Pafy lets you search for youtube videos and download them.
The Pafy site is on github (broken link); there you can download the library in zip or tar.gz format, or visit the project's git repository.
To install Pafy on Linux you can use easy_install or pip:
pip install PafyRun python:
ernesto@grievous:~$ python
Python 2.7.3 (default, Jan 2 2013, 13:56:14)
[GCC 4.7.2] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> Import Pafy:
>>> from pafy import PafyCreate the variable holding the video url:
>>> url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOZjaqHioro"Create the video instance:
>>> video = Pafy(url)Get the video title:
>>> video.title
u'Jimmy Fallon, Robin Thicke & The Roots Sing "Blurred Lines" (w/ Classroom Instruments)'The video rating and length:
>>> video.rating
4.9188302785
>>> video.length
214
Show the video metadata:
>>> print video
Title: Jimmy Fallon, Robin Thicke & The Roots Sing "Blurred Lines" (w/ Classroom Instruments)
Author: latenight
ID: YOZjaqHioro
Duration: 00:03:34
Rating: 4.9188302785
Views: 10459846
Thumbnail: https://i1.ytimg.com/vi/YOZjaqHioro/default.jpg
Keywords: Jimmy Fallon, Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, Late Night, NBC, NBC TV, Television, Funny, Talk Show, comedic, humor, stand-up, snl, Fallon Stand-up, Fallon monologue, latenight, jokes, funny video, interview, variety, comedy sketches, talent, celebrities, music, musical performance, The Roots, video, clip, highlight, talking, youtube, jimmy fallon & robin thicke, robin thicke, blurred lines, classroom instruments, late night music roomIt shows the video title, the author, the video ID, the duration, the rating, the number of times it has been viewed, and other information.
Show all the video formats and their resolution:
>>> streams = video.streams
>>> for s in streams: print s.resolution, s.extension
...
1080x1920 webm
1080x1920 mp4
720x1280 webm
720x1280 mp4
480x854 webm
480x854 flv
360x640 webm
360x640 flv
360x640 mp4
240x400 flv
320x240 3gp
144x176 3gp
Show all the formats, their resolution and the url to download them:
>>> for s in streams: print s.resolution, s.extension, s.url
...
1080x1920 webm http://r14---sn-ab5e6nll.c.youtube.com...
1080x1920 mp4 http://r14---sn-ab5e6nll.c.youtube.com...
720x1280 webm http://r14---sn-ab5e6nll.c.youtube.com...
720x1280 mp4 http://r14---sn-ab5e6nll.c.youtube.com...
480x854 webm http://r14---sn-ab5e6nll.c.youtube.com...
480x854 flv http://r14---sn-ab5e6nll.c.youtube.com...
360x640 webm http://r14---sn-ab5e6nll.c.youtube.com...
360x640 flv http://r14---sn-ab5e6nll.c.youtube.com...
360x640 mp4 http://r14---sn-ab5e6nll.c.youtube.com...
240x400 flv http://r14---sn-ab5e6nll.c.youtube.com...
320x240 3gp http://r14---sn-ab5e6nll.c.youtube.com...
144x176 3gp http://r14---sn-ab5e6nll.c.youtube.com...
Get the best resolution and its extension:
>>> best = video.getbest()
>>> best.resolution, best.extension
('1080x1920', 'webm')
Best resolution for a specific format:
>>> best = video.getbest(preftype="mp4")
>>> best.resolution, best.extension
('1080x1920', 'mp4')
Get the url to download the video:
>>> best.url
'http://r14---sn-ab5e6nll.c.youtube.com/videoplayback...'
Download the video with a name and into a predefined path:
>>> myfilename = "/home/ernesto/videos/" + "JimmtFallon" + "." + best.extension
>>> best.download(progress=False, filepath=myfilename)
-Downloading 'Jimmy Fallon, Robin Thicke & The Roots Sing "Blurred Lines" (w/ Classroom Instruments).webm' [157,236,345 Bytes]
DoneExit python:
>>> exit()
Verify that the file was downloaded:
ernesto@grievous:~/videos$ ls -l
total 153556
-rw-r--r-- 1 ernesto ernesto 157236345 sep 1 11:03 JimmtFallon.webm
Now you can run your preferred video player to watch the video.
The following figure shows a screenshot of the desktop while playing the video with VLC:
If you want to watch the video, here is the youtube link:
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