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 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.

On 29/12/2023 16:53, Patrick wrote:
> 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.

No need for apologies but it is very nice of you to do so.

I also use a 16GB micro SDHC card in an SD adaptor as a D: drive - it's
what I had at the time. There is not really a suitable alternative.
However I had forgotten it's a class 4 which may or may not make a
difference to the test results.

Most programme installs will default to the C: drive, & although
annoying, most allow installing elsewhere. I've only ever had a few
programmes, out of hundreds (currently around 300 installed) that had no
option but to install on the C: drive & they were immediately
uninstalled & an alternative found.

This machine is basically a toy, bought for the grandson to keep him off
my PC/laptop. It cost £10 ($11) second hand with a valid Windows 10
installed. As he gets older we will probably reach the limitations of
the machine & get a better one.

I sympathize with you as the HP Stream 14 is about as basic as you can
get & as you are finding, have to be very patient just to complete
everyday tasks.

If you need anything else tested, just ask.

--
Regards
wasbit

On Sat, 30 Dec 2023 10:23:01 +0000, wasbit wrote:
> I also use a 16GB micro SDHC card in an SD adaptor as a D: drive - it's
> what I had at the time. There is not really a suitable alternative.
> However I had forgotten it's a class 4 which may or may not make a
> difference to the test results.

I've had the HP Stream for a few years where I learned in the first week
that you can't use it without adding an sd card which I got at that time.

I have that card in the port on the right which is nicely done as in some
laptops the card sticks out but in the HP Stream it is only a slight bump.

Can I tell the class while it's in the computer?

Instead, I'll shut it down and pull it to read the writing on the card as I
don't know how to get the class (or even what it would mean once I get it).

Popping it out, it's half red & tan with SanDisk Extreme on the red half &
"400GB Micro/SD/XC I on top of each other & V30 (3 inside a U) A2" on the
tan half. In back it has what looks like a 14-character serial number &
then "Made in Malaysia" but no other information about a "class" type.

> Most programme installs will default to the C: drive, & although
> annoying, most allow installing elsewhere. I've only ever had a few
> programmes, out of hundreds (currently around 300 installed) that had no
> option but to install on the C: drive & they were immediately
> uninstalled & an alternative found.

The C: drive is 32GB (roughly around 30GB in reality) with only 3GB of free
space after Windows is installed, which is why I usually don't put on
programs (such as Docker) which don't allow you to put them on the D:
drive. Some of the Chrome-based browsers (like Epic) also do that so I
don't install them if I can't find the button to choose the D: drive.

Even though I don't install anything on the C: drive, there is still a lot
of things in the Program Files folder such as this from a "dir /b" command.
C:\Program Files>dir /b
Common Files
CopyTrans HEIC for Windows
dotnet
Ghostgum
Hyper-V
Internet Explorer
Microsoft Office
Microsoft Update Health Tools
ModifiableWindowsApps
Motorola Mobility LLC
MSBuild
Npcap
NVIDIA Corporation
OpenSSL-Win64
Pale Moon
PCHealthCheck
Realtek
Reference Assemblies
RUXIM
Windows Defender
Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection
Windows Mail
Windows Multimedia Platform
Windows NT
Windows Photo Viewer
Windows Portable Devices
Windows Security
WindowsPowerShell
Wondershare

I don't even know what some of that is, such as ruxim or dotnet.
In the other program files directory seems to be mostly Windows utils.

C:\Program Files (x86)>dir /b
AV Media Player Morpher
AVAST Software
Common Files
CopyTrans HEIC for Windows
eM Client
Ghostgum
Google
Internet Explorer
Microsoft
Microsoft Office
Microsoft SDKs
Microsoft Visual Studio
Microsoft Works
Microsoft.NET
Motorola
MSBuild
MSECache
MSXML 4.0
NVIDIA Corporation
Reference Assemblies
Spybot - Search & Destroy 2
Windows Defender
Windows Mail
Windows Multimedia Platform
Windows NT
Windows Photo Viewer
Windows Portable Devices
WindowsPowerShell

In the beginning, of course, I installed programs but other than VLC, I
can't remember the last time I needed to install a program (other than the
HEIC stuff when I took the laptop on a trip and the pictures didn't load).

