Twitch.tv playlist parser

VLC Playlist Parsers https://gist.github.com/stefansundin/c200324149bb00001fef5a252a120fc2

Score 70%

Description:

Twitch.tv playlist parser

Install:
1. I have included a client_id in this script. If it gets blocked in the future, you can generate your own client at https://www.twitch.tv/settings/connections and put it in the file.
2. Put the file in the lua/playlist/ directory:
- On Windows: %APPDATA%/vlc/lua/playlist/
- On Mac: $HOME/Library/Application Support/org.videolan.vlc/lua/playlist/
- On Linux: ~/.local/share/vlc/lua/playlist/
To install the addon for all users, put the file here instead:
- On Windows: C:/Program Files (x86)/VideoLAN/VLC/lua/playlist/
- On Mac: /Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/share/lua/playlist/
- On Linux: /usr/lib/vlc/lua/playlist/
3. Open a twitch.tv url using "Open Network Stream..."

Download and install with one command on Mac:
curl -o "$HOME/Library/Application Support/org.videolan.vlc/lua/playlist/twitch.lua" https://gist.githubusercontent.com/stefansundin/c200324149bb00001fef5a252a120fc2/raw/twitch.lua

Download and install with one command on Linux:
curl -o ~/.local/share/vlc/lua/playlist/twitch.lua https://gist.githubusercontent.com/stefansundin/c200324149bb00001fef5a252a120fc2/raw/twitch.lua

Features:
- Load up a channel url and watch live
- Load an archived video url
- Load https://www.twitch.tv/ and get the list of featured streams
- Load Twitch Clips.

If you are experiencing issues with VLC (e.g. seeking), I suggest that you experiment with nightly builds of VLC 3.0. You can find them here: https://nightlies.videolan.org/

In order to load VODs with a timestamp in the url (e.g. ?t=1h10m10s), then you must also install the Twitch.tv extension from here: https://gist.githubusercontent.com/stefansundin/c200324149bb00001fef5a252a120fc2/raw/twitch-extension.lua
Note that this extension must be activated in the VLC menu each time VLC is started (if you know of a workaround for this, please let me know in the comments below).
The extension is very new, but might be uploaded here in the future.

If you like this addon, please click the [+] in the top right corner. If you have any issues, please report them in the comments below. Thank you!

Note: I expect this addon to stop working around Feb. 14, 2018. This is because Twitch will be changing the default API version at that time. I will try my best to submit a fixed version as soon as I can, but please be patient. :)

Enjoy!!

Last changelog:

v0.0.5 24 days ago

Fix a couple of minor issues.

mp176
2 months ago

Awesome. Thanks for this addon. I so wanted this one. Thanks again!

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lib2k
2 months ago

Works great!
Is it possible to parse a link with start time variable?
If I use https://www.twitch.tv/videos/xxxxxxx?t=02h10m15s it still streams from the very beginning instead of the specified time.
Follow up question: is it possible to display the proper time on the seekbar in VLC or will it always stay at 0=:00 when streaming?

Thanks!

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stefansundin
2 months ago

It seems like it should be possible, by setting a playlist option called "start-time", but I just tried it and it doesn't seem to work. I think VLC doesn't remember it when it goes out to read the m3u8 playlist file. I can't get it to work, sorry.
If you try one of the recent nightlies for VLC 3.0, you can actually see the time remaining. Seeking is still not that great though. I tried version "vlc-3.0.0-20170426-0444-git" on Mac, and I could see the time there. The nightlies are a bit in flux, some versions work very badly while some work better. You might have to test around a bit. Go to nightlies.videolan.org to find a build.
Thanks for the comment!

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lib2k
2 months ago

I tried using the start-time option but had the same result, it would play back from the start.
Streaming an 8h long video and trying to guess where the 6:15 mark is or so, on top of the caching each time you switch the position on the seek bar, is really tedious. At least with the time being displayed it is a huge improvement over vanilla builds. I will definitely give nightlies a try. Thank you!

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stefansundin
2 months ago

Good news! I got it to work by also making a VLC extension. The extension will be notified when you open an input, and if it's a twitch.tv URL with a timestamp, it will seek to that position for you. Compared to manual seeking it is very precise, almost as good as the web player.
So if you want to use this then you need both this playlist parser installed and the extension. Unfortunately you must activate the extension each time you start VLC (I have not found a workaround for this yet).

Get the extension here: https://gist.github.com/stefansundin/c200324149bb00001fef5a252a120fc2#file-twitch-extension-lua

Let me know what you think. :-)

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lib2k
2 months ago

Two things I realized and now kinda feel stupid for requesting it.

1. Most VOD streams don't broadcast the video in one huge chunk but rather a bunch of individual segments (caching - how did I even forget about that?). Twitch.tv in particular has it's own technique, which makes it a bit more complex since the VLC seeker utilizes linear extrapolation of the bandwidth to determine the exact time mark.

2. Due to VLC's implementation it is mostly a guess game. Nightly builds seem to help a bit but more than often it will just glitch and either not display the time properly or not at all.

Really appreciate the effort but I think there is only so much you can do without official support. As far as I can tell it is not very high on the list, been neglected for years and might be a long time until we see these changes in a stable build let alone a proper implementation. Nonetheless thanks a bunch, learned something from this.

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stefansundin
2 months ago

The extension worked really well for me, and seeked within a few seconds of where the web player started playing. The only annoying part is that I have to activate it each time I start VLC.

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