Opening YT videos with mpv:// with mpv and yt-dlp? (Mac OSX)

[mckenna654]

Hi,

I'm looking to run YT videos through mpv via mpv:// url in safari.

So far I have the mpv binary installed in /Applications and yt-dlp installed in ~/.local and added to $PATH.

When I attempt mpv://(url) I'm prompted by safari to open mpv which then makes mpv "jig" but doesn't open.

Has anyone achieved this?

[Akemi]

you have to url encode the url after mpv://. encodeURIComponent() in js for example.

[mckenna654]

Right, so this has to be done with a script of some sort?

[Akemi]

example url: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/4FJC4mhE9fk
url encoded/percent encoded turns to: https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fshorts%2F4FJC4mhE9fk
mpv:// url: mpv://https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fshorts%2F4FJC4mhE9fk

[Akemi]

i don't know what you are trying to attempt. if you generate the mpv:// url you have to url encode/percent encode the url before you concatenate it to the mpv:// protocol. whether you have to do that via a script or by other means in your case, i can't tell you.

[mckenna654]

I'm essentially trying to have mpv open and play web videos that have a mpv:// custom scheme url. So for example if a web page plays mpv://{video URL} it will output to mpv.

I've got it working on windows via a regex, looking to get it working on Mac OSX. Would AI be my best bet for writing the script?

[Akemi]

i get the general use case, that doesn't explain what you are trying to do. in what kind of environment are you? where do you try what? the mpv:// protocol works as expected on macOS, i tried it and can confirm.

"via regex" doesn't tell me much. regex is a regular expression, it's a concept how to match a sequence of characters. a regex can be executed in different environments (javascript, python, swift, etc). without an environment, to execute it, a regex is just a 'plain string'. usually a regex is used to match/search, replace or split a string. which is for now completely out of the scope of the problem discussed here.

for example, if you try to create a browser extension and we assume your environment runs in javascript, you could just do:

url = window.location.href;
"mpv://" + encodeURIComponent(url);

line 1: gets the url from the current tab.
line 2: generates the url needed for a browser to properly open mpv and send the url to it for playing.

that's nothing you need an AI for, it's just understanding the problem and 1 line of code.

sry i don't think your problem lies with mpv but what you are trying to attempt outside of mpv, and this is not in scope of what our discussions are meant for.