On Thu, 28 Dec 2023 14:43:28 -0000 (UTC), Carl Fink wrote:
> Technically, I mentioned a player that is available on almost all
> non-proprietary platforms. I personally use it on Linux way more often than
> Windows. :-)
>
> Glad it worked.

Thank you for helping me solve the problem of having a youtube player on a
PC where the VLC solution you suggested works for every platform equally.

All you do is create a urls.txt file with one line per streamed video.
https://youtu.be/Cz1paozgy4k
https://youtu.be/mcUu3SjYRtE
https://youtu.be/kzlcq69yOLA
https://youtu.be/rB_r2uhRu2Q

There's no need to use Firefox (or any browser) to play youtube videos
anymore, as the browsers are apparently incapable of /sequencing/ URLs.

If someone asks the question of a youtube player, it effectively exists.
Q: Is there a free youtube player on the pc?
A: Yes. VLC can stream videos (or sequentially stream a series of URLs).

With VLC, the main problem is solved where a side issue I have is sharing
the URL.txt file between PCs on my local network (which I have been doing
with a USB stick until I get Windows networking to work as a share).

Also, the HP Stream laptop is anemic so I have to limit the streamed
youtube video to less than that of the youtube default with a command.
144p: https://youtu.be/vl780QrAdMU&vq=tiny
240p: https://youtu.be/vl780QrAdMU&vq=small
360p: https://youtu.be/vl780QrAdMU&vq=medium
480p: https://youtu.be/vl780QrAdMU&vq=large
720p: https://youtu.be/vl780QrAdMU&vq=hd720
1080p: https://youtu.be/vl780QrAdMU&vq=hd1080
1440p: https://youtu.be/vl780QrAdMU&vq=hd1440
2160p: https://youtu.be/vl780QrAdMU&vq=hd2160
auto: https://youtu.be/vl780QrAdMU&vq=auto

Where I just have to find out by trial and error which is most supported.

Each night I improve the process where last night I had appended "&vq=tiny"
to each of the dozen or thereabouts video streams I wanted to play all
night (because my HP Stream is underpowered and it stutters on large data).

That worked for about 80% of the URLs, so I probably need to pick a larger
size (such as "&vq=small" or "&vq=medium") to ensure better compatibility.

To test if Firefox could eat the output from VLC, I saved the playlist as
url.txt (this is the original playlist, one youtube URL per line)
url.html
url.m3u
url.m3u8
url.xspf

Then I read each one in a separate tab in Firefox with "File -> Open File".
url.txt (Firefox simply displayed each line item as it was in the file)
url.html (Firefox numbered & displayed the title & time for each line item)
url.m3u (Firefox asked to open up the file in VLC & then VLC played each)
url.m3u8 (same as for m3u)
url.xspf (Firefox displayed what appears to be XML source for each entry)

While what I was hoping might happen did not happen (ie that Firefox would
stream the youtube videos in sequence) two of the formats did provide data.

The HTML format showed me zero times for those streams which failed,
showing zero size for each of them, which is a good "log" file of which did
not support the "&vq=tiny" command.

The XSPF format gave quite a lot of detail (perhaps the original paragraph
that the uploader provided) about each video.

But unfortunately, none of the VLC output playlist formats when read
directly into Firefox caused Firefox to stream the video URLs in sequence.

Firefox can't sequentially stream a text file of a list of youtube URLs.
But VLC can.

Thanks!

On 27/12/2023, Ken Blake wrote:

> Never mind. A web search just found the answer to my question: You can
> use the Media Open Network Stream feature and enter the video URL to
> play it. You just enter a YouTube address like
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfndS5SKUs4 and it will stream and
> play the video for you. It also supports many other video sharing
> websites.

There must be a way to send firefox a url to stream and then to wait for
the firefox process to finish. Once it finishes, you send it another url.

On Thu, 28 Dec 2023 17:35:31 -0600, Patrick <patrick@oleary.com>
wrote:

>On Thu, 28 Dec 2023 14:43:28 -0000 (UTC), Carl Fink wrote:
>> Technically, I mentioned a player that is available on almost all
>> non-proprietary platforms. I personally use it on Linux way more often than
>> Windows. :-)
>>
>> Glad it worked.
>
>Thank you for helping me solve the problem of having a youtube player on a
>PC where the VLC solution you suggested works for every platform equally.
>
>All you do is create a urls.txt file with one line per streamed video.
>https://youtu.be/Cz1paozgy4k
>https://youtu.be/mcUu3SjYRtE
>https://youtu.be/kzlcq69yOLA
>https://youtu.be/rB_r2uhRu2Q
>
>There's no need to use Firefox (or any browser) to play youtube videos
>anymore, as the browsers are apparently incapable of /sequencing/ URLs.

