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**Lerura** · Sep 20, 2010, 06:56 PM

Nice Work!

But I am quite sure that this is against YouTube's TOS:
4.C. says:
"You agree not to access Content through any technology or means other than the video playback pages of the Service itself, the Embeddable Player, or other explicitly authorized means YouTube may designate."

**chump2877** · Sep 20, 2010, 09:47 PM

Good point, and you are certainly correct to bring that up.

I suppose if using some regex to scrape the HTML of YouTube's public pages is a crime, then my script is guilty as charged. (*Trying not to roll my eyes at corporate bureaucracy*)

So the conclusion that I draw here is that, if you use my app in production, on the internet and/or for commercial gain, you'll need to get the explicit written consent/authorization of YouTube first.

In lieu of that, I presume that YouTube authorizes use of it's own API to gain access to its videos repository: http://www.youtube.com/dev. (This is something that I just discovered 5 minutes ago, actually, and substantiates my proposed use of such an API for future versions of my code, as suggested in my original post...)

One can only hope that the large number of sites out there that advertise YouTube video-to-mp3 audio file conversion are using this API. Only YouTube knows for sure, if they even bother to check.

Nevertheless, thanks again for adding this disclaimer regarding use of my app here and for those that similarly endeavor to piggyback YouTube's web services in general.

**Lerura** · Sep 21, 2010, 01:10 PM

Originally posted by chump2877 View Post

(*Trying not to roll my eyes at corporate bureaucracy*)

Me too!

Looking at 5.C. versus www.youtube.com/dev:

It seems that they don't care THAT you use their files, but if, then want to control HOW you use them. *SIGH*

**chump2877** · Sep 23, 2010, 02:57 PM

I took a look at the YouTube API, and, unless I'm missing something, even it doesn't expose a method or property that gives the exact URL of a given YouTube FLV video. The API will give you all kinds of information about a video except for the FLV location. See the following URLs:

Use Cases and Code Snippets | YouTube Data API | Google Developers

http://code.google.com/apis/youtube/2.0/developers_guide_php.html#Retrieving_Video_Entry

500 Internal Server Error

http://framework.zend.com/apidoc/core/Zend_Gdata/YouTube/Zend_Gdata_YouTube_VideoEntry.html

I guess I'm disappointed, but not entirely surprised.

**chump2877** · Sep 26, 2010, 03:53 AM

Soon after posting my last message on this thread, I realized that the YouTube API does reveal a 3GP file URL for every YouTube video (albeit, presumably inadvertently). 3GP is a mobile device video file extension, for those of you that don't know. It's not FLV, but it is video.

So, with a viable video file source now available to me, I decided to give this video-to-MP3 audio conversion business another stab.

First, you'll need to get yourself a copy of the latest release of the Google Data Client Library, as that will provide you with the core classes required to manipulate the YouTube API. Download the ZIP archive, and unpack the contents to your web server, per the instructions detailed here. I put the files below the web root (for reasons outlined in my initial post of this thread), but let's put it directly in your project folder -- in the web root -- for the sake of simplicity.

Also, for this version of my app, I decided to nix the temporary download of videos in favor of using FFmpeg. I decided to let FFmpeg directly intercept the 3GP video stream and do the MP3 file conversion, all in one easy step. Thus, allowing FFmpeg to shoulder more of the work enables us to no longer need and ultimately delete the 'videos' folder I described in the set up of (for lack of a better name) 'MyApp 1.0' above...