I'm always afraid of deleting anything that's there.
Do any of those above strike you as safely removable?

> This machine is basically a toy, bought for the grandson to keep him off
> my PC/laptop. It cost �10 ($11) second hand with a valid Windows 10
> installed. As he gets older we will probably reach the limitations of
> the machine & get a better one.

This one was about 75 dollars new plus I had to add the cost for the sd
card. I don't remember the price a few years ago but today it's �47.89.
https://www.picstop.co.uk/micro-sdxc/sandisk-ultra-microsdxc-card-120mbs-class-10-uhs-i-400gb.html

> I sympathize with you as the HP Stream 14 is about as basic as you can
> get & as you are finding, have to be very patient just to complete
> everyday tasks.

It's anemic. I wouldn't recommend it. If someone is buying a chromebook, I
might recommend it over that (I've never used the chromebook though).

What it's good for is being really small so it travels easily.
Since I am no longer ambulatory, I sit mostly at my desktop.

At night I use the HP Stream to be my video player where I rarely look at
the screen so all I really need is the audio but I use the screen to
navigate and set up the playlists to play overnight.

Last night I tried the "&vq=medium" which seems to work the best because
it's supported by more videos than the "&vq=tiny" or "&vq=small" were.

What would have been perfect would have been a batch command for Firefox to
stream a list of locally stored URLs in sequence (as it accepts quality
settings in the GUI). Even though VLC doesn't seem to have quality settings
in the GUI, it can play a list of URLs in sequence if the quality setting
is appended to each URL so that's working the best so far.

I never knew there was a youtube player on Windows so it's nice to know as
I've been asked this question by my family and now I have a better answer.

Thank you for all your help & advices!

On 30.12.2023 18:51, Patrick wrote:
> On Sat, 30 Dec 2023 10:23:01 +0000, wasbit wrote:

>> I also use a 16GB micro SDHC card in an SD adaptor as a D: drive - it's
>> what I had at the time. There is not really a suitable alternative.
>> However I had forgotten it's a class 4 which may or may not make a
>> difference to the test results.
>
> I've had the HP Stream for a few years where I learned in the first week
> that you can't use it without adding an sd card which I got at that time.

I also use a 14" Netbook with 4 GB RAM / 32 GB eMMC with a SD card
as drive d:. It is running the whole day since more than 7 years
because it makes absolutely no noise, doesn't consume much power
and is sufficient for mail, news and web browsing. But you should be
aware, that SD cards aren't designed as a drive replacement in a PC.
About every two years the SD card stops working because the spare
blocks are used up. It then switches to read-only mode. But you
still can copy the content to a new SD card on an other PC and save
the old one as read-only backup.

>
> At night I use the HP Stream to be my video player where I rarely look at

I still don't understand your workflow. You use Firefox on your PC
to browse YouTube videos and copy&paste the URLs of interesting videos
to a text file for later use? But why not install a Firefox add-on to
download the videos. All you have to do is, press the download button
and select the preferred resolution. That is much faster than to use
copy&past for the URL. The download is done in the background and
you can immediately start searching other videos.

> the screen so all I really need is the audio but I use the screen to
> navigate and set up the playlists to play overnight.

But if you only interested in the audio, why not just download
the audio? Saves plenty download time and storage space.

But if the downloads are music videos, why not use a internet
radio stream instead:

https://www.webradiostreams.nl/index.html
https://www.webradiostreams.nl/streaming1.html
https://www.webradiostreams.nl/streaming2.html
https://www.webradiostreams.nl/streaming3.html
https://www.webradiostreams.nl/streaming4.html
https://www.webradiostreams.nl/streaming5.html

On Sat, 30 Dec 2023 21:41:23 +0100, Herbert Kleebauer wrote:
>> I've had the HP Stream for a few years where I learned in the first week
>> that you can't use it without adding an sd card which I got at that time.
>
> I also use a 14" Netbook with 4 GB RAM / 32 GB eMMC with a SD card
> as drive d:. It is running the whole day since more than 7 years
> because it makes absolutely no noise, doesn't consume much power
> and is sufficient for mail, news and web browsing.