Er, well... yeah. Why you wanted a *browser* (i.e. the vehicle
designed to grab/extract material from the dub-dub-dub) to become a
dispenser of *locally-stored files* in the first place is a challenge
to ageing grey cells.

On 26/12/2023 03:11, Patrick wrote:
> Is there a windows program that can create on one desktop a youtube
> playlist text file (of maybe a dozen or two dozen video urls) which can be
> copied as a file to another laptop to play in sequence in the firefox or
> chrome web browser (without needing to log into the youtube web site)?
>
> Another way to ask that question is to ask how does Firefox play a
> pre-planned bunch of youtube videos in sequence?

You took 8 posts before you told us about your hardware.
You are asking too much of your laptop.

HP Stream 14
32GB eMMC memory = hard drive
CPU - Intel Celeron N4020
RAM - 4GB

The above laptop played Youtube videos via a browser, Firefox Portable
with the following results.

720p - CPU 100%. Played until mouse moved then stalled
480p - CPU 80-100% Memory 82%

This doesn't address your playlist problem, for which you seem to have
found a work around.

I only know the specs of the HP Stream because I bought one for my
grandson to use when he visits & was able to perform some tests.

--
Regards
wasbit

On Fri, 29 Dec 2023 09:46:24 +0000, wasbit wrote:
>> Another way to ask that question is to ask how does Firefox play a
>> pre-planned bunch of youtube videos in sequence?
>
> You took 8 posts before you told us about your hardware.

I apologize. Two things I didn't know at the beginning was I was going to
use VLC and that VLC doesn't have a way inside the GUI to set the quality.

The hardware didn't stutter until I used VLC but that was because in
Firefox I could set the video quality such that it did not stutter.

> You are asking too much of your laptop.

I did not realize the hardware was a problem until I used VLC, which is
unable as far as I can find, to set the video quality in its own GUI.

Each night since I opened this topic discussion, I test a new switch.
Last night I tested the "&vq=small" switch which had only 1 failure.

> HP Stream 14
> 32GB eMMC memory = hard drive
> CPU - Intel Celeron N4020
> RAM - 4GB
>
> The above laptop played Youtube videos via a browser, Firefox Portable
> with the following results.

I don't know if it matters but I run everything portable on the D: drive.
That D: drive is a flash card as you can't put anything on the C: drive.

It's cumbersome when some programs default to the C: drive where most of
the time when they do that, I uninstall the program since C: is too small.

> 720p - CPU 100%. Played until mouse moved then stalled
> 480p - CPU 80-100% Memory 82%

Thank you for running that test, where I set the video quality usually to
less than that most of the time (unless the video has a lot of text in it).

What it shows is that the HP Stream 14 (same as mine) is really no good.
But it's what I have to work with as it's the only laptop that I own.

> This doesn't address your playlist problem, for which you seem to have
> found a work around.

Thanks for running that test as it shows it's not just mine that stutters.

I like using VLC because it accepts a local text playlist of youtube urls
which will sequentially stream all night (each appended with "&vq=small").

> I only know the specs of the HP Stream because I bought one for my
> grandson to use when he visits & was able to perform some tests.

Since I'm immobile, I don't use a laptop much so I fell for the tiny aspect
ratio and light weight but I would never buy another HP Stream ever again.

If I could have gotten Firefox to sequentially stream the video URLs, I
would have preferred that because the video quality can be set in the GUI.

On 29.12.2023 17:53, Patrick wrote:

>> You are asking too much of your laptop.

> I did not realize the hardware was a problem until I used VLC, which is
> unable as far as I can find, to set the video quality in its own GUI.

Firefox also can't set the video quality. This is done by the code
on the Youtube website.

> Each night since I opened this topic discussion, I test a new switch.
> Last night I tested the "&vq=small" switch which had only 1 failure.

Even if you don't believe it, the much simpler way is to download
the videos on your PC and use VLC (or any other video player) to
watch the already downloaded videos on your laptop.

yt-dlp.exe -F https://youtu.be/Cz1paozgy4k

shows you all the available versions of the video:

