Sulkta-Coop/torttube
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Kodi addon for YouTube via rustypipe + SponsorBlock. Replaces the dead plugin.video.youtube on LibreELEC RPi TVs.
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Kayos 9ed0aae2d0 M7 DONE via delegation — pv.youtube plays HD with audio 
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
2026-05-23 11:58:12 -07:00
addon/plugin.video.torttube M7 DONE via delegation — pv.youtube plays HD with audio 2026-05-23 11:58:12 -07:00
docs M7 DONE via delegation — pv.youtube plays HD with audio 2026-05-23 11:58:12 -07:00
scripts M6 DONE — torttube ships, Rick Astley plays fullscreen on the Livingroom Pi 2026-05-23 10:18:26 -07:00
sidecar M4 wrap — playlist browse + addon settings + upstream PR-77 notes 2026-05-23 11:33:20 -07:00
.gitignore M0 scaffold — Python addon + Rust sidecar 2026-05-23 08:14:09 -07:00
LICENSE M0 scaffold — Python addon + Rust sidecar 2026-05-23 08:14:09 -07:00
MILESTONES.md M7 DONE via delegation — pv.youtube plays HD with audio 2026-05-23 11:58:12 -07:00
README.md M0 docs — lock three-tier resolve + upstream-contribution posture 2026-05-23 08:20:50 -07:00

README.md

torttube

Kodi addon for YouTube via RustyPipe extraction + SponsorBlock segment skipping.

Replaces the dead plugin.video.youtube on LibreELEC RPi TVs after Google required account-linking for the upstream addon.

Architecture

Kodi (LibreELEC, RPi)
  └── plugin.video.torttube     [Python addon — UI, browse, settings]
        └── torttube-sidecar    [Rust binary — JSON-over-stdio]
              ├── rustypipe         [Tier 1: native Rust Innertube]
              ├── yt-dlp subprocess [Tier 2: fallback resolve]
              ├── yt-dlp rip-to-temp [Tier 3: download to /storage/.kodi/temp,
              │                      play local file when streams die mid-play]
              └── sponsorblock      [REST client, SHA-256 prefix lookup]

Kodi addons are Python — the engine layer (n-param sig decoding, Innertube, SponsorBlock hashing) lives in a Rust sidecar so we get a single maintained extraction surface and clean aarch64/armv7 cross-compiles.

Three-tier resolve because YouTube actively fights every extractor:

  1. rustypipe (Rust) — preferred. Fast, in-process, no Python dep on the RPi.
  2. yt-dlp subprocess — fallback when rustypipe sig-decoding falls behind YouTube's deobfuscator changes. yt-dlp updates weekly; we shell out, parse -j JSON.
  3. Rip-to-temp — last resort when stream URLs 403 mid-playback (poToken expiry, cookie session mismatch). yt-dlp downloads to /storage/.kodi/temp/torttube/<id>.<ext>, Kodi plays the local file. Temp dir has size cap + age cleanup.

Status

M0 scaffold. Nothing playable yet — see MILESTONES.md.

Upstream — we fight with the FOSS extractor ecosystem, not next to it

YouTube's anti-scraping changes hit every extractor: NewPipe, yt-dlp, Invidious, rustypipe. Every fix we make in our sidecar gets evaluated for "is this upstreamable?" — if yes, the fix lands at the upstream project, not just here.

Active lanes:

  • rustypipe (Rust, codeberg.org/ThetaDev/rustypipe) — maintenance has slowed. Open PR #77 "Some fixes" is unmerged as of 2026-05-23. We will either help land it (review + ping maintainer) or fork to Sulkta-Coop/rustypipe if upstream stays quiet. Forking is the worst case, not the first move.
  • NewPipeExtractor (Java, github.com/TeamNewPipe/NewPipeExtractor) — actively maintained, 177 open issues. We use it as the reference implementation for Innertube behaviour. PRs to NPE land in Rust here via rustypipe, and vice versa.
  • yt-dlp (Python, github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp) — the gold standard. We're more consumers than contributors here, but if our rip-to-temp tier surfaces a specific extractor bug we file it.

Issues we're watching:

  • NPE #1339 — n-parameter deobfuscation
  • NPE #1444 — distinguish unavailable vs unextractable
  • NPE #1360 — refactor link handlers (help wanted)
  • NPE #1357 — JDoc checks in PR pipeline (good first issue)
  • rustypipe PR #77 — open as of 2026-05-23, unmerged

Contribution log lives at docs/upstream.md — every PR we file lands there with its outcome.

License

GPL-3.0-or-later. Matches RustyPipe and NewPipeExtractor.