adding YouTube channels and playlists to SageTV

[wubdich]

I managed to add some YouTube channels and playlists to the online section of SageTV. Maybee this is useful for someone else - i could'nt find any related posting in this forum.

Use the following URLs in CustomOnlineVideoLink.properties to add a YouTube channel to SageTV:

http://www.youtube.com/rss/user/<userid>/feed.rss

use the following URL to add a Youtube playlist to SageTV:

http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/playlists/<playlistid>?alt=rss

[MrE]

Not sure what I'm doing wrong, but it didn't work for me.

If I wanted to add the channel for user Britec09, how would code look?

Thanks.

[wubdich]

Sorry - hostname in URL for YoutTube channel was wrong and is corrected now in the above posting

To answer your question completly:
-> edit CustomOnlineVideosLinks.properties in ../SageTV/SageTV/STVs/SageTV7/OnlineVideos
-> check line starting with "CustomSources=" it should look similar like this

CustomSources=xPodcastVideo,xPodcastAudio

you can define your own additional categories here. They have to start with "xPodcast".
-> add following line at the end of CustomOnlineVideosLinks.properties using one of the defined categories:

xFeedPodcastCustom/Britec09=xPodcastVideo;http://www.youtube.com/rss/user/Britec09/feed.rss

(URL for RSS feed (e.g. http://www.youtube.com/rss/user/Britec09/feed.rss) can be validated by entering in browser

[MrE]

Thanks, works great!

Is there a way to get a unique image for each channel to use as the "ThumbURL" in the "CustomOnlineVideoUIText.properties" so they all wouldn't have just the standard YouTube logo?

[wubdich]

Originally Posted by MrE

Is there a way to get a unique image for each channel to use as the "ThumbURL" in the "CustomOnlineVideoUIText.properties" so they all wouldn't have just the standard YouTube logo?

I don't know a way to get the needed Image-URL via YoutTube-API so I simply grabbed the Image-URL which is referenced when searching a tube channel or on the channel homepage - see attached examples.

In case of Britec09 the URL is: https://yt3.ggpht.com/-CTcYtDU60LQ/A...k-no/photo.jpg

It's working without SSL as well and this is the way I used in CustomOnlineVideoUIText.properties:
http://yt3.ggpht.com/-CTcYtDU60LQ/AAAAAAAAAAI/AAAAAAAAAAA/VF-__almB54/s100-c-k-no/photo.jpg

[MrE]

Thanks again - great tips!

Glad you posted it 'cuz I've been trying to figure out how to do this (with Youtube channels).

[MrE]

Anyone know how to add the TekThing youtube channel to SageTV?

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6s...4mxnizvOroOvkQ

The TekThing channel doesn't seem to have a YouTube user ID, only a channel name.

[Thomas Wischgol]

Originally Posted by MrE

Anyone know how to add the TekThing youtube channel to SageTV?

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6s...4mxnizvOroOvkQ

The TekThing channel doesn't seem to have a YouTube user ID, only a channel name.

You can just use that channel name for the feed:
http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/base/...direct&alt=rss

[MrE]

Thanks!

The beginning of that url is different from what wubdich posted earlier in the thread. How did you find it?

[Thomas Wischgol]

I used a working feed I already had in my SagetV online video feeds. When you use that URL in firefox, YouTube turns this into this type of URL. I then just swapped the channel name in. For some reason using the simpler type of URL did not work for TekThing even though it works for other ones.

[Rob23]

All of my custom YouTube feeds stopped working today (had been working fine for as long as I can remember). I receive the following message in a new video at the top of each of my feeds:

"YouTube is upgrading to a newer version, which is not supported by this device or app. To learn more and see where you can watch YouTube, visit www.youtube.com/devicesupport"

Is anyone else experiencing this? Any workaround to get the feeds to work again?

[MrE]

That Youtube error video is also showing up in the default Youtube feed channel.

[Smiley]

It is also showing up in all searches, so it appears that Youtube is including it in all replies.

[pjpjpjpj]

Youtube redid their coding, I saw an article about how it broke on Google TV. That was the exact message that Google TV users receive.

I know... shocking that Sage's youtube integration would break when Google's does...

[MrE]

The format of the url for pulling RSS feeds has changed.

Youtube user Burlington SEO has some nice videos explaining the change:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWO3Yk-B3SM

Basically, there are 2 new ways to get an RSS Feed.

1) Channel ID RSS Feed:

https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=YOURCHANNELID

2) UserName RSS Feed:

https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?user=USERNAME

Unfortunately, the resulting XML is not in a format that SageTV can use (no visible video descriptions, or thumbnails, etc)
(but, the descriptions, thumbnails, etc are all listed in the xml page source)

Hopefully, someone can figure out how to solve this.