[youtube] Extracting URL: https://youtu.be/Cz1paozgy4k
[youtube] Cz1paozgy4k: Downloading webpage
[youtube] Cz1paozgy4k: Downloading ios player API JSON
[youtube] Cz1paozgy4k: Downloading android player API JSON
[youtube] Cz1paozgy4k: Downloading m3u8 information
[info] Available formats for Cz1paozgy4k:
ID EXT RESOLUTION FPS CH │ FILESIZE TBR PROTO │ VCODEC VBR ACODEC ABR ASR MORE INFO
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
sb2 mhtml 48x27 1 │ mhtml │ images storyboard
sb1 mhtml 80x45 1 │ mhtml │ images storyboard
sb0 mhtml 160x90 1 │ mhtml │ images storyboard
233 mp4 audio only │ m3u8 │ audio only unknown Default
234 mp4 audio only │ m3u8 │ audio only unknown Default
139 m4a audio only 2 │ 722.53KiB 49k https │ audio only mp4a.40.5 49k 22k low, m4a_dash
140 m4a audio only 2 │ 1.87MiB 130k https │ audio only mp4a.40.2 130k 44k medium, m4a_dash
251 webm audio only 2 │ 53.82KiB 4k https │ audio only opus 4k 48k medium, webm_dash
17 3gp 176x144 12 1 │ 695.84KiB 47k https │ mp4v.20.3 mp4a.40.2 22k 144p
269 mp4 256x136 15 │ ~ 1.60MiB 108k m3u8 │ avc1.4D400B 108k video only
160 mp4 256x136 15 │ 320.52KiB 22k https │ avc1.4D400B 22k video only 144p, mp4_dash
230 mp4 640x340 15 │ ~ 5.70MiB 386k m3u8 │ avc1.4D4016 386k video only
134 mp4 640x340 15 │ 1.19MiB 83k https │ avc1.4D4016 83k video only 360p, mp4_dash
18 mp4 640x340 15 2 │ ≈ 3.12MiB 211k https │ avc1.42001E mp4a.40.2 44k 360p
605 mp4 640x340 15 │ ~ 4.26MiB 288k m3u8 │ vp09.00.21.08 288k video only
22 mp4 1280x680 15 2 │ ≈ 5.43MiB 368k https │ avc1.64001F mp4a.40.2 44k 720p
232 mp4 1280x680 15 │ ~ 13.06MiB 884k m3u8 │ avc1.64001F 884k video only
136 mp4 1280x680 15 │ 3.45MiB 239k https │ avc1.64001F 239k video only 720p, mp4_dash
270 mp4 1920x1022 15 │ ~ 22.15MiB 1500k m3u8 │ avc1.640028 1500k video only
137 mp4 1920x1022 15 │ 6.27MiB 434k https │ avc1.640028 434k video only 1080p, mp4_dash

And for example:

yt-dlp.exe -f 269 https://youtu.be/Cz1paozgy4k

downloads the video as 256x136 mp4 file, or

yt-dlp.exe -f 22 https://youtu.be/Cz1paozgy4k

downloads the video as 1280x680 mp4 file.

And if you store the video on an USB stick connected to
your router, it is accessible from any computer in the local
network. There is no need to physical transfer the USB
stick to the laptop or to power on the PC to access the
video (stored on the PC) by the laptop.

On Fri, 29 Dec 2023 20:02:09 +0100, Herbert Kleebauer wrote:
> Firefox also can't set the video quality. This is done by the code
> on the Youtube website.

Thank you for clarifying which code is doing the video downsizing.

I agree with your clarification that it's not Firefox, per se, which is
setting the video quality - but the youtube code that runs inside Firefox.

But isn't that the same youtube code that is running inside VLC?

Assuming a base youtube url was fed to both Firefox and to VLC, why is it
that Firefox can set the video quality on the fly - but VLC can't do that?

>> Each night since I opened this topic discussion, I test a new switch.
>> Last night I tested the "&vq=small" switch which had only 1 failure.
>
> Even if you don't believe it, the much simpler way is to download
> the videos on your PC and use VLC (or any other video player) to
> watch the already downloaded videos on your laptop.

I appreciate that you feel batching the downloads is most efficient.
But you have batch skills that I lack (and which most people lack).

I can run a batch file that you write to make Firefox stream or to
make ClipGrab download a given set of locally stored youtube URLs.

But I can't write it.

You can write batch.
I can't.

I've downloaded, converted and ripped AV files very many times in my life.

I used the Microsoft C++ requiring youtube-dl.exe years before the much
simpler to install yt-dlp.exe even existed (along with the requisite lame &
ffmpeg & avconv conversion tools) so it's not at all a case of whether or
not I "believe" you (but you do know batch commands better than I do).

So it's not a question of beliefs.
It's a question of batch.

Specifically, how to batch Firefox to stream sequential URLs in a file.