You're correct that the HP Stream laptop makes no noise. It's a good laptop
for what laptops were originally intended for. But now, I think many
laptops are often used as mostly-stationary-but-sometimes-portable PCs.

> But you should be
> aware, that SD cards aren't designed as a drive replacement in a PC.
> About every two years the SD card stops working because the spare
> blocks are used up. It then switches to read-only mode. But you
> still can copy the content to a new SD card on an other PC and save
> the old one as read-only backup.

I've had that laptop for a few years. How would I know if the sd card
"blocks are used up"? Is there a utility that will tell me that data?

I also use the sd cards on my phones for years. I didn't know that they
only last two years before the "blocks are used up". What can I do to
prevent that from happening to the 64GB and 128GB sdcards I put in phones?

> > At night I use the HP Stream to be my video player where I rarely look at
>
> I still don't understand your workflow. You use Firefox on your PC
> to browse YouTube videos and copy&paste the URLs of interesting videos
> to a text file for later use?

Yes. On the desktop, I read the news and run web searches and do whatever
it is I do all day, where whenever I run into an interesting video, I paste
it into the text file (which by the end of the day, contains a dozen URLs).

Then I want to stream those locally stored URLs in sequence in a youtube
tool (which doesn't exist) so the next best thing is Firefox or VLC player.

Sometimes, particularly early in the evening, I look at them, but if I wake
up in the middle of the night, I normally just listen to what they have to
say. They're usually expounding on topics that are quite detailed but of
interest to me. Never will it ever be music. It's mostly documentaries and
news and explanations of complexities such as how the universe works or how
the earth was formed or what is in the world news or something like that.

I do like the Telegraph podcasts, so some "videos" are actually only audio.
https://www.youtube.com/@telegraph/podcasts
https://www.youtube.com/@globalnewspodcast2113
https://www.youtube.com/@cfr/podcasts

> But why not install a Firefox add-on to download the videos.

I understand exactly where you're coming from, and I thought I had
responded to that saying I might know more about how to rip/download AV
files than you do - since I've been doing it since BEFORE the Internet.

Before I got the laptop, I used to download a set of videos on my phone
using NewPipe (https://newpipe.net) but about a year ago a dedicated
downloader using yt-dlp came out that was intended for batch downloads.
https://github.com/JunkFood02/Seal

In fact I use the phone whenever I'm desirous of listening to a video in
situations when I'm not in bed since the laptop stays on the nighttable.

But downloading versus streaming is like driving versus flying somewhere.

I know about yt-dlp, youtube-dl, ffmpeg, lame, avconv, ClipGrab, 3dyd,
Seal, NewPipe & the many advertised so-called youtube downloader sites.
https://www.savethevideo.com/home
https://youtubnow.co/online-youtube-converter/en
https://www.acethinker.com/free-online-youtube-downloader

For example, the https://www.3dyd.com/ site has its own batch downloader.
https://ba.3dyd.com/

The problem with downloading is that you're downloading before streaming.
And then you're copying after downloading but before you can stream it.

I used to do it all the time before yt-dlp replaced youtube-dl in fact.
youtube-dl.exe --no-check-certificate --verbose -ciwo "%(title)s.%(ext)s" -a urls.txt

When warranted, I believe in downloading files and then playing them.
But I believe in the concept of streaming even more. Without downloading.

I once tried to get ClipGrab to download a _set_ of youtube URLs, just by
feeding it that list in the single line that the GUI provides, but I wasn't
able to get ClipGrab to do that - but yt-dlp I'm sure easily can do it.
yt-dlp.exe --no-check-certificate --verbose -ciwo "%(title)s.%(ext)s" -a urls.txt

> All you have to do is, press the download button
> and select the preferred resolution. That is much faster than to use
> copy&past for the URL. The download is done in the background and
> you can immediately start searching other videos.

I'm against any web plugin or extension for the simple reason that you have
to do it for all your various web browsers and that's too much to maintain.

There are other issues of course (eg web addons can be exploited), but I'm
all for a batch command that sends to the browser URLs to play in sequence.

> > the screen so all I really need is the audio but I use the screen to
> > navigate and set up the playlists to play overnight.
>
> But if you only interested in the audio, why not just download
> the audio? Saves plenty download time and storage space.

