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S.R.
Asked: 2019-02-24 23:47:53 +0800 CST

How to play protected youtube videos in mpv?

  • 772

Mpv is not playing all video files from youtube anymore, even though youtube-dl has no problem downloading them. I've tried with streamlink+vlc and it says that the video is protected so it gave me the culprit and it is not a regional protection in question but something else I don't understand.

E.g. this clip is protected https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pdGn4r1lD0&list=PL4vbGURud_Hr1HgxK0lq6o-3sqoc0Rx6l&index=2&t=1480s

Is there some way to modify mpv.conf and configure youtube-dl to download such clips for viewing in mpv?

video youtube mpv-media-player

2 Answers

  1. Because you have youtube-dl installed, a possible workaround will be to stream the output of youtube-dl to the mpv player:

    youtube-dl -f best -o - "{youtube-video-url}" | mpv -

# with your video example:
youtube-dl -f best -o - "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pdGn4r1lD0" | mpv -
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  2. you can stream directly from youtube unto mpv by grepping direct video url

    mpv $(youtube-dl  -g  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pdGn4r1lD0 -f  '18')
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