> yt-dlp.exe -F https://youtu.be/Cz1paozgy4k
>
> shows you all the available versions of the video:
>
> [youtube] Extracting URL: https://youtu.be/Cz1paozgy4k
> [youtube] Cz1paozgy4k: Downloading webpage
> [youtube] Cz1paozgy4k: Downloading ios player API JSON
> [youtube] Cz1paozgy4k: Downloading android player API JSON
> [youtube] Cz1paozgy4k: Downloading m3u8 information
> [info] Available formats for Cz1paozgy4k:
> ID EXT RESOLUTION FPS CH � FILESIZE TBR PROTO � VCODEC VBR ACODEC ABR ASR MORE INFO
> ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
> sb2 mhtml 48x27 1 � mhtml � images storyboard
> sb1 mhtml 80x45 1 � mhtml � images storyboard
> sb0 mhtml 160x90 1 � mhtml � images storyboard
> 233 mp4 audio only � m3u8 � audio only unknown Default
> 234 mp4 audio only � m3u8 � audio only unknown Default
> 139 m4a audio only 2 � 722.53KiB 49k https � audio only mp4a.40.5 49k 22k low, m4a_dash
> 140 m4a audio only 2 � 1.87MiB 130k https � audio only mp4a.40.2 130k 44k medium, m4a_dash
> 251 webm audio only 2 � 53.82KiB 4k https � audio only opus 4k 48k medium, webm_dash
> 17 3gp 176x144 12 1 � 695.84KiB 47k https � mp4v.20.3 mp4a.40.2 22k 144p
> 269 mp4 256x136 15 � ~ 1.60MiB 108k m3u8 � avc1.4D400B 108k video only
> 160 mp4 256x136 15 � 320.52KiB 22k https � avc1.4D400B 22k video only 144p, mp4_dash
> 230 mp4 640x340 15 � ~ 5.70MiB 386k m3u8 � avc1.4D4016 386k video only
> 134 mp4 640x340 15 � 1.19MiB 83k https � avc1.4D4016 83k video only 360p, mp4_dash
> 18 mp4 640x340 15 2 � � 3.12MiB 211k https � avc1.42001E mp4a.40.2 44k 360p
> 605 mp4 640x340 15 � ~ 4.26MiB 288k m3u8 � vp09.00.21.08 288k video only
> 22 mp4 1280x680 15 2 � � 5.43MiB 368k https � avc1.64001F mp4a.40.2 44k 720p
> 232 mp4 1280x680 15 � ~ 13.06MiB 884k m3u8 � avc1.64001F 884k video only
> 136 mp4 1280x680 15 � 3.45MiB 239k https � avc1.64001F 239k video only 720p, mp4_dash
> 270 mp4 1920x1022 15 � ~ 22.15MiB 1500k m3u8 � avc1.640028 1500k video only
> 137 mp4 1920x1022 15 � 6.27MiB 434k https � avc1.640028 434k video only 1080p, mp4_dash
>
> And for example:
>
> yt-dlp.exe -f 269 https://youtu.be/Cz1paozgy4k
>
> downloads the video as 256x136 mp4 file, or
>
> yt-dlp.exe -f 22 https://youtu.be/Cz1paozgy4k
>
> downloads the video as 1280x680 mp4 file.\

It's not about believing.
It's about batching.

You batch better than I do, of course. But we believe the same.

At the level that most people know them, I'm aware of all the tools
you can think of for downloading, ripping & converting AV files.

In the days before the Internet, I even used to play from a CD to
output into a hardware AV conversion box, which I still have somewhere.

I used to use youtube-dl to download videos based on a local playlist
(well before the 2018 major Google change) but the non-python youtube-dl
required the pita 2010 Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable package.
youtube-dl.exe -ciwo "%(title)s.%(ext)s" -a urls.txt

I'm sure downloading an entire playlist is just as easy with yt-dlp.
https://ostechnix.com/yt-dlp-tutorial/
https://superuser.com/questions/1804415/how-to-get-playlist-title-with-yt-dlp

// Download a YouTube video/playlist as mp3 or any audio format

// Single File
yt-dlp --no-part -x --audio-format mp3 -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ
// Playlist
yt-dlp --no-part -x --yes-playlist --audio-format mp3 -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLu4wnki9NI_8VmJ7Qz_byhKwCquXcy6u9

// Download a YouTube video/playlist as a video file.

// Single File
yt-dlp -S "height:1080" https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ
// Playlist
yt-dlp --no-part -S "height:1080" --yes-playlist --playlist-items 1-100 --output "%(playlist_index)s-%(title)s.%(ext)s" https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLu4wnki9NI_8VmJ7Qz_byhKwCquXcy6u9

Nowadays I prefer GUIs to obtain & stream videos (which is what Firefox is),
where, for example, ClipGrab has a pulldown GUI selection for video quality.

But I do not know if the ClipGrab GUI can download & play files from lists.

Also I don't know if the Android Seal video downloader can handle play lists.
https://github.com/JunkFood02/Seal
https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.junkfood.seal/

It's not a matter of believing you.
It's a matter of batching skills.