So, again to help you visualize, in XAMPP, my UPDATED final directory structure appears as follows:

C:\xampp\htdocs\VideoToMp3Converter\GoogleDataClientLibrary
C:\xampp\htdocs\VideoToMp3Converter\mp3
C:\xampp\htdocs\VideoToMp3Converter\ffmpeg.exe
C:\xampp\htdocs\VideoToMp3Converter\index.php
C:\xampp\htdocs\VideoToMp3Converter\YouTubeToMp3Converter.class.php

The 'GoogleDataClientLibrary' directory contains the same directory structure as the unzipped API distribution:

C:\xampp\htdocs\VideoToMp3Converter\GoogleDataClientLibrary\demos
C:\xampp\htdocs\VideoToMp3Converter\GoogleDataClientLibrary\documentation
C:\xampp\htdocs\VideoToMp3Converter\GoogleDataClientLibrary\library
C:\xampp\htdocs\VideoToMp3Converter\GoogleDataClientLibrary\tests
C:\xampp\htdocs\VideoToMp3Converter\GoogleDataClientLibrary\INSTALL.txt
C:\xampp\htdocs\VideoToMp3Converter\GoogleDataClientLibrary\LICENSE.txt
C:\xampp\htdocs\VideoToMp3Converter\GoogleDataClientLibrary\README.txt

You only really need the /library/ directory (as that is where you will tell PHP to look for the API files), but I included the rest of the files for the sake of future reference.

With your new directory structure in place, it's time to look at the new versions of the converter class (YouTubeToMp3Converter.class.php) and example implementation (index.php) (both located in your web root project directory). See below for both files:

YouTubeToMp3Converter.new.class.php

PHP Code:


<?php

    set_include_path(get_include_path() . PATH_SEPARATOR . dirname(dirname(dirname(__FILE__))).'\GoogleDataClientLibrary\library');

    require_once 'Zend/Loader.php';



    // Conversion Class

    class YouTubeToMp3Converter

    {

        // Private Fields

        private $_songFileName = '';

        private $_vidUrls = array();

        private $_audioQualities = array(64, 128, 160);



        // Constants

        const _SONGFILEDIR = 'mp3/';

        const _FFMPEG = 'ffmpeg.exe';

        

        #region Public Methods

        function __construct()

        {

        }

        

        function ConvertVideo($youTubeUrl, $audioQuality)

        {

            $videoEntry = $this->CreateVideoEntry($youTubeUrl);

            if ($videoEntry != null)

            {

                $this->SetVidUrls($videoEntry);

                $this->SetSongFileName($videoEntry->getVideoTitle());

                return ($this->GetSongFileName() != '' && $this->GetVidUrls() != array()) ? $this->GenerateMP3($audioQuality) : false;

            }

            return false;

        } 

        

        function ExtractSongTrackName($youTubeUrl)

        {

            $videoEntry = $this->CreateVideoEntry($youTubeUrl);

            return ($videoEntry != null) ? $videoEntry->getVideoTitle() : '';

        }

        

        function ExtractVideoId($youTubeUrl)

        {

            $urlQueryStr = parse_url($youTubeUrl, PHP_URL_QUERY);

            if ($urlQueryStr !== false && !empty($urlQueryStr))

            {

                $kvPairs = explode('&', $urlQueryStr);

                foreach ($kvPairs as $v)

                {

                    $kvPair = explode('=', $v);

                    if (count($kvPair) == 2 && $kvPair[0] == 'v' && !empty($kvPair[1]))

                    {

                        return $kvPair[1];

                    }

                }

            }

            return '';

        }

        #endregion



        #region Private "Helper" Methods

        private function CreateVideoEntry($youTubeUrl)

        {

            $videoEntry = null;

            $vidID = $this->ExtractVideoId($youTubeUrl);

            if (!empty($vidID))

            {            

                Zend_Loader::loadClass('Zend_Gdata_YouTube');            

                $yt = new Zend_Gdata_YouTube();    

                try

                {

                    $videoEntry = $yt->getVideoEntry($vidID);

                }

                catch (Exception $e)

                {

                    $videoEntry = null;

                }

            }

            return $videoEntry;

        }

        

        private function GenerateMP3($audioQuality)

        {

            $qualities = $this->GetAudioQualities();

            $quality = (in_array($audioQuality, $qualities)) ? $audioQuality : $qualities[1];

            $vidUrls = $this->GetVidUrls();

            foreach ($vidUrls as $url)