This is a valid suggestion but it doesn't change that I believe in
streaming more than I believe in first downloading and then streaming what
I downloaded. All the downloaders can rip the audio if that's all I wanted.

> But if the downloads are music videos, why not use a internet
> radio stream instead:
>
> https://www.webradiostreams.nl/index.html
> https://www.webradiostreams.nl/streaming1.html
> https://www.webradiostreams.nl/streaming2.html
> https://www.webradiostreams.nl/streaming3.html
> https://www.webradiostreams.nl/streaming4.html
> https://www.webradiostreams.nl/streaming5.html

Never once have I said or implied the videos were music but I can see why
you might easily have assumed that since I listen to them at night.

They're usually world news at first, and then they dive into complexities
like what you'd find on these channels who put out new videos of interest.

This is some of the world news that I might choose for nightly videos.
https://www.youtube.com/@BBCNews
https://www.youtube.com/@France24_en
https://www.youtube.com/@PBSNewsHour

And these are some of the documentaries I might be choosing videos from.
https://www.youtube.com/@VICENews
https://www.youtube.com/@60minutes
https://www.youtube.com/@DWDocumentary

Also there are almost always excellent historical videos to watch from.
https://www.youtube.com/@TheIntelReport
https://www.youtube.com/@KingsandGenerals
https://www.youtube.com/@TheOperationsRoom

The beauty of streaming is that it doesn't need to be downloaded first.

What I had wanted at first was a way command to tell Firefox to stream
locally stored URLs in sequence but I'm OK now with what VLC does.

The only thing that surprised me is you can't set the quality in VLC.
And that you can't tell Firefox to stream a bunch of URLs in sequence.

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

On 30.12.2023 22:40, Patrick wrote:

>> But you should be
>> aware, that SD cards aren't designed as a drive replacement in a PC.
>> About every two years the SD card stops working because the spare
>> blocks are used up. It then switches to read-only mode. But you
>> still can copy the content to a new SD card on an other PC and save
>> the old one as read-only backup.
>
> I've had that laptop for a few years. How would I know if the sd card
> "blocks are used up"?

You will know it, if you copy new files to the card and
delete some old files and then, after a reboot of the laptop,
the new files are missing but the deleted files returned.
The SD card switched to read-only mode, but Windows doesn't know.

I do it the opposite way than you: I use the netbook to
download videos and then transfer them to the PC. This way
the SD card is overwritten many times. If you don't have so
much write access, then there shouldn't be a problem with
the SD card.

> But downloading versus streaming is like driving versus flying somewhere.

Streaming a YouTube video in Firefox in nothing but downloading
the video and then displaying it. You don't have to wait until
the complete video is downloaded but after a few seconds of
download the video is already displayed. But it is still a
download before playing. If you restart the video, it doesn't
need to download it again but uses the local stored video file.

But in your case, there is no need for an overlapped download/display
of the video, so better download it on your PC and only display it
on the laptop.

Are you sure, the laptop is to slow to display high resolution
videos? Maybe not, because the CPU has hardware support for
decoding videos. But maybe the internet connection is to slow
for high resolution videos. And if you separate the downloading
from playing, then this problem is gone.

