Channel download: optimization when using `dateafter` cutoff

[isaksky]

Checklist

• I'm reporting a feature request
• I've verified that I'm running youtube-dl version 2020.01.01
• I've searched the bugtracker for similar feature requests including closed ones

Description

Let's say one uses youtube-dl like this:

• --batch-file, watching 5 channels
• Filtering videos with --dateafter 20200101
• Each channel has hundreds of total videos

With the current strategy, youtube-dl will just loop through every channel, then every video of that channel, even when the date of the videos is decreasing below the dateafter cutoff. I assume there is a reason for this (like the order of the videos is not guaranteed to be ordered by date), but it would be nice to be able to use a less thorough but faster strategy.

The current strategy leads to making hundreds of requests for something that could often be done in a small fraction of that. Maybe it isn't guaranteed to yield the same results, but empirically speaking it has always been the case for me.

A feature that would solve the problem would be an option that let's you break the 'get-videos-for-channel-loop' as soon as you encounter one that is below the dateafter cutoff.

[dstftw]

the order of the videos is not guaranteed to be ordered by date

--download-archive.

[isaksky]

I already use --download-archive, it doesn't solve the problem. Looks like you haven't understood the issue.

[dstftw]

1. I'm not a telepathist to guess whether you already use download archive or not - you did not mention anything about thus assuming not using. Download archive allows to skip each video processing completely when id is known from playlist pages.
2. As for dateafter cutoff, again: this will not work reliably as you have no guarantees on ordering. And I will not accept any features with unpredictable behavior.