Long overdue update: v1.0.1, which you can find in the beta channel of plugin store.
To install from beta channel:
- Uninstall current version.
- Enable Plugins Test Mode in
http://<volumio address>/dev - Find the YouTube2 plugin in the plugin store. Click the Details button under it and choose latest beta version to install.
- Restart Volumio.
Like the YouTube Music plugin, this plugin uses a modified version of the YouTube.js library for content fetching and login. Credit goes to the developers of that library. If you like this plugin, consider sponsoring that project or giving it a star.
This is a major update which brings about the following changes (for better or worse - I hope better):
- Much simpler sign-in process (like YouTube Music plugin): no Google API credentials required.
- Much wider contents, mirroring as closely as possible those of YouTube website.
- Navigation probably needs getting used to, because where on YouTube (or any modern website) you get menus, tabs, in-page loading / refresh of contents, you have none of these in Volumio UI. The plugin tries to map these UI elements to the basic folder->file type navigation framework of Volumio.
- Browsing and playback of your saved playlists (not just created ones), private / unlisted videos, etc.
- Live stream support
Few things to note
- Playback follows YouTube behavior:
- When you click on a video that is not in a playlist, only that video is added to the queue and played. If you enable Autoplay, then when that video finishes the next one will get loaded into the queue.
- If you click on a Mix, then the first batch of videos in the Mix’s playlist will get loaded. After they have finished playing, and Autoplay is enabled, the plugin will load the next batch into the queue. Same for ‘Play All’ links.
- If you click on a video in a playlist, then all videos currently shown will be added to the queue. You can enable ‘Load full playlist’ in the plugin settings to show all playlist items on a single page (beware of extended loading times).
- Live streams:
- Live streams can take longer to load before playback starts.
- If you experience choppy playback, go to plugin settings and set ‘Live Stream Quality’ to a lower value (start with 144p or 240p). This is because, unlike regular tracks where only audio streams are fetched, live streams are fetched with audio + video. There is a lot more network traffic and overhead in processing. If ‘Live Stream Quality’ is set to ‘Auto’, then the player determines the best quality to use (adaptive bitrate) but sometimes it overestimates its capability. Note that with YouTube, lower quality usually refers to video resolution, so fetching a lower quality live stream does not necessarily mean worse SQ.
- If you stop playback of a live stream, the Stop button will change to the Play icon momentarily and then changes back to Stop even though playback has indeed stopped. This is not a bug in the plugin.
- Thumbnails, like previous versions, appear squashed. This is not a bug in the plugin. It’s a Volumio UI thing (assuming all album art covers have 1:1 square aspect ratio).
- I am thinking how to better present different types of media appearing on the same page (playlists, videos, live streams, channels, etc.), but probably won’t have a satisfactory solution.
- By default, the landing page of the plugin shows the contents of the expanded left hand side menu of YouTube website. If you have many playlists or subscriptions, the page might look cluttered. You can change ‘Landing page contents’ to ‘Simple’ to show only the primary entries.