On Tue, 26 Dec 2023 20:37:49 -0600, VanguardLH wrote:
> Patrick <patrick@oleary.com> wrote:
>
>> There are 2 solutions there, one of which is this multiurl.bat batch file.
>> @echo off
>> for /F "eol=c tokens=1" %%i in (%1) do "C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" %%i
>> Which you run by issuing the Windows command "multiurl.bat urls.txt".
>
> I don't see that will pend video playing until the current video ends
> playing. There is no sequence.

You're right. I was too hopeful for Windows Firefox. So far I haven't found
a way to make Firefox play a locally stored youtube playlist in sequence.

> That opens a new window (or tab) for each entry in the input list.
> Again, that does not open 1 window to play 1 video and pend the next
> video playback until the current one completes.

You're right. There must be some other way to get Windows Firefox to
sequentially play a locally stored playlist containing a list of urls.

> You asked "to play in sequence". Opening multiple windows or tabs at
> the same time with each concurrently playing a video is not playing them
> "in sequence". To play in sequence means to start playing the 1st entry
> in the list until the video ends, and then start playing the 2nd video
> until it ends, and so on.

So far the only suggestion that plays a locally stored playlist file of
youtube urls in sequence was Carl Fink's VideoLan Client player suggestion.
https://get.videolan.org/vlc/3.0.20/win64/vlc-3.0.20-win64.exe
> Seems you need to compile a list of URLs to the videos to put in a file,
> and then feed that file to a local media player as its playlist. I see
> you tried that with VLC, but incurred errors in VLC finding the video
> stream source.

Everyone, not just me, will incur VLC lua errors but they're easily fixed.
https://thegeekpage.com/vlc-media-player-cannot-play-youtube-videos/

I started with a brand new VLC installation on my old HP Stream laptop.
https://mirror.rasanegar.com/videolan/vlc/3.0.20/win64/vlc-3.0.20-win64.exe

After installing the newest VLC on the D: drive (which is a flash sd card
because the HP Stream C drives are filled up with the Windows system), VLC
worked even without the youtube.lua file on some videos but not on others.
VLC: Media -> Open Network Stream -> https://youtu.be/rB_r2uhRu2Q

Which means even on a brand new VLC installation, you still should delete &
replace the VLC youtube.luac file with the downloaded youtube.lua file.
https://code.videolan.org/videolan/vlc/-/raw/master/share/lua/playlist/youtube.lua

After you replace the VLC\lua\playlist\youtube.luac file with the
downloaded youtube.lua file, VLC works /almost perfectly/ to play any set
of locally stored youtube url playlists in sequence all night long.

The only problem is it plays in full resolution which is OK on the desktop
but on the lousy processing power of the HP stream, it stutters too much.

> I just tried to copy some Youtube videos using jaksta Media Recorder.
> It captures the video stream to record it instead of having to play it
> in a web browser, or capture the screen or doc window in a web browser
> (which is screen capturing which results in also recording artifacts,
> like stalls, jitter, noise, ads, the mouse pointer moving across the
> screen, and so on). It could not capture any Youtube videos.

The VLC player seems to "capture" an automatic playlist which it can then
save in a variety of fancy formats which might solve some of the issues.

The VLC player has its own robust playlist function which I didn't try yet
so I'm hoping the hiccups can be solved when I start using that feature.
VLC: Media -> Save Playlist to File (xspf,m3u,m3u8,html) -> urls

One of those formats might even work with FF if it turns out that Windows
FF is capable of reading them to play youtube videos in sequence from it.

The problem I'm working on now is laptop specific, in that the HP Stream
hardware is so slow that default-sized youtube videos stutter on high res.

> When I visit, for example, https://youtu.be/uI_lssmBvyQ, and right click
> to use "Copy video URL", this is the URL it gives. After captured using
> jaksta Media Recorder, and looking at the properties of the captured
> video, it says the source for the video stream was an MP4 file at:
>
> https://rr1---sn-vgqsknse.googlevideo.com/videoplayback?(commands)

You are a good troubleshooter because that's exactly the kind of solution I
need to tell VLC on the HP Stream laptop to play youtube at low resolution.

I saw somewhere the way to set a lower youtube resolution may be to change
https://youtu.be/mcUu3SjYRtE
to add a low resolution command at the end of the url, which might be this
https://youtu.be/mcUu3SjYRtE&afmt=55

But I have to check that out so someone already knows how, let the rest of
us in on the secret as you want to set your options in the youtube url.

Otherwise VLC plays the video at full resolution all the time, which works
for my desktop but it is too much for the cheap HP Stream laptop to play.
https://youtu.be/l0CftKYeVXc (Auto is 480p according to this video)

That video shows how to use a Chrome extension to permanently set quality.
https://youtu.be/l0CftKYeVXc?t=75

The problem is the quality gear icon isn't in the VLC player anywhere,
but there is a caching setting set to 1000ms which I changed to 9000ms.

