It's the main way I watch youtube now. After Piped and Newpipe stopped working for me across all devices, I only use 2 methods of watching Youtube now. Open in mpv (which is configured to use yt-dlp in the backend to make things faster), and download using yt-dlp. So it's key to me keeping on watching Youtube. Recently, I've started getting ads showing up even on Mobile Vivaldi, so no more YT on my phone.

So my new workflow is to use Piped to find a video, then copy the end of the link and type "yt-dlp " in a terminal, wait for the video(s) to download, and open in mpv.

In some cases, use Qutebrowser, with a custom keybind to open a video in mpv.

[–] nore@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

So my new workflow is to use Piped to find a video, then copy the end of the link and type “yt-dlp ” in a terminal, wait for the video(s) to download, and open in mpv.

Why not just pass the YouTube link to mpv so you don't have to wait for the video to download?

[–] theshatterstone54@feddit.uk 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

I still have to wait a long time for the video to load in the Mpv cache, and sometimes I want a bunch of videos to watch later (or watch multiple times if they're educational). In which case, I either open up a bunch of videos in their own mpv windows and they all load while I'm watching the first one, or I download them while I'm doing something else.

But loading a bunch of mpv windows is heavier than a bunch of terminals running yt-dlp (and I could also just switch to using tmux.... which I probably should get around to at some point).

[–] nore@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I still have to wait a long time for the video to load in the Mpv cache

In my experience the video loads in a few seconds compared to the minutes it'd take for it to download, but I get your second point.

[–] gramgan@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 months ago

Depends on the options mpv passes to yt-dlp—I personally have in my mpv config to grab 720p videos, so that it’s faster than downloading full quality.

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