python - Capture YouTube video for further processing without downloading the video

4
votes

Given its link, I'd like to capture an online video (say from YouTube) for further processing without downloading it on the disk. What I mean by this is that I'd like to load it directly to memory whenever possible. According to these links:
http://answers.opencv.org/question/24012/reading-video-stream-from-ip-camera-in-opencv-java/#24013
http://answers.opencv.org/question/24154/how-to-using-opencv-api-get-web-video-stream/#24156
http://answers.opencv.org/question/133/how-do-i-access-an-ip-camera/
https://pypi.org/project/pafy/
it should be doable. My attempt looks like this: 

import cv2
import pafy

vid = pafy.new("https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuELiw8tbx8")
vid_cap = cv2.VideoCapture()
vid_cap.open(vid.getbest(preftype="webm").url)

However it fails with an error

(python:12925): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: 14:48:56.168: g_object_set: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
False

How can I achieve my goal using python?

4
pythonopencv

4 Answers

6
votes

You can achieve this by using youtube-dl and ffmpeg:

Once the installations are complete, it's time to test the youtube-dl in terminal. We'll be using this youtube video for testing.

First we get the list of formats available for this video:

youtube-dl --list-formats https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HECa3bAFAYk

Select a format code of your choice. I want the 144p resolution so I select 160.

image

Next we get the video url for our format of choice by:

youtube-dl --format 160 --get-url https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HECa3bAFAYk

https://r3---sn-4g5e6nz7.googlevideo.com/videoplayback?clen=184077&aitags=133%2C134%2C160%2C242%2C243%2C278&fvip=3&requiressl=yes&signature=5D21FFD906226C7680B26ACEF996B78B6A31F7C9.31B1115DB13F096AA5968DB2838E22A0D6A2EDCB&source=youtube&mn=sn-4g5e6nz7%2Csn-h0jeen7y&xtags=tx%3D9486108&itag=160&mime=video%2Fmp4&mt=1529091799&ms=au%2Conr&ei=XxckW-73GNCogQfqrryQAg&expire=1529113535&mm=31%2C26&c=WEB&keepalive=yes&id=o-AJExEG49WtIUkrF7OikaaGBCfKntDl75xCoO5_9cL-eP&ip=95.91.202.147&sparams=aitags%2Cclen%2Cdur%2Cei%2Cgir%2Cid%2Cinitcwndbps%2Cip%2Cipbits%2Citag%2Ckeepalive%2Clmt%2Cmime%2Cmm%2Cmn%2Cms%2Cmv%2Cpl%2Crequiressl%2Csource%2Cxtags%2Cexpire&key=yt6&lmt=1526699176943888&dur=25.375&pl=22&gir=yes&mv=m&initcwndbps=1155000&ipbits=0&ratebypass=yes

Finally we can play this video url in either ffplay or vlc. But instead of copying and pasting, we can do this in one command:

ffplay -i $(youtube-dl --format 160 --get-url https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HECa3bAFAYk)

Now that we have confirmed that youtube-dl and ffmpeg works, we can write a Python script to process the frames in OpenCV. See this link for more Python options.

import cv2
import numpy as np
import youtube_dl

if __name__ == '__main__':

    video_url = 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HECa3bAFAYkq'

    ydl_opts = {}

    # create youtube-dl object
    ydl = youtube_dl.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts)

    # set video url, extract video information
    info_dict = ydl.extract_info(video_url, download=False)

    # get video formats available
    formats = info_dict.get('formats',None)

    for f in formats:

        # I want the lowest resolution, so I set resolution as 144p
        if f.get('format_note',None) == '144p':

            #get the video url
            url = f.get('url',None)

            # open url with opencv
            cap = cv2.VideoCapture(url)

            # check if url was opened
            if not cap.isOpened():
                print('video not opened')
                exit(-1)

            while True:
                # read frame
                ret, frame = cap.read()

                # check if frame is empty
                if not ret:
                    break

                # display frame
                cv2.imshow('frame', frame)

                if cv2.waitKey(30)&0xFF == ord('q'):
                    break

            # release VideoCapture
            cap.release()

    cv2.destroyAllWindows()
2
votes

First of all Update youtube-dl using the command pip install -U youtube-dl

Then use my VidGear Python Library, then automates the pipelining of YouTube Video using its URL address only. Here's a complete python example:

For VidGear v0.1.9 below:

# import libraries
from vidgear.gears import CamGear
import cv2

stream = CamGear(source='https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ', y_tube = True, logging=True).start() # YouTube Video URL as input

# infinite loop
while True:
    
    frame = stream.read()
    # read frames

    # check if frame is None
    if frame is None:
        #if True break the infinite loop
        break
    
    # do something with frame here
    
    cv2.imshow("Output Frame", frame)
    # Show output window

    key = cv2.waitKey(1) & 0xFF
    # check for 'q' key-press
    if key == ord("q"):
        #if 'q' key-pressed break out
        break

cv2.destroyAllWindows()
# close output window

# safely close video stream.
stream.stop()

For VidGear v0.2.0 and above: (y_tube changed to stream_mode)

# import libraries
from vidgear.gears import CamGear
import cv2

stream = CamGear(source='https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ', stream_mode = True, logging=True).start() # YouTube Video URL as input

# infinite loop
while True:
    
    frame = stream.read()
    # read frames

    # check if frame is None
    if frame is None:
        #if True break the infinite loop
        break
    
    # do something with frame here
    
    cv2.imshow("Output Frame", frame)
    # Show output window

    key = cv2.waitKey(1) & 0xFF
    # check for 'q' key-press
    if key == ord("q"):
        #if 'q' key-pressed break out
        break

cv2.destroyAllWindows()
# close output window

# safely close video stream.
stream.stop()

Code Source

If still get some error, raise an issue here in its GitHub repo.

-1
votes

Using pafy you can have a more elegant solution:

import cv2
import pafy

url = "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKpuX_yzdYs"
video = pafy.new(url)
best = video.getbest(preftype="mp4")

capture = cv2.VideoCapture()
capture.open(best.url)

success,image = capture.read()

while success:
    cv2.imshow('frame', image)
    if cv2.waitKey(1) & 0xFF == ord('q'):
        break

    success,image = capture.read()

cv2.destroyAllWindows()
capture.release()
-1
votes

I want to highlight the issue I faced while running was a open-cv version problem, I was using OpenCV 3.4.x and the video feed was exiting before being read into the while loop, so, i upgraded my open cv to "opencv-contrib-python== 4.2.0.34".