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I made a tool which wraps around youtube-dl to manage fine-grained subscription and automatic downloading of various youtube channels. When I want passive enter

I made a tool which wraps around youtube-dl to manage fine-grained subscription and automatic downloading of various youtube channels. When I want passive entertainment, I have a directory full of interesting, high-quality videos that cater to specific niches I like. The end result is much better than TV ever was- no ads, access whenever I want- even offline- and content made by passionate hobbyists rather than mass marketers. I feel much happier paying a handful of content creators via Patreon than spending money on a cable or streaming service subscription.

justsubmit 7y ago
That sounds really interesting. How do you manage the library, especially in regard to storage limits, expiring old content, etc?
- RodgerTheGreat 7y ago
  So far I just handle it manually. I've dialed in pretty good preferences for incoming content, (for example, using regex-based whitelists and blacklists to weed out material I'm not interested in from channels that aren't already organized into appropriate playlists) and when I browse the videos directory to find something to watch I delete things that have been sitting there a while which I don't expect to get around to. There would be a lot more work to do if I wanted to "product-ize" the tool, and periodically youtube breaks it by adding a new feature or moving something around. For personal use, though, it's very needs-suiting. The whole approach is also less of a tempting distraction than browsing youtube itself, so it's easier to manage how much time I spend watching videos. If I ever run out of content, I just go for a walk, or read a book!
  - mitchty 7y ago
    I'd be curious to see it as well, sounds good/useful even in its nascent state. I have something similar-ish in that I have a makefile/script setup where all I do is dump a file of url's/playlists/people and let a cron job download updates to things on a 12 hour basis. Then I just have a setup in plex for youtube videos and I have plethora of content to watch when I have time. Its jarring to use "normal" youtube now and all the ads after using this setup. Also really nice for archiving channels and/or preparing for when youtube randomly decides to throw strikes on videos and not being able to see them anymore or people setting things to private etc...
  - crooked-v 7y ago
    You might want to give Plex a try. As long as you use a preset pattern for folders/filenames, it can automatically load any arbitrary set of videos as "series" in the UI: https://support.plex.tv/articles/200265256-naming-home-series-media/ https://support.plex.tv/articles/200265256-naming-home-serie...
avatarbl 7y ago
I like your approach! Mind sharing the tool ? Thanks

justsubmit 7y ago

That sounds really interesting. How do you manage the library, especially in regard to storage limits, expiring old content, etc?

RodgerTheGreat 7y ago
So far I just handle it manually. I've dialed in pretty good preferences for incoming content, (for example, using regex-based whitelists and blacklists to weed out material I'm not interested in from channels that aren't already organized into appropriate playlists) and when I browse the videos directory to find something to watch I delete things that have been sitting there a while which I don't expect to get around to. There would be a lot more work to do if I wanted to "product-ize" the tool, and periodically youtube breaks it by adding a new feature or moving something around. For personal use, though, it's very needs-suiting. The whole approach is also less of a tempting distraction than browsing youtube itself, so it's easier to manage how much time I spend watching videos. If I ever run out of content, I just go for a walk, or read a book!
- mitchty 7y ago
  I'd be curious to see it as well, sounds good/useful even in its nascent state. I have something similar-ish in that I have a makefile/script setup where all I do is dump a file of url's/playlists/people and let a cron job download updates to things on a 12 hour basis. Then I just have a setup in plex for youtube videos and I have plethora of content to watch when I have time. Its jarring to use "normal" youtube now and all the ads after using this setup. Also really nice for archiving channels and/or preparing for when youtube randomly decides to throw strikes on videos and not being able to see them anymore or people setting things to private etc...
- crooked-v 7y ago
  You might want to give Plex a try. As long as you use a preset pattern for folders/filenames, it can automatically load any arbitrary set of videos as "series" in the UI: https://support.plex.tv/articles/200265256-naming-home-series-media/ https://support.plex.tv/articles/200265256-naming-home-serie...

avatarbl 7y ago

I like your approach! Mind sharing the tool ? Thanks