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 30/12/2023 17:51, Patrick wrote:
> On Sat, 30 Dec 2023 10:23:01 +0000, wasbit wrote:
>> I also use a 16GB micro SDHC card in an SD adaptor as a D: drive -
>> it's what I had at the time. There is not really a suitable
>> alternative. However I had forgotten it's a class 4 which may or may
>> not make a difference to the test results.
>
> I've had the HP Stream for a few years where I learned in the first week
> that you can't use it without adding an sd card which I got at that time.
>
> I have that card in the port on the right which is nicely done as in some
> laptops the card sticks out but in the HP Stream it is only a slight bump.
>
> Can I tell the class while it's in the computer?
> Instead, I'll shut it down and pull it to read the writing on the card as I
> don't know how to get the class (or even what it would mean once I get it).
> Popping it out, it's half red & tan with SanDisk Extreme on the red half &
> "400GB Micro/SD/XC I on top of each other & V30 (3 inside a U) A2" on the
> tan half. In back it has what looks like a 14-character serial number &
> then "Made in Malaysia" but no other information about a "class" type.
>
>> Most programme installs will default to the C: drive, & although
>> annoying, most allow installing elsewhere. I've only ever had a few
>> programmes, out of hundreds (currently around 300 installed) that had
>> no option but to install on the C: drive & they were immediately
>> uninstalled & an alternative found.
>
> The C: drive is 32GB (roughly around 30GB in reality) with only 3GB of free
> space after Windows is installed, which is why I usually don't put on
> programs (such as Docker) which don't allow you to put them on the D:
> drive. Some of the Chrome-based browsers (like Epic) also do that so I
> don't install them if I can't find the button to choose the D: drive.
>
> Even though I don't install anything on the C: drive, there is still a lot
> of things in the Program Files folder such as this from a "dir /b" command.
> C:\Program Files>dir /b
> Common Files
> CopyTrans HEIC for Windows
> dotnet
> Ghostgum
> Hyper-V
> Internet Explorer
> Microsoft Office
> Microsoft Update Health Tools
> ModifiableWindowsApps
> Motorola Mobility LLC
> MSBuild
> Npcap
> NVIDIA Corporation
> OpenSSL-Win64
> Pale Moon
> PCHealthCheck
> Realtek
> Reference Assemblies
> RUXIM
> Windows Defender
> Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection
> Windows Mail
> Windows Multimedia Platform
> Windows NT
> Windows Photo Viewer
> Windows Portable Devices
> Windows Security
> WindowsPowerShell
> Wondershare
>
> I don't even know what some of that is, such as ruxim or dotnet.
> In the other program files directory seems to be mostly Windows utils.
>
> C:\Program Files (x86)>dir /b
> AV Media Player Morpher
> AVAST Software
> Common Files
> CopyTrans HEIC for Windows
> eM Client
> Ghostgum
> Google
> Internet Explorer
> Microsoft
> Microsoft Office
> Microsoft SDKs
> Microsoft Visual Studio
> Microsoft Works
> Microsoft.NET
> Motorola
> MSBuild
> MSECache
> MSXML 4.0
> NVIDIA Corporation
> Reference Assemblies
> Spybot - Search & Destroy 2
> Windows Defender
> Windows Mail
> Windows Multimedia Platform
> Windows NT
> Windows Photo Viewer
> Windows Portable Devices
> WindowsPowerShell
>
> In the beginning, of course, I installed programs but other than VLC, I
> can't remember the last time I needed to install a program (other than the
> HEIC stuff when I took the laptop on a trip and the pictures didn't load).
>
> I'm always afraid of deleting anything that's there.
> Do any of those above strike you as safely removable?
>
>> This machine is basically a toy, bought for the grandson to keep him
>> off my PC/laptop. It cost £10 ($11) second hand with a valid Windows
>> 10 installed. As he gets older we will probably reach the limitations
>> of the machine & get a better one.
>
> This one was about 75 dollars new plus I had to add the cost for the sd
> card. I don't remember the price a few years ago but today it's £47.89.
> https://www.picstop.co.uk/micro-sdxc/sandisk-ultra-microsdxc-card-120mbs-class-10-uhs-i-400gb.html
>
>
>> I sympathize with you as the HP Stream 14 is about as basic as you can
>> get & as you are finding, have to be very patient just to complete
>> everyday tasks.
>
> It's anemic. I wouldn't recommend it. If someone is buying a chromebook, I
> might recommend it over that (I've never used the chromebook though).
> What it's good for is being really small so it travels easily. Since I
> am no longer ambulatory, I sit mostly at my desktop.
>
> At night I use the HP Stream to be my video player where I rarely look at
> the screen so all I really need is the audio but I use the screen to
> navigate and set up the playlists to play overnight.
>
> Last night I tried the "&vq=medium" which seems to work the best because
> it's supported by more videos than the "&vq=tiny" or "&vq=small" were.
>
> What would have been perfect would have been a batch command for Firefox to
> stream a list of locally stored URLs in sequence (as it accepts quality
> settings in the GUI). Even though VLC doesn't seem to have quality settings
> in the GUI, it can play a list of URLs in sequence if the quality setting
> is appended to each URL so that's working the best so far.
>
> I never knew there was a youtube player on Windows so it's nice to know as
> I've been asked this question by my family and now I have a better answer.
>
> Thank you for all your help & advices!

