Streaming Youtube videos with URL

[Selected1]

Hello, I am very new to this program and streaming music in general. Please forgive me if this is a common question as I am quite clueless at the moment. In WinAmp under File there is a choice for "Play URL" if I click this and enter a youtube url and click play. It says error connecting to server. Is there a way to get this to work?

I would like to be able to pull up a song on Youtube just by using the URL?

Thank you so much for your understanding and patience.

[DJ Egg]

You'll need to use the direct link to the actual video, not the youtube page url.
You'll also probably need the x.263 decoder (f263.w5s) from the old Winamp Essentials Pack (5.7 beta or 5.65), if you can find it somewhere on some external site (the EP is not officially available at the moment).
If you do find it, then just install the 2 decoders, not any of the plugins, because the 5.65 versions are incompatible with 5.666

[Selected1]

Wow. Sounds like a different language to me. Where would I retrieve the direct link to the video? Also, I googled the Winamp 5.65 Essentials Pack and found the forum post about the update so I installed that. Thank you for your reply.

[Koopa]

Uninstall the essentials pack.

It's not compatible with Winamp 5.666.

The f263.w5s file is part of Winamp now, so the old version from the essentials pack is obsolete.

So re-run the Winamp installer and make sure, that you've checked all video support.

[DJ Egg]

Ohhh. That's what I get for replying at 5:30am
I'd forgotten that f263.w5s is now included with release builds. Is that right? It used to be just beta builds & EP only.
Hmm, ok, fair enough. My bad.

As for using the actual video url....

What browser are you using?

If Firefox, you can install the Download Flash and Video add-on

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/download-flash-and-video/

Then when on the youtube page, click the add-on's icon in the bottom right
and right-click on the FLV item in the list
and select "Copy URL to clipboard"

Then paste that URL into Winamp's open/add URL dialog
and add &=.flv to the end
(so Winamp knows to use the FLV Decoder for playback)

Example

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bpzxf_flm8M

Direct link to FLV

http://r2---sn-cu-n1qe.googlevideo.com/videoplayback?sver=3&burst=40&itag=5&mt=1387466079&ipbits=0&factor=1.25&key=yt5&ip=86.147.28.158&ms=au&upn=vv3dfCeyM2c&sparams=algorithm%2Cburst%2Cfactor%2Cid%2Cip%2Cipbits%2Citag%2Csource%2Cupn%2Cexpire&source=youtube&expire=1387489078&fexp=931946%2 C938628%2C939920%2C916626%2C902544%2C909717%2C924616%2C932295%2C936912%2C936910%2C923305%2C936913%2C907231%2C907240%2C921090&id=069cf17ff7e59bc3&mv=m&algorithm=throttle-factor&signature=B07023AFE486F9AA314F0F81CA28293C7165EBD1.971A78E89CA61EABCD0A99BC8ECAD795848282FF&=.flv

Or if you've got Winamp Pro, you can use the MP4 link instead (which is encoded with the H.264 codec instead of H.263 - but H.264 is a Winamp Pro feature)

Direct link to MP4

http://r2---sn-cu-n1qe.googlevideo.com/videoplayback?ratebypass=yes&sver=3&itag=18&mt=1387466079&ipbits=0&key=yt5&ip=86.147.28.158&ms=au&upn=vv3dfCeyM2c&sparams=id%2Cip%2Cipbits%2Citag%2Cratebypass%2Csource%2Cupn%2Cexpire&source=youtube&expire=1387489078&fexp=931946%2C938628%2C939920%2C91 6626%2C902544%2C909717%2C924616%2C932295%2C936912%2C936910%2C923305%2C936913%2C907231%2C907240%2C921090&id=069cf17ff7e59bc3&mv=m&signature=B6977E57898E696E82F0DB2DBC7514057F2C808F.95D98B8DB586357A66A54D68D77C48FAE0B019CF&=.mp4

Note how I've added &=.mp4 to the end of the url, so Winamp knows to use the MP4 Demuxer

Yes, it's a bit tricky, but that's basically the only way to do it....

[Selected1]

I am in Chrome. Is your post still relevant?

[DJ Egg]

You will need to find some kind of equivalent video url scraper/downloader add-on for Chrome.

[Victhor]

OMG.. I didn´t knew that could be done.. an improved feature of this would be amazing (IE copying just URL, or recognizing youtube´s playlists..).

Anyway, I´ll note this down to my wishlist / to do for when I finally learn programming.. (¿?)

[Victhor]

[Little update]
An alternative for the Addon Egg pointed to: http://en.savefrom.net/

Just copy and paste the youtube link into the download bar and hit Download. It will take you to a page where you'll find (on the right side) all the direct links for each video quality.

PS: It also works with Vimeo (which lead me to think that if you can get the direct link, Winamp will play any web-video...).

[sunk818]

youtube-dl is free and will download YouTube videos as MP4 by default. Winamp can play an MP4 file easily.

[Victhor]

09/2015 update: The video scraper I suggested before is not working as expected. As suggested here, this one serves our purpose now: http://keepvid.com/
(for the mp4 always select the 1st or 2nd link of the results page)

[officially4h]

Use tubemate to download video from youtube.