Playing a little bit more with PHP scripts and AmiTube, finally I got the direct download to work (via my server of course, because remember no shared SSL library like AmiSSL on AROS, and the wget is too old to connect to googles Youtube Server) and it works quite nicely… one disadvantage is of course that I have no way of knowing how big the file will be, the Youtube Server does not tell it so I cannot pass it on to the program, maybe must find an other display, at least how many is already downloaded? I will think about that. Nevertheless it works so more or Less I will go this way for next release.
Little video about the progress, this time shown on AROS:
Working on the direct download feature, it’s not that trivial as I thought. I tried the mplayer and wget function on AmigaOS4 and AROS and was not successful, the MPlayer does not support SSL and the WGet does support SSL but is too old (uses old encryption only). Basically the only system where this is working as it should is MorphOS, the one System where you actually do not need AmiTube because you have two browsers available capable of browsing and watching YouTube directly on the page. This is annoying.
Allso there is a limitation of the command line to be 255 chars long, the URL from YouTube is already longer than that (many GET options), seems MorphOS raised that limit (or it would not work)
So whats my options then.
I could use a shared SSL library like AmiSSL to let AmiTube directly download the stuff from YouTube
I did already the basic work for that top be possible, no change of AmiTube needed for that
AmiSSL only exists for AmigaOS3 and AmigaOS4
No AROS version and no replacement. Questions about it are rudely rejected, because of reasons. No replacement for it, only the standard static-C linklib, does not work in FreePascal atm.
No MorphOS version and no replacement, ok you can just install the 68k Version, so thats good, but MorphOS was never the problem.
Could (again) make a wrapper on my server to download or forward the requests
Works for all systems, download directly from my server with AmiTube
I need to learn more PHP 😉 as far as I understand downloading with AmiTube would be possible but not MPlayer playing directly from it (not tried though)
Again more load and space needed on the Server
just let it like it is, force the AROS and Amiga guys to updated the stuff
will not happen, or there would be a modern Browser or a shared SSL.library on all Platforms available 😉
As I wrote before, It makes not much sense to use AmiTube on NG Amigas because the could in principle just use the original movie files without conversation. I started to work on this a bit.
On the first picture it’s AmiTube in the back with the new Button „Get Original“ (better name needed 😉 ) which opens a new window. There you can select one of the available resolutions () and formats (should print more there about the codecs maybe). Then when an entry is chosen and „Download to HD“ is pressed it invokes wget to actually get the movie directly from YouTube. A classical YouTube downloader then. (I saved it to ram and used MPlayer to see if the file is ok)
The second try was to directly stream the movie from YouTube, that would be even more cool, it first failed because my MPlayer had no SSL build-in, but a new one (1.4) has, so now that works as well.
So I guess that works somehow, I will play around a bit with it, maybe it will make it to next release. Then it would make a lot of sense to release a MorphOS and AmigaOS4 version I guess, as YT downloader.
A new Version of AmiTube is ready for release, most important changes are the localization (only german until now, but more to come) and preview icons, which makes it much easier to decide if a movie worth downloading.
Full Changes list:
Preview Icons
Localization (german included)
Preview Icons (need jpg Datatype)
All formats Download buttons on main gui
Check for Free space on HD, warn before downloading if not enough space
Icon tooltype MOVIEDIR to set directory for movies
the next Version of AmiTube will give the choice which format you want your youtube video converted to, here are the specs for each format and an estimated size for a 30 seconds video:
standard CDXL Video 160px 32 colors 12 fps Audio: mono 11040 kHz 8 bit; for OCS Amiga (e.g. 4.4 Mbyte)
enhanced CDXL Video 160px 256 colors 12 fps Audio: mono 11040 kHz 8 bit; for AGA Amiga (e.g. 8.8 MByte)
VCD MPEG1 Video 320px, 24 bit colors 24 fps, Audio: stereo 44100 kHz 16 bit; for fast RTG Amigas (e.g. 5.0 Mbyte)
One can easily see, how the quality increases which each setting and how much better MPEG1 is in comparison with CDXL, but of course for a standard Amiga such Video CD MPEG1 is much too slow to play and thats the power of CDXL to play even on such slow hardware.
Just to finish that (for me the program and services around are now more or less finished) I will publish this AmiTube program which you can use to watch short YouTube videos on your ordinary Amiga 68k.
As one can notice in the last video I changed my setup from MultiView to AGABlaster, which is much better to play the CDXL videos, faster and smoother, also the palette switching works better. (you can change the default player in Preferences)
If you use that program, remember the conversation is done on my Server, please do not overdo it (try to convert a 2 hour video or convert hundreds of videos) other (and myself) need that Server for other things as well 😉
And please do not share or publish this program, anywhere! If one want to have it, here its free download it from my page. Thanks!
I tried the YoutTube client now on my real A1200 (with a 68060) and it works nicely, of course the network speed is much slower than that in UAE. But it’s still ok, not too long waiting times. (with that short videos). It depends very much on the video how good they look in 160 px width and only 32 colors, of course such Eric Schwartz videos are nice they had only very little colors. But I also found different ones like this „Seed“ looks very nice even so small.
I played around with different settings and noticed that not the conversation to CDXL is here the slow bit (its only 3-4 seconds, because it’s not HAM but just 32 colors) but the download speed from youtube. It seems that YouTube throttles downloads of the movies… hmm of course they want you to force to watch them on the page. But hey what can you do, it’s just for fun.
You thought it would be impossible to let an m68k Amiga play YouTube videos, you are surely mistaken, lets have a look:
You remember the CDXL stuff I showed before? Of course with that you can create a relatively low quality video from an YouTube video, and if you do that on a server and just download the converted video file you can watch youtube videos on your amiga.
The search and downloading is done via youtube_dl the conversation to CDXL using the docker container I showed earlier.
Sorry for the bad sound, but it seems to be my UAE setup is a bit strange in sound settings, never really used the sound there, also other sounds sounds a bit crackly. I should try that video on a real Amiga and with other players than Multiview to see, or better hear, if its better, or the conversation is so weak.
I remember I had some problems with the sound in big bug bunny movie as well, the sound was not loud enough and the 8 bit conversation made it really bad.
