After hitting the segment-timing wall on our hand-rolled DASH MPD
(audio drifted -25s -> -44s behind video on long content), pivoted to
delegating playback to plugin.video.youtube v7.4.3 which already has
years of sidx-parsed SegmentTimeline + multi-client fallback work.
torttube._play() now:
1. Tries _delegate_to_pv_youtube(yt_id) — sets a resolved URL of
'plugin://plugin.video.youtube/play/?video_id=<id>'. Kodi
chain-resolves to pv.youtube which builds the proper MPD and
hands inputstream.adaptive a correctly-aligned manifest. Default.
2. Falls back to our DASH builder (still in code, gated by
'dash_enabled' setting + dash.on marker) if pv.youtube is absent.
3. Falls through to yt-dlp progressive 360p as the final safety net.
When delegating, we skip our SponsorBlock monitor — pv.youtube has its
own and would double-skip otherwise.
Cobb-verified live on Livingroom Pi: LTT 'Trump Phone' (which crashed
our DASH with audio sync errors growing to -44s) now plays HD with
audio synced. 'Please sign in' message in log is from the tv_unplugged
Innertube client; pv.youtube falls back to a working client
automatically — no user account required.
Settings: prefer_pv_youtube boolean (default true). Addon v0.0.11.
Reference: https://kodi.wiki/view/Add-on:YouTube
Big strides today:
- Sidecar resolve_dash op works (verified live on Pi)
- MPD builder generates valid MPEG-DASH on-demand manifest with
H.264 720p/1080p video reps + best AAC audio rep
- ThreadingHTTPServer serves the MPD over the LAN IP (not 127.0.0.1
— curl in Kodi 20's inputstream.adaptive can't open that)
- inputstream.adaptive PARSES our manifest cleanly: 'Successfully
parsed manifest file (Periods: 1, Streams in first period: 2)'
- Segment GETs work once we set stream_headers with User-Agent
+ Origin + Referer (otherwise googlevideo 403s the audio segments)
Remaining issue:
- Audio drifts -25s → -44s behind video within seconds of playback
start. inputstream.adaptive needs explicit SegmentTimeline timing
derived from each rep's sidx box to stay aligned. Plugin.video.youtube
does this; we'd need to fetch+parse sidx ourselves or fork their
MPD-builder. Documented as M7-blocking + upstream PR candidate.
Default remains the stable yt-dlp progressive 360p path. DASH is
behind dash_enabled setting OR a dash.on marker file in addon_data.
Toggle on via:
ssh <kodi> 'touch /storage/.kodi/userdata/addon_data/plugin.video.torttube/dash.on'
Toggle off:
ssh <kodi> 'rm /storage/.kodi/userdata/addon_data/plugin.video.torttube/dash.on'
Addon v0.0.10. docs/upstream.md has the full segment-timing analysis.
Sidecar Playlist op via rustypipe playlist(). Returns playlist metadata
block (id, name, channel, video_count) + items array. Verified live
against LTT's 'Consumer Advocacy' (PL8mG-RkN2uTzwoF72GqeqAJMI-N7scqtI):
returns the single video with full metadata.
Addon ?action=playlist&id=PL... lists items via _add_video_items reuse.
Verified via Files.GetDirectory JSON-RPC.
resources/settings.xml gains a 'dash_enabled' toggle (boolean, default
off). main.py checks ADDON.getSettingBool('dash_enabled') OR the
TORTTUBE_DASH env fallback before attempting the DASH path. Toggle via
Kodi Settings → Add-on settings → torttube, OR via
Addons.SetSettings JSON-RPC.
docs/upstream.md: filed a 'watching' entry for rustypipe PR #77
(Schmiddiii's late-May YouTube parsing fixes) with our independent
test data — player(), search(), and channel_videos() all still work
against current YouTube on 0.11.4, suggesting the PR fixes code paths
torttube doesn't yet exercise. Endorsement comment pending: gated on
creating a Sulkta-Coop codeberg account.
Observation from kodi.log: plugin.video.youtube successfully parsed a
DASH MPD with 26 streams via inputstream.adaptive on this same Pi —
proves DASH is solvable on our setup, just need to match the URL
pattern they use. M7 stabilization carrying forward.
Addon version 0.0.9.
Sidecar ChannelVideos op via rustypipe channel_videos(). Returns the
channel metadata block (id, name, subscribers, banner) alongside the
items array — same VideoItem shape as search.
Addon refactor: _add_video_items is now the shared listing builder.
Both _search_directory and _channel_directory call it. Each video
result gets a 'Go to <channel>' context-menu entry that
Container.Update's to ?action=channel&id=<channel_id> — so from any
search result, the user can drill into that channel's recent uploads
without going back through search.