You have the batch skills I lack.

> And if you store the video on an USB stick connected to
> your router, it is accessible from any computer in the local
> network. There is no need to physical transfer the USB
> stick to the laptop or to power on the PC to access the
> video (stored on the PC) by the laptop.

While batching yt-dlp.exe to download a bunch of videos is easy,
what is needed is batching Firefox, VLC, or ClipGrab to do that.

It's not a matter of believing.
It's a matter of batching.

You have those batch skills.
I don't.

You have the skills, for example, to batch Firefox so that FF
plays a list of locally stored URLs. I don't have those skills.

To your suggestion of downloading, you even likely have the
skills to batch ClipGrab to downloads a locally stored set of videos.

I don't have your batch skills.
So I'm stuck with manual methods even as I prefer using a GUI.

If there was a batch script that Firefox or ClipGrab used to
stream or download videos from a set of URLs, I'd test it.

Patrick wrote:

> I agree with your clarification that it's not Firefox, per se, which is
> setting the video quality - but the youtube code that runs inside Firefox.
>
> But isn't that the same youtube code that is running inside VLC?

The code running in VLC is ffmpeg

> Assuming a base youtube url was fed to both Firefox and to VLC, why is
> it that Firefox can set the video quality on the fly - but VLC can't do
> that?

youtube uses MPEG-DASH protocol (which I think is implemented in
javascript) where the video is encoded at multiple resolutions/bitrates,
the player decides if playback is keeping up OK, and shifts up/down
accordingly every few seconds.

This might be of interest?

<https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/native-mpeg-dash-hls-playback/>

Using <news:umnc0t$1ils7$1@novabbs.org>, Patrick wrote:

> Also I don't know if the Android Seal video downloader can handle play lists.
> https://github.com/JunkFood02/Seal
> https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.junkfood.seal/

I didn't know about that Android Seal video downloader which seems to be a
new GUI wrapped around yt-dlp (much like ClipGrab is for the PC platform).

Installing Seal and testing it with a &vq=small url worked but not really
because it still asked what quality you wanted (although it has defaults).

It does have a setting for downloading all the files in a playlist file.
And it has custom commands in addition to a few dozen interesting settings.

You still have to get video files from your phone to your laptop though.

Nobody wrote on Thu, 28 Dec 2023 18:24:31 -0800 :

>>There's no need to use Firefox (or any browser) to play youtube videos
>>anymore, as the browsers are apparently incapable of /sequencing/ URLs.
>
> Er, well... yeah. Why you wanted a *browser* (i.e. the vehicle
> designed to grab/extract material from the dub-dub-dub) to become a
> dispenser of *locally-stored files* in the first place is a challenge
> to ageing grey cells.

There must be a way to send Firefox a url to stream and then to wait for
the Firefox process to finish. Once it finishes, you send it another url.

Andrew <andrew@spam.net> wrote:

> There must be a way to send firefox a url to stream and then to wait
> for the firefox process to finish. Once it finishes, you send it
> another url.

The simplest solution, is to use the server-side playlist feature of
Youtube; however, the OP is averse to creating or using a Google
account, or wants a client-side solution rather than a server-side
feature. The server-side feature of the Youtube web site's playlist
would be available no matter what computer the OP uses. Any client-side
solution requires the OP install the software on every computer where he
wants the playlist.

The OP already found a solution from a suggestion here about using VLC
which is a media player, not a web browser. So, it was not a
requirement to the OP that the web browser was a do-all app that
includes client-side media player functions, just a preference. As for
pending playback of the next video in a list until playback ceases for
the currently playing video could be done in the web browser -- by
installing an add-on that adds media player functionality to add a
playlist feature. Nope, I didn't find one, but then I wasn't motivated
to find one. Maybe no one else, or very few, wants Firefox to be a
media player to gain a playlist feature.

There's nothing stopping the OP from creating a batch file with commands
that load Firefox, or any web browser, with a command-line argument of
the URL to the Youtube video, or any other web page. The text file
would be a series of:

set ffpath="C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe"
%ffpath% <url1>
%ffpath% <url2>
....

Firefox loads to the specified URL. When Firefox closes, the next
Firefox instance loads to the next specified URL. The OP runs the batch
file which loads sequential instances of Firefox pointing to a series of
URLs. However, unlike a playlist in a media player that would
automatically proceed to the next video in a list, the user would have
to exit Firefox when done viewing whatever web page got loaded (Youtube,
or otherwise). If the OP configured Firefox to not automatically play
videos when visiting a web page with them, he would have to undo that
config; else, when Firefox loaded, he would have to click on the video
to start playing it.

