Comments on: Constructing YouTube FLV URL on client-side without any server-side script

By: Z

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 03:15:54 +0000

Tryout http://youtubegrabit.com ... it works perfectly for all videos (including HD!)

By: Abdul Qabiz

Abdul Qabiz — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 15:07:34 +0000

Yup! YouTube has done changes so many times, they kept changing the ways. After a point, it was hard for me to keep track of it, hence no update in my script in long time.

I always promise to update it but can't, due to various other commitments. I am sure, there are a lot of folks who are taking care of it, i.e. always coming up with new ways to do things.

By: Name

Name — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 02:51:30 +0000

Since August 12 2009 Youtube has changed the htlm source code of their video web pages,,,so this old method doesnt work anymore…

Does somebody know how to build the the donwload url for the new youtube video pages format?

By: funkyjones

funkyjones — Tue, 19 May 2009 10:05:47 +0000

Seems like YouTube is working against this obviously, all new php scrips work for a while then they stop working.

By: Bora

Bora — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 06:33:27 +0000

Notice: Undefined offset: 1 in dm.php on line 77
This script is wrong! Anyone know working code?

By: Qaido

Qaido — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 21:02:53 +0000

comment obtenir l’url flv de youtube avec un script php

By: Laurent

Laurent — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 20:58:18 +0000

This technique to get the FLV URL indeed no longer work. You now have to load the swf web page and extract the parameters from there. I’ve posted the source code to do that on my blog:
http://pogopixels.com/blog/getting-the-url-of-a-youtube-flv-file-in-flash/

By: Abdul Qabiz

Abdul Qabiz — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 06:39:56 +0000

Hi Guys
Sorry for not responding to your comments, seems it’s time for an updated post for latest workaround.
I have been busy with many things, one of those is Chromeless AS3 Player (YouTube) Wrapper – It uses ExternalInterace or LocalConnection (both options would be there).
Once it’s ready, I would post it.
Thanks
-abdul

By: Alain Raap

Alain Raap — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 22:36:03 +0000

download the html page in as3 (www.youtube.com/watch?v=…..), search for swfargs= and split and decode the parameters behind this string, then you can compose the video-url again, it works on my site

By: Alain Raap

Alain Raap — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 22:33:11 +0000

use this way to call the video-url. First call http://www.youtube.com/watch?video, you should return the result in AS2/3 as a text (html), then search for the text swfargs = and decode the variables in this string, then you can rebuild the right url again, I’ve got it working on my own site

By: mincheol Lee

mincheol Lee — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 03:10:26 +0000

Hi!
Your blog helped me to develop Youtube widget player. Thank you!
As other people said, the url format had been changed. Does anyone find the new way of getting flv url?

By: owen

owen — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 22:54:27 +0000

Hmm… I’m trying to write a workaround for this right now. The AS3 chromeless API might work, as long as you don’t mind using the external interface controls for your embedded player.

By: Yes

Yes — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 20:26:07 +0000

Yes, youtube’s broken the “t=” method. Not sure how to resolve this. They’re saying that downloading videos breaks the “Terms of Service” agreement.

By: jean-marc

jean-marc — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 01:02:21 +0000

They changed the code on their server.
Even though I can get the t var and perform a GET on the get_video url, i get a 404 not found on the download.
But if I use a web browser and view the source, and manually extract the t variable, the download link works.
Maybe it’s something to do with cookies…

By: Brian

Brian — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 18:28:09 +0000

I have found a solution to this issue. Hopefully the following steps will work for you as well.

Get the URL to the clip you wish to load. This URL must be of the form http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMH0bHeiRNg. If you are getting the URLs from the standardfeeds url (http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/standardfeeds/), the URL to the clip is the media:player item
Load this URL and scan the source of the page for the "watch_fullscreen" URL. It will look something like this:
Â Â var fullscreenUrl = '/watch_fullscreen?fs=1...
Take everything after "watch_fullscreen?" and save it to a variable (we'll use params)
Generate your FLV url as follows:
Â Â finalURL = "http://www.youtube.com/get_video.php?" + params;

And there you go. Hope this works for you.