Smoke verified on the Pi via Files.GetDirectory: LTT channel
(UCXuqSBlHAE6Xw-yeJA0Tunw) returned 30 recent videos.
Addon version 0.0.7.
Sidecar gains the 'search' op via rustypipe's
query().search::<VideoItem,_>() — returns id, title, channel, duration,
thumbnails, view_count. Default limit 25.
Addon root directory is no longer a placeholder notification:
- 'Search' entry → ?action=search → keyboard input → result list →
tap a result to play (each result is a play-action plugin URL).
- 'Play by URL' entry → ?action=play_by_url → keyboard input → PlayMedia.
- ?action=search also accepts inline 'q=…' so JSON-RPC clients can
drive search without going through the on-TV keyboard (useful for
share-to-TV from phone + tests).
- Result labels formatted as 'Title · Channel · Duration · Views',
with thumbnail + Kodi InfoLabels for richer skin views.
Verified via Files.GetDirectory JSON-RPC: 19 well-formatted LTT results
returned for query 'linus tech tips'.
Pending M4: channel browse, playlist browse, pagination, search history.
Addon version 0.0.6.
Sidecar resolve_dash op shipped — returns rustypipe's full video_only_streams
+ audio_streams (16+ representations for NGGYU, from 360p H.264 through 4K
AV1). Addon _build_dash_mpd assembles a valid on-demand MPEG-DASH manifest
filtered to H.264 ≤1080p + best AAC audio.
Two unblocked-by-WIP issues surfaced during integration:
- inputstream.adaptive's libcurl can't open file:// URLs (logged in
docs/upstream.md as an enhancement-target).
- Rapid Player.Open retries can trigger Kodi's 'two concurrent
busydialogs' fatal exit; need lifecycle hardening before re-enabling.
Pivoted to localhost HTTP-server serving (ThreadingHTTPServer on a
port-0 socket, MPD bytes captured in a per-instance handler subclass).
Lifecycle: server.shutdown() runs in a finally block after the
SponsorBlockMonitor watcher exits. Works in isolation but Kodi crashed
under rapid retry conditions — needs more testing.
For v0.0.5: DASH path is gated behind TORTTUBE_DASH=1 env var; default
falls through to the stable yt-dlp progressive 360p path that's been
verified live. M7 milestone added to track the remaining work; PRs
to inputstream.adaptive + Kodi candidates logged in docs/upstream.md.
SponsorBlockMonitor (xbmc.Monitor subclass) attaches after setResolvedUrl:
- fetches segments from sidecar via the existing sponsorblock op
(SHA-256 prefix lookup, defaults to sponsor + selfpromo + interaction
categories)
- waits up to 30s for playback to actually start, then polls
Player.getTime() every 0.5s
- when position enters a skip segment, calls seekTime(end) and shows
a 'SponsorBlock — Skipped <category> (<duration>s)' toast
- UUIDs are remembered so a manual rewind into a previously-skipped
segment doesn't trigger again
- exits cleanly on playback stop or Kodi shutdown
Live-verified on the Livingroom Pi with LTT 2T8x5antlnc ('Trump Phone'),
which has two locked sponsor segments. Sought to 1:45, the monitor
fired at 108.3s and seeked to 128.4s — log line:
[torttube] sponsorblock skip: sponsor 108.3-128.4 (20s)
addon.xml v0.0.1 → v0.0.2.
Deferred for v0.0.3+: settings.xml category toggles + a skip-counter,
support for non-skip action types (mute, full, poi).
scripts/build-addon-zip.sh runs the whole pipeline from a host with ssh
lucy:
- one-shot messense/rust-musl-cross:aarch64-musl container builds the
sidecar static (6.2MB stripped). Doesn't mutate crafting-table.
- fetches yt-dlp_linux_aarch64 from the upstream release page so Tier 2
+ Tier 3 work on the Pi (LibreELEC ships no Python YouTube tools)
- packages everything into plugin.video.torttube.zip with the Kodi
install-from-zip layout
- drops the zip at /mnt/user/downloads/torttube/ on Lucy SMB
Cargo.toml swaps rustypipe to default-features=false +
rustls-tls-webpki-roots so the cross-compile is openssl-free.
addon.xml drops the unused script.module.requests requirement — main.py
only uses Python stdlib + Kodi's own modules.
docs/install.md walks the Kodi UI flow + a smoke curl that fires
Player.Open via JSON-RPC. Pi-side smoke is pending Cobb's install on
192.168.0.158.
Kodi addon (plugin.video.torttube) shell with Cargo workspace for the
rustypipe-backed sidecar binary. No working extraction yet — addon.xml
parses, main.py is a notification stub, sidecar's main.rs prints scaffold
banner. See MILESTONES.md for M1..M6.
License: GPL-3.0-or-later (matches rustypipe + NewPipeExtractor).