            {

                exec(self::_FFMPEG.' -i '.$url.' -y -acodec libmp3lame -ab '.$quality.'k '.$this->GetSongFileName());

                if (is_file($this->GetSongFileName())) break;

            }

             return is_file($this->GetSongFileName());

        }        

        #endregion

        

        #region Properties

        public function GetSongFileName()

        {

            return $this->_songFileName;

        }        

        private function SetSongFileName($trackName)

        {

            $this->_songFileName = (!empty($trackName)) ? self::_SONGFILEDIR . preg_replace('/_{2,}/','_',preg_replace('/ /','_',preg_replace('/[^A-Za-z0-9 _-]/','',$trackName))) . '.mp3' : '';

        }



        public function GetVidUrls()

        {

            return $this->_vidUrls;

        }            

        private function SetVidUrls(Zend_Gdata_YouTube_VideoEntry $videoEntry)

        { 

            $urlArray = array();

            foreach ($videoEntry->mediaGroup->content as $content) 

            {

                if ($content->type === "video/3gpp") 

                {

                    $urlArray[] = $content->url;

                }

            }

            $this->_vidUrls = $urlArray;

        }

        

        public function GetAudioQualities()

        {

            return $this->_audioQualities;

        }

        #endregion    

    }    

?>

index.php

PHP Code:


<?php echo '<?xml version="1.1" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>'; ?>

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" 

"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">



<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en">

<head>

    <title>YouTube-To-Mp3 Converter</title>

    <style type="text/css">

        body

        {

            text-align:center;

            font:13px Verdana,Arial;

            margin-top:50px;

        }

        

        p

        {

            margin:15px 0;

            font-weight:bold;

        }

        

        form

        {

            width:450px;

            margin:0 auto;

            padding:15px;

            border:1px solid #ccc;

        }

        

        form input[type="text"]

        {

            width:385px;

        }

        

        form p

        {

            margin:10px 0;

            font-weight:normal;

        }

    </style>

</head>

<body>

    <h2>YouTube-To-Mp3 Converter</h2>

    <?php

        // Execution settings

        ini_set('max_execution_time',0);

        ini_set('display_errors',0);        

        

        // On form submission...

        if ($_POST['submit'])

        {

            // Instantiate converter class

            include 'YouTubeToMp3Converter.new.class.php';

            $converter = new YouTubeToMp3Converter();            

            

            // Print "please wait" message and preview image

            $vidID = $converter->ExtractVideoId(trim($_POST['youtubeURL']));

            if (!empty($vidID))

            {

                echo '<div id="preview" style="display:block"><p>...Please wait while I try to convert:</p>';

                echo '<p><img src="http://img.youtube.com/vi/'.$vidID.'/1.jpg" alt="preview image" /></p>';

                echo '<p>'.$converter->ExtractSongTrackName(trim($_POST['youtubeURL'])).'</p></div>';

                flush();

            }

            

            // Main Program Execution

            echo ($converter->ConvertVideo(trim($_POST['youtubeURL']), $_POST['quality'])) ? '<p>Success!</p>' : '<p>Error generating MP3 file!</p>';

        }

    ?>

    <form action="<?php echo $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']; ?>" method="post">

        <p>Enter a valid YouTube.com video URL:</p>

        <p><input type="text" name="youtubeURL" /></p>

        <p><i>(i.e., "<span style="color:red">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMpmI2F2cMs</span>")</i></p>

        <p style="margin-top:20px">Choose the audio quality (better quality results in larger files):</p>

        <p style="margin-bottom:25px"><input type="radio" value="64" name="quality" />Low &nbsp; <input type="radio" value="128" name="quality" checked="checked" />Medium &nbsp; <input type="radio" value="160" name="quality" />High</p>

        <p><input type="submit" name="submit" value="Create MP3 File" /></p>

    </form>

    <script type="text/javascript">

        window.onload = function()

        {

            if (document.getElementById('preview'))

            {

                document.getElementById('preview').style.display = 'none';

            }

        };

    </script>

</body>

</html>

Again, I'll mostly let you figure out how the code works. But I will say this:

You'll notice the code is shorter in this version (for you code efficiency purists) and there is no reliance on arbitrary regex patterns scraping the HTML source code to acquire video information. Instead I get my video data via the YouTube API. In fact, the only regex I use is to find the rtsp:// link of the 3GP file located inside a var_export() dump of a Zend_Gdata_YouTube_VideoEntry object (the object that represents all data pertaining to a given YouTube video using the API). Also, I'm no longer using cURL.

