I am SO fed up with #youtube , their #ads, their so-called "bot protection", their #trackers , the almost obligation to create an account to slightly minimize #captcha ...

I used to download their vids with #ytdlp to watch them a bit more comfortably, but now I must play with their #cookies !

It would be OK that they safeguard THEIR content, but it is not!

#rant #enshittification #google

#Zenity is a bit of a winner for knocking together simple UIs. For ages I've been using a wrapper script around #ytdlp which determines the screen resolution of the computer it's running on, updates yt-dlp, then fetches the video supplied as an argument and streams it to #mpv.

However that's not very friendly for folks who share the media device on which the script is available, so I wrapped it in Zenity to present a friendly UI for either playing a previously-watched video, playing a new video (by URL), presenting a list of previously-watched videos, and providing a means to delete one or all previously-watched videos.

I've seen a few recommendations now for #Omniget downloader, e.g.

https://www.linuxlinks.com/omniget-download-media-other-files/

But all I ever get when I try to download something from #Youtube or #OKru is "Connecting to server..."

(And yes, I let it install the necessary extras: yt-dlp, ffmpeg IIRC)

Does anyone else have more luck with it?

FYI, same YT link that didn't work in Omniget downloading fine in #YTSage

#YTDLP

Small hack I’m using today:

Clipped the first 5 minutes of a YT video and converted it to MP3 using a simple `yt-dlp` batch script — a solid CLI tool for pulling and transforming online media.

Now streaming it via VLC to my Home speaker — a clean way to turn any video into a focused audio snippet.

YT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqrcxUqASQg

The audio being extracted is the Hanuman Chalisa — a short devotional recitation often used for focus, calm, and mental clarity.

Batch script (edit URL and timestamps, then run):

```bat
@echo off
set URL=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqrcxUqASQg
set START=00:00 :: clip start time (mm:ss)
set END=05:18 :: clip end time (mm:ss)

yt-dlp.exe ^
--download-sections "*%START%-%END%" ^ :: only download this segment
--force-keyframes-at-cuts ^ :: improves cut accuracy
-x --audio-format mp3 --audio-quality 0 ^:: extract best-quality MP3
-o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" ^ :: output filename
%URL%

pause
```

If you want to experiment:

* change timestamps to grab different sections
* try other formats (`wav`, `m4a`)
* feed playlists instead of single videos
* pipe output into VLC or automate casting

Another rabbit-hole to dive into, if inclined 🫣
https://cromwell-intl.com/technical/extract-mp3-audio-from-video.html

#HanumanChalisa #MantraChanting #MentalClarity #InnerPeace #Meditation #ytDLP #VLC