Twitch.tv playlist parser

Source: https://gist.github.com/stefansundin/c200324149bb00001fef5a252a120fc2

Score 68%

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..."

If you are using a Mac and have Homebrew installed, you can download and install with one Terminal command:
brew install --no-sandbox --HEAD stefansundin/tap/vlc-twitch

If you are using a Mac without Homebrew, you can still install with one command:
curl -o "$HOME/Library/Application Support/org.videolan.vlc/lua/playlist/twitch.lua" https://gist.githubusercontent.com/stefansundin/c200324149bb00001fef5a252a120fc2/raw/twitch.lua

On Linux, you can download and install with this command:
curl -o ~/.local/share/vlc/lua/playlist/twitch.lua https://gist.githubusercontent.com/stefansundin/c200324149bb00001fef5a252a120fc2/raw/twitch.lua

Features:
- Load up a channel and watch live, e.g.: https://www.twitch.tv/speedgaming
- Load an archived video, e.g.: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/113837699
- Load a collection, e.g.: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/137244955?collection=JAFNfSvAtxS25w
- Load a game and get the top streams, e.g.: https://www.twitch.tv/directory/game/Minecraft
- Load a game's archived videos, e.g.: https://www.twitch.tv/directory/game/Minecraft/videos/all
- Load a community and get the top streams, e.g.: https://www.twitch.tv/communities/speedrunning
- Load a channel's most recent videos, e.g.: https://www.twitch.tv/speedgaming/videos/all
- Load the homepage and get a list of featured streams: https://www.twitch.tv/
- Load Twitch Clips, e.g.: https://clips.twitch.tv/AmazonianKnottyLapwingSwiftRage
- Load a channel's clips, e.g.: https://www.twitch.tv/speedgaming/clips
- Load a game's clips, e.g.: https://www.twitch.tv/directory/game/Minecraft/clips
- Load the next page.

If you are experiencing issues (e.g. seeking), make sure that you are using VLC 3.0. You can also try nightlies: 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).

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 on Dec. 31, 2018. This is because API v3 will be deprecated at that time. I am not sure it will be possible to fix, but I will try my best.

Enjoy!!

Last changelog:

v0.1.2 14 days ago

Support for /directory/game/[name]/videos/[type].

bernicestockstill
5 months ago

Very interesting

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mp176
10 months ago

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

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lib2k
10 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
10 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
10 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
10 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
10 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
10 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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