> Youtube doesn't let me use the source URL for the video stream, because
> Google doesn't want direct links. They want you to use their index
> pointers (i.e., the URLs they give you). You don't get to use their
> file. You get their pointer for streaming the file. The web browser,
> and jaksta, connect to the streaming source, but through the redirection
> Google gives you.

On a desktop, VLC works fine streaming this kind of default youtube URL.
https://youtu.be/TAhTttsQZ54

But on my very-low-end HP Stream hardware, a default youtube video stutters
too much at the default 480p resolution (which didn't happen in FF because
I was able to set it to low resolution inside the Firefox youtube web gui).

I first set the VLC cache to 9000ms but even that didn't stop stuttering.
VLC: Media -> Stream -> Network -> Show more options -> Caching -> 9000ms

What I need to look up is how to select low resolution in the youtube URL.

> For "in sequence" playback to work means the player has to pend loading
> subsequent videos until the current one completes. Seems you might need
> an add-on in the web browser to let you have it read from a list of URLs
> to play them in sequence, but that means installing the same add-on in
> every web browser on the other computers where you want to view the
> playlist.

Like many people, I dislike plugins/extensions as much as I dislike being
required to log into servers just to access a locally stored playlist file.

I think either Firefox or a Windows youtube player should be able to do
something as simple as sequence a set of video urls in a local file.

It's not like a playlist is something from Mars to a Firefox developer.
In my opinion, it should be as simple as "Firefox: File -> Open playlist".

I wouldn't be so hard on Firefox if there was a dedicated youtube player,
but if there was, there would never be a need to use FF for youtube.

> If you don't want to use a web browser add-on, there are apps that will
> let you specify a playlist, and play the URLs in the order you want. I
> suspect they use an entry in the URL list to open the web browser with
> that URL as the web browser's argument, and wait for the video top stop
> playing before going to the next URL in its input list. I don't and
> have not used any web browser add-ons to do sequential playback from a
> list of URLs in a file, so I cannot recommend any. Same for using
> external apps to read a file to load URLs sequentially in a web browser.

You are correct there is a de-facto youtube player on Windows, as I was
mostly successful using Carl Fink's VLC suggestion on the old HP Stream
laptop, which is essentially my all-night automatic youtube player.

VLC: Media -> Open File -> url.txt
Where url.txt is a locally stored text file of the form
https://youtu.be/sRn7WAGFlyg
https://youtu.be/vl780QrAdMU
https://youtu.be/kzlcq69yOLA

It works perfect on the more powerful desktop as the VideoLan Client player
is playing those videos in sequence in the default youtube resolution.

I need to add to the end of the youtube url the command to stream a lower
resolution which I saw somewhere is this cryptic command "&afmt=55".

But most others won't have that problem on better hardware which can handle
480p, but the fact that laptop isn't powerful is why it's my video player.

> Why not add the URLs to a bookmark folder (to group them together). You
> can export and import that bookmark folder. Then use the bookmark
> folder to select a URL in whatever order you want to watch. If you use
> Firefox Sync, that bookmark folder should show up under Bookmarks under
> your other instances of Firefox that sync to the same Mozilla account;
> however, since you expressed disgust at using a Google account to save a
> playlist to a Youtube account to access from other web browsers, you
> probably don't want a Mozilla account, either. In that case, export and
> import the bookmarks folder. That'll work with the same web browser,
> but you'll have a problem if exporting from Firefox to use in Chrome
> although exporting in HTML might resolve that issue.

I think we already have a solution for everyone on more powerful machine as
the Windows VLC player plays a locally stored url playlist sequentially.

I wonder if Firefox can read one of the locally stored playlist files that
the VLC player is capable of outputting from the VLC playlist menus?
VLC: Media -> Save Playlist to File (xspf,m3u,m3u8,html) -> urls

I would think Firefox should be able to read the same local playist as VLC.

> If you don't want to carry around a USB drive with the exported
> bookmarks folder, you could upload it at one host to download at another
> host. OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox, and so one can let you sync your
> cloud storage across computers, but you have to install their clients on
> each computer (that doesn't already have them), plus, again, you'll need
> accounts there to use their file storage/sync service.

There should be no reason that Windows software is designed that it only
works if you store all your files on a computer somewhere out there.

There's nothing so magical about a playlist file that it needs to be stored
on the Internet - where Firefox should be able to access a local file too.

The solution Carl Fink suggested will already work for most people as VLC
is effectively the de-facto Windows youtube player as far as I can tell.

My specific problem now (other than sharing that locally stored playlist
file among PCs on my own local network, which is a separate issue) is that
the hardware-starved HP Stream VLC is stuttering on the default resolution.

I think I can set lower quality if I can learn what the URL options are
where this worked but I have no idea what "fmt = 55" is telling VLC to do.
https://youtu.be/TAhTttsQZ54&afmt=55

Firefox has a setting in its internal youtube player to set it to low res
but I can't seem to get the resulting low-res url out of the Firefox GUI.