YoutubeDL plug-in for VLC

This stand-alone open-source plug-in for the VLC media player provides seamless integration with YT-DLP inside the VLC and LibVLC-based applications.

Important note

An improved variant of this plug-in is already integrated into the work-in-progress version 4.0 of VLC. As such in the future, it will no longer be necessary (or even possible) to install separately.

Installation

Run the following commands from the shell:

# sudo apt-get install gcc flex bison git libvlccore-dev yt-dlp
# git clone https://git.remlab.net/git/vlc-plugin-ytdl.git
# cd vlc-plugin-ytdl
# make
# sudo make install-strip

Note that by default VLC will favour its own Lua scripts over this module, if there is overlap (notably for YouTube.com). To use this module instead of Lua, you will probably have to erase the corresponding Lua script, e.g.:

# sudo rm /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/vlc/lua/playlist/youtube.luac

For more details, refer to the README within the source tree.

Note well

Any active VLC instance (or other LibVLC application) must be restarted to detect the newly installed plug-in.

Usage

The plug-in runs automatically whenever an HTTP or HTTPS URL is opened in the player. As an example, you can use Open Location from clipboard under the Media menu.