Your Sandisk Extreme is a class 3, (3 in a U), "suitable for 4K Ultra HD
recording" So no worries there.

Even though we install programmes to another drive some parts have to go
to the C: drive.

Ruxim & dotnet (.NET) are part of Windows.

"RUXIM is a program that helps Windows Update collect data to keep
Windows up to date and performing properly. It is a part of the Windows
10 Pro 19043.1110 (build 21H1) system and has no way to uninstall it."

Ghostgum I didn't recognise but it looks like it's something you have
installed, perhaps GSview, & is likely to be quite small.

Wondershare do a free PDF Reader amongst their commercial programmes.

AV Media Player Morpher I don't recognise.

Avast, I would suggest, you don't need. Windows 10 has Windows Defender
& it's own 'Security'.

Spybot gained a reputation for being a resource hog but may have
improved. Again, remove it if you don't need it.

--
Regards
wasbit

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!

Patrick wrote:

>The only thing that surprised me is you can't set the quality in VLC.
>And that you can't tell Firefox to stream a bunch of URLs in sequence.

Well, I just stumbled upon a video player which I didn't know before but
which probably will meet all of your demands; it is QmPlay2:
https://github.com/zaps166/QMPlay2?tab=readme-ov-file#youtube
Is use it on Linux, but it is also available for Windows. It supports
streaming, playlists and video quality settings and is highly
configurable. Maybe give it a try?

-jw-

--

And now for something completely different...

On 12/31/2023 8:37 AM, Joerg Walther wrote:
> Patrick wrote:
>
>> The only thing that surprised me is you can't set the quality in VLC.
>> And that you can't tell Firefox to stream a bunch of URLs in sequence.
>
> Well, I just stumbled upon a video player which I didn't know before but
> which probably will meet all of your demands; it is QmPlay2:
> https://github.com/zaps166/QMPlay2?tab=readme-ov-file#youtube
> Is use it on Linux, but it is also available for Windows. It supports
> streaming, playlists and video quality settings and is highly
> configurable. Maybe give it a try?
>
> -jw-
>

It's built on QT5 or QT6. That's how it can be cross-platform.

It uses yt-dlp and ffmpeg.

If it stops playing Youtube, then the yt-dlp files need to be updated.

It's going to use more bytes than viewing Youtube in a browser
would use. That's because yt-dlp would tend to select "Best" format
when it downloads content to be viewed.

Paul

Joerg Walther <joerg.walther@magenta.de> wrote

> Well, I just stumbled upon a video player which I didn't know before but
> which probably will meet all of your demands; it is QmPlay2:
> https://github.com/zaps166/QMPlay2?tab=readme-ov-file#youtube
> Is use it on Linux, but it is also available for Windows. It supports
> streaming, playlists and video quality settings and is highly
> configurable. Maybe give it a try?

On Sun, 31 Dec 2023 12:08:21 -0500, Paul wrote:
> It's built on QT5 or QT6. That's how it can be cross-platform.
>
> It uses yt-dlp and ffmpeg.
>
> If it stops playing Youtube, then the yt-dlp files need to be updated.

Thank you Joerg Walther and Paul for fleshing out QMPlay2 which videohelp
doesn't say handles youtube video streaming but github does say it does.
https://www.videohelp.com/software/QMPlay2
"QMPlay2 is a video and audio player. It can play all formats supported
by FFmpeg, libmodplug (including J2B and SFX). It also supports
Audio CD, raw files, Rayman 2 music and chiptunes."

https://github.com/zaps166/QMPlay2
"QMPlay2 is a video and audio player. It can play all formats supported
by FFmpeg, libmodplug (including J2B and SFX). It also supports
Audio CD, raw files, Rayman 2 music and chiptunes.
It contains YouTube and MyFreeMP3 browser."

What's nice is this sentence
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."

