    It can download ads. It is a command line option.

agumonkey 8y ago

In my case a vast majority of use is just to be able to pipe the original stream to mpv/vlc in order to reduce the cpu usage. In the past there was a clear benefit, maybe less so these days.

leni536 8y ago

And by not everyone you can very well mean Youtube itself. I'm in Hungary, sometimes I watch gameplay videos that are only enjoyable in at least 720p and Youtube can't keep up with the bandwidth. I have a 1 gbit connection. And Youtube won't buffer the whole video if you pause it. youtube-dl is really a must in this situation.

thirdsun 8y ago
I'm not familiar with the situation in hungary but isn't it more likely that your ISP is throttling or otherwise artificially limiting the connection to Youtube, Netflix and other services with bandwith-heavy content.
- leni536 8y ago
  Well, they don't throttle torrent in any noticeable way (torrenting with 10-20 MB/s or even more is not uncommon). And torrenting is pretty active in Hungary. They also provide ipv6 addresses too, I really can't say anything bad about my ISP. But it could very well be them who do the throttling to Youtube, I can't any way verify that.
  - anderspitman 8y ago
    Try running it through a VPN. I recommend NordVPN these days. Had good luck with Torguard in the past as well.