YouTube under Windows XP - Downloaders, players and browser support

[nicolaasjan]

9 hours ago, AstroSkipper said:

On older hardware, the video format avc1 is no option. That's why my script uses h264.

Do you mean AV1?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AV1

AVC1:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Video_Coding

Quote

Advanced Video Coding (AVC), also referred to as H.264 or MPEG-4 Part 10, is a video compression standard based on block-oriented, motion-compensated coding.^[2] It is by far the most commonly used format for the recording, compression, and distribution of video content, used by 79% of video industry developers as of December 2024.^[3] It supports a maximum resolution of 8K UHD.^[4][5]

BTW, my latest version of yt-dlp is 2026.06.14 

[AstroSkipper]

5 hours ago, nicolaasjan said:

Do you mean AV1?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AV1

AVC1:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Video_Coding

BTW, my latest version of yt-dlp is 2026.06.14 

Yep, you're right. I thought he meant av1.  Anyway, my youtube.luac is requesting the h264 codec. And my tests were done using yt-dlp from 2026.06.10, so not the recent one. 

[VistaLover]

20 hours ago, AstroSkipper said:

in the last XP-compatible VLC beta 3.0.24 (the very last recent versions are no longer compatible with Windows XP 😟)

I realise VLC specifically is NOT the topic of this thread, but could you be so kind as to actually pinpoint/link to that version? On 

https://artifacts.videolan.org/vlc-3.0/nightly-win32/

you can see that their server retention goes back to last December, ONLY, so I expect, in the future, that older "artifacts" will be forever purged  ; perhaps this last, XP-compatible, build deserves to be archived for posterity ...

These recent VLC builds exhibit a very high CPU consumption  on my old Core2 Duo processor when listening to radio (audio) streams using either the HLS/mpeg-dash streaming protocol, e.g. to BBC Radio 2 Live stream: 

http://as-hls-ww-live.akamaized.net/pool_74208725/live/ww/bbc_radio_two/bbc_radio_two.isml/bbc_radio_two-audio=96000.m3u8

I have identified the issue to be with recent versions of the "libadaptive_plugin.dll" module:

.\plugins\demux\libadaptive_plugin.dll

Swapping the 3.0.24 version with the 3.0.8 old one (from 2019!) reduces the CPU usage to just 25% of what the current version uses... Apologies again for the somewhat OT parts of this comment  ...

Best regards.

[AstroSkipper]

46 minutes ago, VistaLover said:

21 hours ago, AstroSkipper said:

in the last XP-compatible VLC beta 3.0.24 (the very last recent versions are no longer compatible with Windows XP 😟)

I realise VLC specifically is NOT the topic of this thread, but could you be so kind as to actually pinpoint/link to that version? On 

https://artifacts.videolan.org/vlc-3.0/nightly-win32/

you can see that their server retention goes back to last December, ONLY, so I expect, in the future, that older "artifacts" will be forever purged  ; perhaps this last, XP-compatible, build deserves to be archived for posterity ...

All 3.0.23 versions are compatible with Windows XP. The last 3.0.23 version was releases on 12.05.2026. The last Windows XP compatible 3.0.24 version was from 29.05.2026.

[AstroSkipper]

55 minutes ago, VistaLover said:

Swapping the 3.0.24 version with the 3.0.8 old one (from 2019!) reduces the CPU usage to just 25% of what the current version uses... Apologies again for the somewhat OT parts of this comment  ...

VLC is also used to watch streams. And that means YouTube streams, too. Therefore, your request is totally on topic. Your observation in terms of the 3.0.8 version is interesting. I will try this version in my system the next days. One thing is clear. The latest versions aren’t always the best on older systems. They are no longer tested on older operating systems. 

[AstroSkipper]

1 hour ago, AstroSkipper said:

2 hours ago, VistaLover said:

Swapping the 3.0.24 version with the 3.0.8 old one (from 2019!) reduces the CPU usage to just 25% of what the current version uses... Apologies again for the somewhat OT parts of this comment  ...

VLC is also used to watch streams. And that means YouTube streams, too. Therefore, your request is totally on topic. Your observation in terms of the 3.0.8 version is interesting. I will try this version in my system the next days. One thing is clear. The latest versions aren’t always the best on older systems. They are no longer tested on older operating systems. 

