How to launch external video player using the addon app ?

[singhb...@gmail.com]

i have installed the DownloadHelper Companion app in my windows machine. i just wanna ask how do i launch the video being played in browser to any external video player of my choice. i don't see any option for it in the video download helper extension options in browser toolbar

[Wild Willy]

It is my understanding that there is a way to get the CoApp to play a video after it's
been downloaded. I can't comment on that, though, because I've never tried it. But
that's not what you're asking for. Normally, once you've got a video downloaded. You
switch away from the browser completely. You change to another task, like for example
the file manager. Then you double click the video & launch your system default video
player, VLC being recommended around here. I don't think there's any way for VDH to be
involved in that.

[singhb...@gmail.com]

i don't mean playing a video after it has been downloaded, i meant to say video which is actively playing in my browser window, to make it play in external player if that is possible ? Because i asked in the github issue of the companion app here - https://github.com/aclap-dev/vdhcoapp/issues/182 and got a reply that it is possible

[Paul]

Ah, I'm the one who replied to you there. I misunderstood your question.
It's not possible to have your local video player take over an already playing video (at least, not possible with "just" the VDH tools).

[Wild Willy]

I wrote what you see below & before I could post it, Paul replied to you. But there are
some subtleties that are worth exploring so I'm posting what I was going to post anyway.

I'm not sure Paul understood your question completely. But just think about it. If you
open your external player, what options does it offer for playing things? I know VLC
best so I'll talk about that. The easiest thing is to tell VLC to hunt around on your
disk space & play a file on your system. But there are other options. You can give a
URL of an MP4 (or MKV or WEBM or whatever the file is) to VLC. It will go out to the
web, find that item, & play it. You can give a URL of a manifest, HLS or DASH, to VLC.
It will go out to the web, find that item, & play that stream. So the key is to have the
URL of some multimedia item for VLC to play.

Now how does any of that have anything at all to do with VDH? It doesn't. They are
separate applications, separate concepts. In general, most multimedia objects you
download into a file on your system with VDH will not be playable by an external player
(like VLC) while the download is still in progress. There are certain data structures
that are not written into the file until the download completes. These data structures
are required by VLC before it can play something. So VLC just stares at you when you try
to play a file before VDH has finished downloading it. Mostly. There are exceptions,
but mostly that's how it works.

Now, there is a function on the secondary VDH menu labelled Details. This opens an
information page called Hit Details about the selected variant. In there, you can quite
often (not always) find a URL that you could copy/paste into VLC to play something. But
the mere fact of playing a video within a web page does not make it available to VLC.
You have to do some technical things to give the video to VLC. Or you can just let VDH
download it, & then play the downloaded file in VLC.

While VDH is downloading something, that variant disappears from the main VDH menu.
While a download is in flight, you can monitor its progress by clicking the blue dot at
the bottom of the VDH menu. After VDH downloads something, that variant disappears from
the status menu & reappears on the main VDH menu. But it will have a Play icon.
Clicking the Play icon does not actually play the item. It just queues it up in VLC's
playlist. You still have to switch tasks to VLC to actually play it.

Actually, with the new Side Download, after a download completes, we no longer get the
Play button. It still shows the new Side Download icon. I've been meaning to report
that but I keep forgetting. But this is completely unimportant. The usage pattern
should be this: In the browser, do the download with VDH. When it completes, switch
tasks & launch playback outside the browser, not connected to VDH in any way.

[singhb...@gmail.com]

Thank you so much for the detailed explanation and clearing all the doubts. Currently i am using a mpv userscript in chrome which gives a mpv icon below every ytdlp supported website. I just click on that icon and it starts playing that same video in mpv player, its quire convenient. i was under the impression that downloadhelper companion app has similar functionality especially since video downloadhelper can detect/support a whole lot more videos than ytdlp does, it would have been a even better combo. The userscript and all of its components are open source, if you need it i can link all of them here.