ytdlp Service Deployment Guide
This guide explains how to deploy a video parsing service based on yt-dlp either locally or on the cloud (such as AWS Lambda).
1. Service Source Code
Below is a recommended Python service implementation, ready for local or cloud deployment:
python
import json
import traceback
import yt_dlp
def _build_format_entry(f: dict) -> dict:
return {
'format_id': f.get('format_id'),
'url': f.get('url'),
'ext': f.get('ext'),
'resolution': f.get('resolution') or f.get('height'),
'width': f.get('width'),
'height': f.get('height'),
'fps': f.get('fps'),
'vcodec': f.get('vcodec'),
'acodec': f.get('acodec'),
'abr': f.get('abr'),
'vbr': f.get('vbr'),
'tbr': f.get('tbr'),
'filesize': f.get('filesize') or f.get('filesize_approx'),
'protocol': f.get('protocol'),
'language': f.get('language'),
'format_note': f.get('format_note'),
}
def resolve(url: str) -> dict:
ydl_opts = {
'quiet': True,
'no_warnings': True,
'noplaylist': True,
'format': 'bestvideo+bestaudio/best',
'skip_download': True,
'writesubtitles': True,
'writeautomaticsub': True,
'cookiefile': '/tmp/cookie.txt',
'http_headers': {
'User-Agent': 'Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/120.0.0.0 Safari/537.36',
'Accept': 'text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8',
'Accept-Language': 'en-us,en;q=0.5',
'Sec-Fetch-Mode': 'navigate',
}
}
with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
info = ydl.extract_info(url, download=False)
if 'requested_formats' in info:
best = [_build_format_entry(f) for f in info['requested_formats']]
else:
best = [_build_format_entry(info)]
videos, audios, combined = [], [], []
for f in info.get('formats') or []:
entry = _build_format_entry(f)
vc = f.get('vcodec', 'none')
ac = f.get('acodec', 'none')
has_video = vc and vc != 'none'
has_audio = ac and ac != 'none'
if has_video and has_audio:
combined.append(entry)
elif has_video:
videos.append(entry)
elif has_audio:
audios.append(entry)
subtitles = {}
for lang, subs in (info.get('subtitles') or {}).items():
subtitles[lang] = [
{'ext': s.get('ext'), 'url': s.get('url'), 'name': s.get('name')}
for s in subs
]
auto_subtitles = {}
for lang, subs in (info.get('automatic_captions') or {}).items():
auto_subtitles[lang] = [
{'ext': s.get('ext'), 'url': s.get('url'), 'name': s.get('name')}
for s in subs
]
danmaku_url = None
for lang, subs in (info.get('subtitles') or {}).items():
if 'danmaku' in lang.lower():
danmaku_url = subs[0].get('url') if subs else None
break
comments = info.get('comments') # list[dict] or None
thumbnails = [
{'url': t.get('url'), 'width': t.get('width'), 'height': t.get('height'), 'id': t.get('id')}
for t in (info.get('thumbnails') or [])
]
chapters = [
{'title': c.get('title'), 'start_time': c.get('start_time'), 'end_time': c.get('end_time')}
for c in (info.get('chapters') or [])
]
return {
'title': info.get('title'),
'description': info.get('description'),
'thumbnail': info.get('thumbnail'),
'thumbnails': thumbnails,
'duration': info.get('duration'),
'uploader': info.get('uploader'),
'upload_date': info.get('upload_date'),
'view_count': info.get('view_count'),
'like_count': info.get('like_count'),
'webpage_url': info.get('webpage_url'),
'best': best,
'videos': videos,
'audios': audios,
'combined': combined,
'subtitles': subtitles,
'auto_subtitles': auto_subtitles,
'danmaku_url': danmaku_url,
'comments': comments,
'chapters': chapters,
}
def handler(event, context):
params = event.get('queryStringParameters') or {}
body = event.get('body')
if body:
params = json.loads(body)
url = params.get('url', '').strip()
print(f"URL: {url}")
cookies = params.get('cookies', '').strip()
if cookies:
with open('/tmp/cookie.txt', 'w') as f:
import base64
cookies = base64.b64decode(cookies).decode('utf-8')
f.write(cookies)
if not url:
return {
'statusCode': 400,
'body': json.dumps({'error': 'Missing url parameter'}),
}
try:
result = resolve(url)
print(f"Result: \n{json.dumps(result, ensure_ascii=False)}")
return {
'statusCode': 200,
'body': json.dumps(result, ensure_ascii=False),
}
except Exception as e:
traceback.print_exc()
return {
'statusCode': 500,
'body': json.dumps({'error': str(e)}),
}
if __name__ == '__main__':
import os
from http.server import BaseHTTPRequestHandler, HTTPServer
from urllib.parse import urlparse, parse_qs
class VideoResolverHandler(BaseHTTPRequestHandler):
def do_POST(self):
body_length = int(self.headers.get('Content-Length', 0))
body = self.rfile.read(body_length).decode('utf-8') if body_length > 0 else None
self.do_GET(body=body)
def do_GET(self, body=None):
parsed_url = urlparse(self.path)
query_params = parse_qs(parsed_url.query)
event = {
'queryStringParameters': {k: v[0] for k, v in query_params.items()},
'body': body
}
response = handler(event, None)
self.send_response(response['statusCode'])
self.send_header('Content-Type', 'application/json; charset=utf-8')
self.end_headers()
self.wfile.write(response['body'].encode('utf-8'))
port = int(os.environ.get('PORT', 8080))
print(f"Server starting on http://localhost:{port}")
server = HTTPServer(('0.0.0.0', port), VideoResolverHandler)
try:
server.serve_forever()
except KeyboardInterrupt:
server.server_close()2. Local Deployment
- Install dependencies:bash
pip install 'yt-dlp[default,curl-cffi]' - Run the service:bash
python ytdlp_service.py - Access the API: Open your browser and visit
http://localhost:8080/?url=<video_page_URL>
3. Cloud Deployment (e.g. AWS Lambda)
- Upload the above code as a Lambda function, with entry point
handler. - Make sure to include the
yt-dlpdependency in your deployment package. - Trigger via API Gateway, with parameter
?url=<video_page_URL>.
- Supports
cookie.txtfor sites requiring login. - Supports parsing video, audio, subtitles, danmaku, and more.
- You can modify the code as needed for your use case.
For questions or feedback, please contact us.