I can confirm that regarding your BBC Radio 2 Live stream

http://as-hls-ww-live.akamaized.net/pool_74208725/live/ww/bbc_radio_two/bbc_radio_two.isml/bbc_radio_two-audio=96000.m3u8

the 3.0.24 version from 29.05.2026 behaves very bad, but the 3.0.8 version perfectly. Even the 3.0.20 version is ok but the 3.0.8 version performs best. When it comes to my YouTube test video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffcitRgiNDs

however, I can't see any differences in CPU usage.

[AstroSkipper]

After all the drama surrounding MSFN, Google has gone and made things even worse. YouTube no longer runs at all within browsers on older, low-performance hardware like my P4. The Vorapis script can no longer play videos on my hardware in New Moon 28 and Serpent 52 on Windows XP. For some reason, the h264 codec can no longer be used in the same way as before. So I’ve removed all scripts and extensions from these browsers. They’ve become useless to me. I now only use VLC with my youtube.lua script. I search on YouTube using the 3D YouTube Downloader, which can of course also download videos and audio files. And naturally, I’m using the latest version of my ‘ytBATCH for Windows XP’ (version 1.7).

Edited Wednesday at 09:50 AM by AstroSkipper

[user57]

the new format has beaten up h264, jpg or jpg2000 maybe the other in between like jxr or jpg with 10 and 12 bit (instead of 8 bit)

these are 3 common makers for the new h.265 format
AOM  (265)
HEIC (265)
AVC (265)
SVT (265)
smaller makers (rav1e, dav1d, kvazaar)?

but a must say now is that these perform all same-ish
if you look at these they perform almost equal:
https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/968944/195860125-aa639dca-43ba-426c-b11c-31945e4c0b41.png
and again:
https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/968944/195952805-6e8a4f96-f2db-453f-857f-5fbcd583aef7.png

the most tests on youtube dont show the encoding speed, slower actually means better
the reason for this is that the algo, routines, methods (whatever we call all of them)
for fast speeds are skipping the routines that create more pixels
a must say for the 2 graphs above not the best settings are used !
(he use slow - there are 3 above that - slower, veryslow and placebo)

so a very common problem you face on youtube is that either the encode time is not set to the best
or the settings are not set to the best
while the comparision then compares the images still side by side (like this is the absolution to compare this things)

that i pointed out here, i often not even wanted to have the box for the speed:
https://msfn.org/board/topic/185879-winxp-hevcheifheic-image-encoderdecoder

then supposingly there is a format maker the claims to be better then h265
VVC (suppose to be h.266)
but the compares then are often again not on the set to the maximum

so in relation to this post - it would not be that important what maker exactly is used
it could be either way - just one from the h265´s
the decoders useally are not that cpu intense, the VLC player seems to can handle this problem

sidely said the real comparison would begin if these encoders are set the maximum 

[nicolaasjan]

5 hours ago, AstroSkipper said:

The Vorapis script can no longer play videos on my hardware in New Moon 28 and Serpent 52 on Windows XP.

Well, the page loads here with Vorapis (slowly...), but the video doesn't.

Bugs regarding the Vorapis project can only be discussed on Discord. 

Playing the video using the Open With extension and MPC-HC 2.2.1 from Maroc works very well though.

Maroc is no longer active on the My Digital Life Forums and his link to Windows XP compatible MPC-HC has expired.

I have preserved it in my Dropbox. Link (portable). 

Be sure that FFmpeg, yt-dlp and QuickJS are in your path.

[AstroSkipper]

5 hours ago, nicolaasjan said:

Well, the page loads here with Vorapis (slowly...), but the video doesn't.

Bugs regarding the Vorapis project can only be discussed on Discord. 

Playing the video using the Open With extension and MPC-HC 2.2.1 from Maroc works very well though.

Maroc is no longer active on the My Digital Life Forums and his link to Windows XP compatible MPC-HC has expired.

I have preserved it in my Dropbox. Link (portable). 

Be sure that FFmpeg, yt-dlp and QuickJS are in your path.