A few comments:

1) Seeing how I eliminated the need for a temporary video download directory in this version of my app, you might be wondering if it's possible to do the same for 'MyApp 1.0'. I think it might be possible, but I haven't tried it yet. It would entail grabbing the FLV url generated by YouTubeToMp3Converter::SetFlvUrl and placing that directly into the FFmpeg command executed in YouTubeToMp3Converter::GenerateMP3. The resulting code would look something like the following:

PHP Code:


$exec_string = self::_FFMPEG.' -i '.$this->GetFlvUrl().' -y -acodec libmp3lame -ab '.$quality.'k '.$this->GetSongFileName(); 

exec($exec_string);

Again, at this time, I don't know if this would work, but it would certainly simplify the code of 'MyApp 1.0'.

2) Obviously, removing the code's reliance on regex to scrape a video page's source code, in favor of acquiring the same data via the YoutTube API, makes my app virtually impervious to future YouTube.com updates and changes. At the very least, use of the API is a generally more reliable and long term solution to converting YouTube videos.

3) And with that said in #2, I have noticed some problems with manipulating the 3GP files exposed by the API:

- It seems that you can save YouTube 3GP files at a bit rate no higher than 160 kbps (using my app). Whether this is a fault of my app, a restriction imposed by YouTube, or a limitation of converting files with the .3gp extension, I cannot say for sure.

- Sometimes conversion of the YouTube supplied 3gp files will fail (using my app) because the rtsp:// links don't work. I'm inclined to think that this is a shortcoming of YouTube, and not some error in my code. In fact, the issue has been documented here, and the problem seems ongoing (as of today's date).

4) As I said earlier, I obtain the rtsp:// link (3GP file link) by digging around inside a dump of the API's Zend_Gdata_YouTube_VideoEntry object. From what I saw, the dump revealed "protected" as well as "public" class members. The 3GP link is a "protected" class value, and is therefore not conventionally exposed by the API. But the value is present in the var_export() dump of the object, and that is why I derive my 3GP file location in this way.

Well, there you have...Yet another way to accomplish the same end...Each way has its pros and its cons; ultimately, you have to decide what is best for you...

Again, I'm sure that any of my code could be improved, and I welcome your suggestions and feedback.

Have fun!

Edit: I completely missed the fact that the API does in fact expose the 3GP file location via conventional means...Ooops!....I'll have to fix that later...Apparently version 2.0 of my app is still a work-in-progress...

...Stay tuned for further updates to the code!

Edit: I have updated the code to take full advantage of the YouTube API...But I am having a lot of problems converting 3GP to MP3...In addition to faulty 3GP locations exposed by the API (as I noted earlier), it seems that, since 3GP is a mobile device media standard, audio track quality of 3GP files generally isn't the best...I noticed that, in my tests, YouTube's 3GP files are encoded using the AMR or AMR-NB audio codec, which doesn't transcode well to MP3 (libmp3lame in ffmpeg) according to this article, which contains the following excerpt:

"Many modern mobile telephone handsets will allow you to store short recordings in the AMR format, both open source and commercial programs exist (see Software support) to convert between this and other formats such as MP3, although it should be remembered that AMR is a speech format and is unlikely to give ideal results for other audio."

That's enough for me to throw my hands up in the air and quit on this second version of my app....You are more than welcome to try to make the second version work for you, and I'd love to know how you did it, but I'm going to have to settle for 'MyApp 1.0' for now, which still works beautifully, but unfortunately doesn't take advantage of the YouTube API.