To download, they have a 32-bit, 64-bit and portable version in Assets
https://github.com/zaps166/QMPlay2/releases/tag/23.10.22

I'll put the installer on the desktop (which has a large C: drive).
https://github.com/zaps166/QMPlay2/releases/download/23.10.22/QMPlay2-Win64-23.10.22.exe

But I'll put the portable on the laptop (which has to be in the D: drive).
https://github.com/zaps166/QMPlay2/releases/download/23.10.22/QMPlay2-Win64-23.10.22-portable.7z

On the desktop I went to the
QMPlay2: Playlist -> Add -> Address (and pasted in a YouTube URL).
https://youtu.be/ox1Cy9BGxVU

It downloaded the youtube-dl (which I had thought was deprecated).
And then it played the youtube video (probably after downloading it).

I then tried to feed QMPlay2 a short youtube playlist saved to urls.txt
QMPlay2: Playlist -> Load list (but it only sees pls,m3u,m3u8,xspf files)

urls.txt
https://youtu.be/57gqD_nPeaw
https://youtu.be/OLL2grYoE8o
https://youtu.be/HOZ-KrHgU4c

I tried to load the text file using QMPlay2: Playlist -> Add -> Files
but that failed. Then I tried QMPlay2: Playlist -> Add -> Address (and then
pasted in that set of YouTube URLs each separated only by a space) which
seemed to work at first but it only played the first video & nothing else.

So I went back to QMPlay2: Playlist -> Add -> Address (and added the
youtube URLs one by one) but again it only played the first in the list.

Later on I realized you have to "Enqueue" the playlist.
QMPlay2: Playlist -> Enqueue

But by then I had saved the playlist using QMPlay2: Playlist -> Save list
urls.m3u
#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:213,"Remember playback position" in QMPlay2
YouTube://{https://youtu.be/57gqD_nPeaw}
#EXTINF:202,How to install QMPlay2 5.6.3 on Ubuntu 18.04
YouTube://{https://youtu.be/OLL2grYoE8o}
#EXTINF:90,How to install QMPlay2 on Ubuntu
YouTube://{https://youtu.be/HOZ-KrHgU4c}

urls.m3u8
#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:213,"Remember playback position" in QMPlay2
YouTube://{https://youtu.be/57gqD_nPeaw}
#EXTINF:202,How to install QMPlay2 5.6.3 on Ubuntu 18.04
YouTube://{https://youtu.be/OLL2grYoE8o}
#EXTINF:90,How to install QMPlay2 on Ubuntu
YouTube://{https://youtu.be/HOZ-KrHgU4c}

urls.pls
[playlist]
NumberOfEntries=3
File1=YouTube://{https://youtu.be/57gqD_nPeaw}
Title1="Remember playback position" in QMPlay2
Length1=213
QMPlay_length1=212.981
File2=YouTube://{https://youtu.be/OLL2grYoE8o}
Title2=How to install QMPlay2 5.6.3 on Ubuntu 18.04
Length2=202
QMPlay_length2=202.081
File3=YouTube://{https://youtu.be/HOZ-KrHgU4c}
Title3=How to install QMPlay2 on Ubuntu
Length3=90
QMPlay_length3=89.981
QMPlay_flags3=1

urls.xspf
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<playlist>
<trackList>
<track>

<location>YouTube://{https://youtu.be/57gqD_nPeaw}</location>
<title>&quot;Remember playback position&quot; in
QMPlay2</title>
<duration>212981</duration>
</track>
<track>

<location>YouTube://{https://youtu.be/OLL2grYoE8o}</location>
<title>How to install QMPlay2 5.6.3 on Ubuntu
18.04</title>
<duration>202081</duration>
</track>
<track>

<location>YouTube://{https://youtu.be/HOZ-KrHgU4c}</location>
<title>How to install QMPlay2 on Ubuntu</title>
<duration>89981</duration>
<extension application="QMPlay2">
<f>1</f>
</extension>
</track>
</trackList>
</playlist>

I will copy those over to my laptop to see if/how they play overnight.

Thanks to Joerg Walther for the QMPlay2 suggestion, which will take as an
input the youtube URL and it downloads and plays the files in that list.

Patrick wrote:

>I will copy those over to my laptop to see if/how they play overnight.
>
>Thanks to Joerg Walther for the QMPlay2 suggestion, which will take as an
>input the youtube URL and it downloads and plays the files in that list.

You are welcome, and as I said, I only stumbled upon this and didn't
have the time to fully test every detail, but it looks promising.

-jw-

--

And now for something completely different...

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