The problem is after Firefox loads, it doesn't halt execution of the
batch file until Firefox exits. Each call to Firefox gets ran without
pause, so you would have to add a 'pause' command after each Firefox
load in the batch file.

Alternatively, just run firefox.exe with a slew of URLs in the command
line which has Firefox load with a tab opened for each URL. In that
case, you do want Firefox configured to NOT automatically play videos;
else, you'd hear a cacophony of noise from multiple tabs all
concurrently playing videos that had sound, and all the videos are
playing concurrently instead of waiting for you to watch them. You'd
select a tab, tap the video to start playing it, let it end or tap it
again to pause, and go to another tab to play the video in that one.

So, you can get the web browser to play a sequence of videos in the
order listed, but without the automation of a media player walking
through a playlist. However, trying to twist Firefox into acting as a
media player will not be as smooth or automated as using a media player
designed for that purpose. You end up with a web browser trying to play
a list of videos in sequence that looks something like Elaine Benis
(from "Seinfeld") trying to dance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQu_NLRvULM

VanguardLH wrote:

> set ffpath="C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe"
> %ffpath% <url1>
> %ffpath% <url2>
> ...
>
> Firefox loads to the specified URL. When Firefox closes, the next
> Firefox instance loads to the next specified URL.

Browsers don't generally quit when they've done loading a page ...

Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> wrote:

> VanguardLH wrote:
>
>> set ffpath="C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe"
>> %ffpath% <url1>
>> %ffpath% <url2>
>> ...
>>
>> Firefox loads to the specified URL. When Firefox closes, the next
>> Firefox instance loads to the next specified URL.
>
> Browsers don't generally quit when they've done loading a page ...

Why I said the user would have to start the video playback, and exit FF
when done watching the video. However, FF does not pend execution of
the batch script until it exits, and why I also mentioned a pause is
needed between loads (to wait until the user is done watching the
current instance before exiting, hitting a key for pause, and proceeding
to load the next FF instance).

On 12/31/2023 5:09 AM, VanguardLH wrote:
> Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> wrote:
>
>> VanguardLH wrote:
>>
>>> set ffpath="C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe"
>>> %ffpath% <url1>
>>> %ffpath% <url2>
>>> ...
>>>
>>> Firefox loads to the specified URL. When Firefox closes, the next
>>> Firefox instance loads to the next specified URL.
>>
>> Browsers don't generally quit when they've done loading a page ...
>
> Why I said the user would have to start the video playback, and exit FF
> when done watching the video. However, FF does not pend execution of
> the batch script until it exits, and why I also mentioned a pause is
> needed between loads (to wait until the user is done watching the
> current instance before exiting, hitting a key for pause, and proceeding
> to load the next FF instance).
>

I launched Firefox from a shell window, and it seems to
disconnect from the parent. The parent is no longer the
shell window. Trace collected in Windows 10 with Process Explorer,
press ctrl-T for Tree View, then do Properties on the
parent task.

[Picture]

https://i.postimg.cc/FsxBfRY0/firefox-parent-PID.gif

This means it's not a good candidate for script control particularly.

I don't know how you would rein a puppy like this in.

The nice thing about Process Explorer, is in Tree View, it clearly
shows the Parent Task, who is the PPID of all the children, and
killing the parent, causes the browser to exit properly. If you play
whack-a-mole with the children, that does not work. You really need a
tool that shows the PPID value, to figure out the best candidate for
killing at a PID level. Some of the views on Windows, show you the
parent anyway, which is why you may not have had a problem killing it.
But if you see seven "things" and you kill just one of them, that
does not particularly put you in control.

Launching terminal (the black window)
\
sub-shell <=== sub-shell is killed after parent has escaped
\
Firefox parent (floats freely)
\
Firefox children (dependent on parent)

Windows doesn't have fork/exec like Linux, but it does seem to
have enough process control, to "make an escape".

And this kind of pattern is not an oddity. Lots of stuff has the
processes arranged this way, so killing the controlling terminal,
does not cause them to abend when that was not your intention.

In the diagram, there may well be more than one level of
sub-shell, so the diagram is a "minimal" diagram. It might
actually look worse than that.

Paul

Paul wrote:

> I launched Firefox from a shell window, and it seems to
> disconnect from the parent. The parent is no longer the
> shell window. Trace collected in Windows 10 with Process Explorer,
> press ctrl-T for Tree View, then do Properties on the
> parent task.
>
> https://i.postimg.cc/FsxBfRY0/firefox-parent-PID.gif
>
> This means it's not a good candidate for script control particularly.

And if you launch a second instance of firefox, it won't create a second
parent firefox for the new window, it'll just add a new child to the
original parent, but after a few seconds that child dies, while the
window remains.

