ffmpeg.py looks for ffmpeg_location

[codevalid]

Checklist

• I'm reporting a broken site support issue
• I've verified that I'm running youtube-dl version 2021.12.17
• I've checked that all provided URLs are alive and playable in a browser
• I've checked that all URLs and arguments with special characters are properly quoted or escaped
• I've searched the bugtracker for similar bug reports including closed ones
• I've read bugs section in FAQ

Verbose log

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File ".\PycharmProjects\pythonProject\Hello.py", line 42, in <module>
    meta = ydl.extract_info(
  File ".\anaconda3\lib\site-packages\youtube_dl\YoutubeDL.py", line 808, in extract_info
    return self.__extract_info(url, ie, download, extra_info, process)
  File ".\anaconda3\lib\site-packages\youtube_dl\YoutubeDL.py", line 815, in wrapper
    return func(self, *args, **kwargs)
  File ".\anaconda3\lib\site-packages\youtube_dl\YoutubeDL.py", line 847, in __extract_info
    return self.process_ie_result(ie_result, download, extra_info)
  File ".\anaconda3\lib\site-packages\youtube_dl\YoutubeDL.py", line 881, in process_ie_result
    return self.process_video_result(ie_result, download=download)
  File ".\anaconda3\lib\site-packages\youtube_dl\YoutubeDL.py", line 1692, in process_video_result
    self.process_info(new_info)
  File ".\anaconda3\lib\site-packages\youtube_dl\YoutubeDL.py", line 1976, in process_info
    success = dl(filename, info_dict)
  File ".\anaconda3\lib\site-packages\youtube_dl\YoutubeDL.py", line 1915, in dl
    return fd.download(name, info)
  File ".\anaconda3\lib\site-packages\youtube_dl\downloader\common.py", line 366, in download
    return self.real_download(filename, info_dict)
  File ".\anaconda3\lib\site-packages\youtube_dl\downloader\external.py", line 35, in real_download
    retval = self._call_downloader(tmpfilename, info_dict)
  File ".\anaconda3\lib\site-packages\youtube_dl\downloader\external.py", line 227, in _call_downloader
    self.report_error('m3u8 download detected but ffmpeg or avconv could not be found. Please install one.')
  File ".\anaconda3\lib\site-packages\youtube_dl\downloader\common.py", line 165, in report_error
    self.ydl.report_error(*args, **kargs)
  File ".\anaconda3\lib\site-packages\youtube_dl\YoutubeDL.py", line 628, in report_error
    self.trouble(error_message, tb)
  File ".\anaconda3\lib\site-packages\youtube_dl\YoutubeDL.py", line 598, in trouble
    raise DownloadError(message, exc_info)
youtube_dl.utils.DownloadError: ERROR: m3u8 download detected but ffmpeg or avconv could not be found. Please install one.

Description

While running from command line, the location of ffmppeg can be passed using option --ffmpeg-location
However, while trying to use this in Python, using this option produces the above error, even though it's passed as below
'ffmpeg-location' : '.\Downloads\ffmpeg\bin\ffmpeg.exe',
I was trying to go through various modules where this value is being picked up, and found it in ffmpeg.py

location = self._downloader.params.get('ffmpeg_location')

now once i change the option to use this,

'ffmpeg_location' : '.\Downloads\ffmpeg\bin\ffmpeg.exe',
everything works fine. Can we either fix the code or update the documentation to use underscore, instead of hypen?

[dirkf]

The parameter names in the code aren't the same as the command-line options. Look at options.py (ca. l.853) for the mapping.

[dirkf]

This well hacky code achieves the same for yt-dl as the much slicker code posted for yt-dlp, ie it shows what API parameters correspond to a given set of command-line options and so answers OP's question:

import youtube_dl
from types import MethodType
from youtube_dl.utils import DateRange

def cli_to_api(*opts):
    YDL = youtube_dl.YoutubeDL

    class ParseYTDLResult(Exception):
        def __init__(self, result):
            super(ParseYTDLResult, self).__init__('result')
            self.opts = result

    def ytdl_init(ydl, ydl_opts):
        super(YDL, ydl).__init__(ydl_opts)
        raise ParseYTDLResult(ydl_opts)

    YDL.__init__ = MethodType(ytdl_init, YDL)

    def parsed_options(argv):
        try:
            youtube_dl._real_main(list(argv))
        except ParseYTDLResult as result:
            return result.opts

    # should be set in utils
    def DR__ne__(d, other):
        try:
            if isinstance(d, DateRange):
                return d.start != other.start or d.end != other.end
        except Exception:
            pass
        return d != other 

    default = parsed_options([])
    diff = dict((k, v) for k, v in parsed_options(opts).items() if DR__ne__(default[k], v))
    if 'postprocessors' in diff:
        diff['postprocessors'] = [pp for pp in diff['postprocessors'] if pp not in default['postprocessors']]
    return diff

Eg:

>>> cli_to_api('--ffmpeg-location', '.\\Downloads\\ffmpeg\\bin\\ffmpeg.exe')
{'ffmpeg_location': '.\\Downloads\\ffmpeg\\bin\\ffmpeg.exe'}
>>> cli_to_api('-x', '--audio-format', 'mp3')
{'format': 'bestaudio/best', 'postprocessors': [{'preferredcodec': 'mp3', 'nopostoverwrites': False, 'key': 'FFmpegExtractAudio', 'preferredquality': '5'}]}
>>>