Hey folks, it’s been a long time! Four years and about 40 Chronotron releases since my last post, I’m back today to tell you about how the media download capabilities of the app have evolved recently.
If you’re a long time user of Chronotron, you surely are aware that its media downloader stops functioning every now and then, and that an app update is needed to get it working again. You may want to read my original post on the rationale and considerations around downloading YouTube media directly from the app. As I put it there:
Downloading a clip isn’t a supported YouTube scenario since it harms the advertising business (the clips saved to your hard disk lack any ads). Therefore, there’s no official API for downloading. Downloaders work by simulating what a legitimate player does to find out where the actual clips are stored on Google servers. So, downloader apps fail whenever the YouTube web page structure changes in a way unforeseen by the app developer.
In addition to the potential loss of advertising revenue, a new challenge for these media platforms is the use of their video material by other companies to train their own AI models.
The bottom line is that YouTube and other content delivery platforms have a strong motivation to fight against media downloaders. Needless to say that playing cat-and-mouse with Google is a losing game for small software developers: any time spent catching up with page structure changes isn’t time spent on improving or maintaining the actual app code.
But union makes us strong! Luckily, the open-source software development community has come up with well-maintained solutions for media download. Of such downloaders, the yt-dlp project is arguably the best there is: it is reliable and fast, and it supports downloading from a myriad of sources.
The Announcement
Starting with Release 219, Chronotron relies on yt-dlp to download video from YouTube, meaning that the app benefits from all the yt-dlp goodness, while also allowing me to stay focused on actual features and improvements.
Last but not least, starting with Release 220, the Open URL dialog box – shown below – allows you to download video from most of yt-dlp supported sites! Just enter the video URL and click Download and Open1.
What do you think about the switch to yt-dlp? Let me know in the comments.
- The Open action, which results in direct streaming playback without downloading, is still limited to YouTube. ↩︎
Chronotron 
Having been a long time user of your app, I appreciate the efforts you put in to keeping this app current and relevant. I use it almost every day and it has become an essential part of my learning experience on the guitar. Thanks for all you have done my friend!
Ron
Thanks Ron! Glad you like the app.