I meant to mention this sort of behaviour a week or so ago, when someone
mentioned a preference for starting new windows instead of new tabs,
behind the scenes I don't think there's much difference.

For fun, I just installed firefox1.0, a freshly launched window
displaying about:blank is a single process with five idle threads, I
think my mouse driver is using more memory and cpu than firefox!

On Tue, 26 Dec 2023 13:29:27 -0600, Patrick <patrick@oleary.com>
wrote:

[...]

> I know some people who only make right turns when they're driving in the
> city because left turns are a little harder to make than right turns.
>
> It's the same that you're suggesting, since it's a little easier to log
> into a Google server so that you can create a daily playlist on youtube.
>
> But logging into Google should be unnecessary to create a daily playlist.
> Just like always turning right to go left is unnecessary to just turn left.
[...]

Even if you are not logged in in YouTube, you can still use the
"Add to queue" chice in the 3-vertical-dots-menu on right side
of a video entry in YouTube search results or video listing.
Worth a try, I would say.

Note: the 3-vertical-dots-menu only show when you hover over an
entry.

If you change the settings (resolution, caption, ...) of the
first video you open, most of these will be applied to every
successive video.
I think that works best when you start playing the first video
and change settings before you build the queue.

--
Regards,
Kees Nuyt

Kees Nuyt <k.nuyt@nospam.demon.nl> wrote:

> On Tue, 26 Dec 2023 13:29:27 -0600, Patrick <patrick@oleary.com>
> wrote:
>
> [...]
>
>> I know some people who only make right turns when they're driving in the
>> city because left turns are a little harder to make than right turns.
>>
>> It's the same that you're suggesting, since it's a little easier to log
>> into a Google server so that you can create a daily playlist on youtube.
>>
>> But logging into Google should be unnecessary to create a daily playlist.
>> Just like always turning right to go left is unnecessary to just turn left.
> [...]
>
> Even if you are not logged in in YouTube, you can still use the
> "Add to queue" chice in the 3-vertical-dots-menu on right side
> of a video entry in YouTube search results or video listing.
> Worth a try, I would say.
>
> Note: the 3-vertical-dots-menu only show when you hover over an
> entry.
>
> If you change the settings (resolution, caption, ...) of the
> first video you open, most of these will be applied to every
> successive video.
> I think that works best when you start playing the first video
> and change settings before you build the queue.

Can that playlist be saved/exported for reuse on a later visit to the
Youtube web site? I think the OP wants a playlist to reuse later or on
a different computer, not something compiled at the time which is only
usable during the current Youtube visit.

On Mon, 1 Jan 2024 09:21:13 -0600, VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH>
wrote:

> Can that playlist be saved/exported for reuse on a later visit to the
> Youtube web site? I think the OP wants a playlist to reuse later or on
> a different computer, not something compiled at the time which is only
> usable during the current Youtube visit.

No, it can't. I think it just uses cookies.
I know it does not fit the OPs' requirements,
but sometimes requirements are not 100% strict.

--
Regards,
Kees Nuyt

On Mon, 01 Jan 2024 16:10:30 +0100, Kees Nuyt wrote:

> Even if you are not logged in in YouTube, you can still use the
> "Add to queue" chice in the 3-vertical-dots-menu on right side
> of a video entry in YouTube search results or video listing.
> Worth a try, I would say.

Thank you for that virtual playlist idea as I had given up on Firefox,
using instead VLC for a few days and then last night I tested the QMPlay2
youtube player which was suggested on the Windows newsgroup yesterday.

https://github.com/zaps166/QMPlay2?tab=readme-ov-file#youtube
"You can change the default audio and video quality of YouTube contents.
Click on the "Settings" icon on the left of the search bar,
change the order of audio and/or video quality priorities
and apply changes. If the chosen quality can't be found on YouTube
content, QMPlay2 will try using the next entry on the quality list."

Both work to play a locally stored text playlist where QMPlay2 downloads &
plays in queue from the respective youtube URLs while VLC streams youtube.

In testing the virtual youtube queue you described, the three dots do
appear (and disappear) when you hover over displayed search results.

You get two options for the virtual queue (Add to queue) and (Share).

It starts off as a corner window popup but it can be resized to the whole
screen inside of the browser, and it indeed does stream the virtually
stored playlist which I assume is saved on the users Firefox cache.

In fullscreen mode, the virtual playlist shows up at the top right.
It's easy to see each video in the playlist as it shows up in thumbnail.

You can change the order of streaming if you wish by sliding a selected
video up or down within that virtual youtube playlist streaming queue.

That's the easiest way yet to create an organize a playlist.
Where does Firefox store it so that it can be copied to the laptop?