**simwatts** · Nov 1, 2010, 11:42 PM

I just found something that is fast and uses no ffmpeg

I have found something here which I have tested and works incredibely fast. http://www.ngcoders.com/downloads/fr...nloader-script.

It is a free script just using Curl and PHP. It gives three options MP4, 3gp and flv. I want to try and get it to work with mp3, and was wondering if someone can take a look. I think just a little change similar to what you have done before with 3gp conversion could achieve this. I tried myself but I am just learning.

**chump2877** · Dec 22, 2010, 08:24 AM

Originally posted by einsteino

pls am having problem with ur youtube2mp3 app v1. each time i try to use it, i get an error message saying "Error downloading video!". i think am doing everything rite but i still cant get it to work rite. pls i would appreciate any tip u can offer me. thanx in anticipation.

Take a look at the DownloadVideo method in the class. If it returns false, then you get the error message you described. Many things could cause the method to return false.

The first thing I would do is comment out this line:

ini_set('display_errors',0);

...to see what PHP errors you are getting, if any.

Also, I would prefer it that you ask your questions within the forum post itself. Chances are that you are not the only person who has had such a problem, so others could benefit from hearing your questions and my responses.

I took the liberty of posting your original message in the forum thread dedicated to this topic.

**talooz** · Jan 21, 2011, 09:27 AM

hide the ffmpeg output

Hi, i used your code and translated it to Hebrew..
I couldn't hide the FFMPEG output text and instead put a nice loading animation... I tried with the ffmpeg documentation and didnt find nothing...

can you help and publish the change for it?

thanks,
Tal

**chump2877** · Jan 21, 2011, 10:07 AM

Originally posted by talooz View Post

Hi, i used your code and translated it to Hebrew..
I couldn't hide the FFMPEG output text and instead put a nice loading animation... I tried with the ffmpeg documentation and didnt find nothing...

can you help and publish the change for it?

thanks,
Tal

Can you explain what you mean by "FFMPEG output text"? Maybe provide a screen shot or something?

**talooz** · Jan 21, 2011, 10:23 AM

screenshot

^^this is it - don't mind the hebrew part it's the download link

http://www.tubeit.co.il/converter/

**chump2877** · Jan 21, 2011, 11:33 AM

Hi, I just downloaded the latest static build of FFMPEG, and I have no problems running the app (nothing like the screen shot you provided)...

I downloaded the Jan 17 2011 build here: http://ffmpeg.arrozcru.org/autobuild...ingw32/static/

Which version of FFMPEG did you download? What kind of system are you running FFMPEG on?

**talooz** · Jan 21, 2011, 12:01 PM

hey,
I replaced the FFMPEG file and it still shows the output text..
The first one i used was the one published first in this topic

I'm running the site under a Windows server with Plesk
php 5.2.5 as CGI application
i have full control for the server so i can change anything if necessary..

**chump2877** · Jan 21, 2011, 01:53 PM

Well I'm currently running this script on the latest version of XAMPP on a Windows 7 Pro 64-bit machine. I've also used it in XAMPP on my older Windows XP Pro 32-bit machine. No problems either way.

You may want to compare your server's configuration to the settings inside XAMPP (Apache and PHP settings). I've only tested this script inside of XAMPP.

I did have to enable the PHP cURL extension in the php.ini for the XAMPP installation, but I don't think that will solve your particular issue here.

Good luck with this. Sorry I can't help more -- but I am unable to reproduce the issue. If you figure out what the problem is, it would be great if you could report back here with a solution. Others with a similar server setup like your own would certainly benefit from it.

**talooz** · Jan 21, 2011, 02:49 PM

I will keep trying to solve this
if i will find a way i will publish it here...

Thanks anyways.. awesome script!

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YouTube-to-MP3 conversion - PHP class and script

YouTube-to-MP3 conversion - PHP class and script

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