Thanks @nicolaasjan! I know that. We both had a conversation with maroc in those days. At that time, I have installed MPC-HC 2.2.1. But I prefer the combination I mentioned in my previous post. And I enhanced ytBATCH for Windows XP to open my files downloaded from YouTube with ffplay. And for only watching YouTube streams, VLC with my youtube.lua script is absolutely fine. 

[panda_zzz]

15 hours ago, AstroSkipper said:

VLC with my youtube.lua

Based on your script, you can create an entire VLC plugin - for example, here's what I came up with:

youtube_search.lua

[AstroSkipper]

2 hours ago, panda_zzz said:

Based on your script, you can create an entire VLC plugin - for example, here's what I came up with:

youtube_search.lua 41.1 kB · 1 download

I tried your youtube_search.lua script. Additionally, I changed the subtitle to 'en'. But when entering a search string as, for example, Adele and clicking 'Search', nothing happens, i.e., 'No results found'. What am I missing? As far as I can see, your script can't find my yt-dlp.exe which is in the main programme folder together with hidecon. I should mention I use portable versions of VLC only.

Edited 10 hours ago by AstroSkipper

[panda_zzz]

47 minutes ago, AstroSkipper said:

I tried your youtube_search.lua script. Additionally, I changed the subtitle to 'en'. But when entering a search string as, for example, Adele and clicking 'Search', nothing happens, i.e., 'No results found'. What am I missing?

My plugin works on the same principle as your script, and it requires yt-dlp.exe and hidecon.exe in the VLC folder to function. Of course, it’s possible that something has changed in newer versions of the player itself - I’m using versions 3.0.17 and 2.2.8. I haven’t quite finished working on the subtitles yet - the automatic translation into other languages isn’t working well for me, but if the video is in English, the English subtitles will be displayed - you can see this in my screenshot below.
You can send me the log file, and I’ll try to help.

[AstroSkipper]

1 hour ago, panda_zzz said:

My plugin works on the same principle as your script, and it requires yt-dlp.exe and hidecon.exe in the VLC folder to function. Of course, it’s possible that something has changed in newer versions of the player itself - I’m using versions 3.0.17 and 2.2.8. I haven’t quite finished working on the subtitles yet - the automatic translation into other languages isn’t working well for me, but if the video is in English, the English subtitles will be displayed - you can see this in my screenshot below.
You can send me the log file, and I’ll try to help.

I use VLC 3.0.8 Portable. Your script doesn't seem to open yt-dlp.exe (checked with Process Hacker) presumably, because it can't find yt-dlp.exe two steps above. Your script youtube_search.lua is located in c:\Portable\VLC media player 3.0.8\lua\extensions\ and yt-dlp.exe together with hidecon.exe is located in c:\Portable\VLC media player 3.0.8\.

 

-- logger module started --
main: VLC wird mit dem Standard-Interface ausgeführt. Benutzen Sie 'cvlc', um VLC ohne Interface zu verwenden.
main: playlist is empty
lua: [yt-ext] platform=windows  ytdlp=yt-dlp.exe
lua: [yt-ext] cmd: yt-dlp.exe "ytsearch10:Adele" -J --flat-playlist --no-warnings --encoding utf-8
lua: [yt-ext] bat cmd: yt-dlp.exe "ytsearch10:Adele" -J --flat-playlist --no-warnings --encoding utf-8
lua: [yt-ext] cmd: yt-dlp.exe "ytsearch10:Adele" -J --flat-playlist --no-warnings --encoding utf-8
lua: [yt-ext] bat cmd: yt-dlp.exe "ytsearch10:Adele" -J --flat-playlist --no-warnings --encoding utf-8
-- logger module stopped --

 

Edited 9 hours ago by AstroSkipper

[VistaLover]

1 hour ago, AstroSkipper said:

I tried your youtube_search.lua script. Additionally, I changed the subtitle to 'en'. But when entering a search string as, for example, Adele and clicking 'Search', nothing happens, i.e., 'No results found'. What am I missing? As far as I can see, your script can't find my yt-dlp.exe which is in the main programme folder together with hidecon. I should mention I use portable versions of VLC only.

I'm sorry to say that the same thing happens for me, too, when using a "portable" installation of VLC; yt-dlp.exe and hidecon.exe reside adjacent to vlc.exe; I've tried on both VLC 2.2.8/3.0.24b1 (32-bit)  ; OS is Vista SP2 x86: