More accurate published value from the API?

[pixlwave]

Hi

I'm experimenting with your API and have noticed that when using /api/v1/channels/:ucid/videos the value included for published matches the publishedText approximation. For example, the last 3 videos of the following link all show the same published value.
https://invidio.us/api/v1/channels/UCIgz0nzsOHSpXs7EpmJLOlQ/videos

Whereas via /api/v1/videos/:id you get more accurate values, but all at UTC 0:00.
https://invidio.us/api/v1/videos/KuhVJFZS_qw
https://invidio.us/api/v1/videos/cecxXsMhPRM
https://invidio.us/api/v1/videos/deScHJGoVc8

Is this by design of how you're retrieving the data, or is there something I can do to improve this? I'm aiming to retrieve the video lists for multiple channels and then merge them into a single by list that's sorted by published.

Thanks for your great project 🙂

[omarroth]

Unfortunately this is a limitation of what YouTube provides.

published is generated from the "x ago" from the /videos page on YouTube:

which becomes less accurate over time.

/api/v1/videos/:id generates published from the datePublished meta tag on the watch page
:

which is limited to an accuracy of about one day.

I'm still looking into ways to improve this. For now I would recommend combining /api/v1/channels/#{videos, latest}/:ucid with data from https://invidio.us/feed/channel/#{author or UCID}, or using the feed directly if there's enough data there for your needs. You might also take a look through #469.

[pixlwave]

published is generated from the "x ago" from the /videos page on YouTube:

I wondered if that was the case.

I hadn't realised you had an RSS feed! 15-entries isn't a huge amount, but it may well be enough for my needs, and if not I'll investigate caching the published dates from there 👍🏻

Thanks for your help 🙂