How to get HTML5 video URL from youtube 's HTML5 version?

Question

I am not able to find tag in the source code of html5 version of youtube.

Q.1). Any idea on how it is playing HTML5 video without video element?

one option is that it is adding video element from JS, but I am not able to find out video element even in DOM of web-inspector.

Q.2). How to find video element in web-inspector or in firebug?

PS: I am novice in web-development.

Answer 1

It's definitely there. I picked a video at random, and:

<video 
    class="video-stream" x-webkit-airplay="allow" data-youtube-id="iF83wwij828" 
    poster="http://i2.ytimg.com/vi/iF83wwij828/hqdefault.jpg" 
    src="http://v14.lscache3.c.youtube.com/videoplayback?sparams=id%2Cexpire%2Cip%2Cipbits%2Citag%2Cratebypass%2Coc%3AU0hQRVVRV19FSkNOMF9NS0FD&amp;itag=43&amp;ip=0.0.0.0&amp;signature=60D26B708E92E1636CA3B34A389B1A4406DF290F.BD57D8B601A61EFF68CEF6726754DAD6D9C7C2A9&amp;sver=3&amp;ratebypass=yes&amp;expire=1310569200&amp;key=yt1&amp;ipbits=0&amp;id=885f37c308a3f36f">
</video>

My browser: Chrome 12.0.742.100 on Mac OS X, with Developer Tools -> Elements tab -> Search for "<video"

Developer Tools will show what's rendered to the end-user, unlike "view source".

Alternatively, have a look inside the JavaScript file called watch. I found this around line 1464:

'PLAYER_CONFIG':
    {"url": "http:\/\/s.ytimg.com\/yt\/swfbin\/watch_as3-vfl7OZAr4.swf",
     "min_version": "8.0.0", 
    "args": {"rv.2.thumbnailUrl": "http:\/\/i4.ytimg.com\/vi\/_jjXCm3W4hA\/default.jpg",
    "rv.7.length_seconds": 374, 
    "rv.0.url": "http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=fvVJ7U-TekE", 
    "rv.0.view_count": 14234, 
    "enablecsi": "1", 
    "rv.2.title": "Alan Grayson (HD): \"Which Foreigners Got the Fed's $500,000,000,000?\"  Bernanke: \"I Don't Know.\"", 
    "rv.4.rating": "", "rv.3.view_count": 8109, "is_doubleclick_tracked": "1",
    "rv.4.thumbnailUrl": "http:\/\/i1.ytimg.com\/vi\/PlaFDyjCeVQ\/default.jpg", 
    "fmt_url_map": "34|http:\/\/o-o.preferred.lhr14s07.v21.lscache6.c.youtube.com\/videoplayback?sparams=id%2Cexpire%2Cip%2Cipbits%2Citag%2Calgorithm%2Cburst%2Cfactor%2Coc%3AU0hQRVVSVF9FSkNOMF9NTFhF\u0026algorithm=throttle-...

I guess if you match for fmt_url_map, you'll find it.

Answer 2

I found an even easier way to get the URL.

1. Go to http://en.fetchfile.net/ (or any other site that lets you download videos from youtube and similar sites)
2. Paste the youtube video link (from the browser address bar)
3. It shows you links to download the video which is actually the video link. See screenshot below. You can right click on the 'Download video' button and 'copy link address'. You now have the actual video URL from the server.

This also works a lot of other sites using HTML5 video where the video link is not available in view source.