I tried "view source" and I found where the videos were listed but the code
is horrendously long so I can't paste it and have it still be meaningful.

Now to find where Firefox is storing that queue so it can be copied.
(Firefox 3bars -> More Tools -> Page Source) is hard to figure out.

(Firefox 3bars -> More Tools -> Task Manager) shows the virtual queue in
the top of the process manager but it doesn't allow copying to another PC.

When I put Firefox into debug mode to try to find where it stores the
virtual playlist, it seems to use "ytd-playlist-panel-video-renderer"
a lot but at this point I'm just guessing how to find where it's stored.

Where is the virtual playlist stored on my local machine?
Is it only in memory?

Using <news:kvd8mcF8k5hU8@mid.individual.net>, Andy Burns wrote:

>> https://i.postimg.cc/FsxBfRY0/firefox-parent-PID.gif
>>
>> This means it's not a good candidate for script control particularly.
>
> And if you launch a second instance of firefox, it won't create a second
> parent firefox for the new window, it'll just add a new child to the
> original parent, but after a few seconds that child dies, while the
> window remains.

I noticed YTD Video Downloader 7.0.0.9 while looking for something else
https://www.ytddownloader.com/
"Download video, audio, playlists for later watch.
Convert video to MP3 and video to MP4."

"Simply paste the URL in YTD and our app will automatically save them to
your hard drive."

"Download the entire video playlist with YTD Video Downloader. Download
videos from any playlist from streaming sites and convert your video to
MP4, 3GP, MPEG and even to AVI."

Azureus Software, Inc. YTD Video Downloader Release info:
Latest Version: 7.6.1
Released: 31/08/2023
Size: 22 MB
Licence: Freemium
General Points
Download free videos from 50+ sites
Convert Most Video Formats: mp3, mp4, wmv, flv, mov, 3gp, avi
Watch free videos later on other devices: iPad, iPhone, iPod, Samsung
Galaxy, HTC, Kindle Fire, Blackberry and many others
Integrated video player to watch your videos right away
Free video downloader
YTD video converter
Super easy to use and fast
System Requirements for YTD Video Converter
Windows XP/Vista/7/8/10/11
Internet Explorer 6.0 or higher

https://www.ytddownloader.com/download.html
https://cdn.ytddownloader.com/stub.php?ytdd
Name: YTDSetup.exe
Size: 25144720 bytes (23 MiB)
SHA256: 29DC8C40C301D3E3F09054BC35177A751EB4FD57803BF8EBBCB6120F426F14C8

https://www.ytddownloader.com/faq.html

The free version has limited capabilities. For more details regarding the
differences between YTD Basic and YTD Premium, please visit the following
link: https://www.ytddownloader.com/buy_now.php.

It has a restricted installer that only installs to the C drive though.
As a test, I downloaded this video but I couldn't understand a thing.
https://youtu.be/2fCNL5CXzEg

Using <news:rp8ipi9bgvdohrn7fitbnapmkmntr7poe0@joergwalther.my-fqdn.de>,
Joerg Walther wrote:

>>I noticed YTD Video Downloader 7.0.0.9 while looking for something else
>>https://www.ytddownloader.com/
>
> Looking at the specs of this I am quite sure that this is a pirated
> version of the open source programme yt-dlp: https://github.com/yt-dlp/
> Why pirated: They are using an open source programme for their own
> graphical user interface without ever mentioning the open source
> whereabouts, which is mandatory. Do not waste money on their "pro"
> version. I have yt-dlp installed on my Linux machine here and it's
> working like a charm from the command line.

Thanks for looking at that free youtube downloader GUI as I also noticed
some sneaky stuff in that I couldn't find a comparison of free vs pro.

No matter how much I was re-directed to their FAQ, it didn't even tell me.
All it said was the free version was 'restricted' (whatever that means).

So even if it isn't a ripoff of the yt-dlp (which, let's remember, ClipGrab
also uses yt-dlp under the covers in its GUI too), it seems suspicious.

Other sneaky things were it phoned home after the installation (I had the
Ethernet pulled out so the browser came up empty of course).
https://www.ytddownloader.com/thankyou.html?&isn=###&lang=1033&oldVer=&newVer=7.6.3.3&kt=YTDD&pv=0

And it had a brain dead installer that didn't even ask where to put it in
addition to the fact it doesn't tell you how the versions differ in use.

I think the only advantage it might have over Clipgrab is if it downloads
an entire playlist (either as a single URL or a list of separate URLs).

I don't know if ClipGrab does multiple youtube video URLs at once?
https://clipgrab.org/faqs/howto-download-youtube-video

From what it says above, I think ClipGrab is limited to a single video.