Music player that plays Youtube playlists

vlc

The stable VLC in *ubuntu 14.04 is version 2.1. To get the latest stable version:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mc3man/trusty-media&&sudo apt-get update&&sudo apt-get install vlc

can do this via a specific addon.

Look up the page for instructions - among others:

Installation:

• put the file in the vlc /lua/playlist folder, by default:
• Linux (all users): /usr/lib/vlc/lua/playlist/
• Linux (current user): ~/.local/share/vlc/lua/playlist/

How to use:

• Copy the URL of the youtube video or playlist (must contain "list=PL...")
• Start VLC, press Ctrl+N, paste the url then click on "Play" (or Alt+P then Enter), the video /playlist should start

(In 'Media', 'Save Playlist to File' and may open it later in VLC.)

Now I see that this answer was already given here, although with a different link.

Also, I find interesting an application that runs in the terminal, Youtube Viewer (youtube-viewer) and uses mplayer or mpv to play the youtube video.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nilarimogard/webupd8
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install youtube-viewer

More here.

By default it uses mplayer. To make it use mpv instead, run youtube-viewer --video-player=mpv. So, a desktop file with this content may be useful:

[Desktop Entry]
Exec=bash -c 'youtube-viewer --video-player=mpv'
Icon=youtube-viewer
Name[en_US]=Youtube Viewer
Name=Youtube Viewer
Terminal=true
Type=Application

When running the program, a terminal window opens, saying:

=>> Search for YouTube videos (:h for help)
> ^J> 

Running :h for help, you get a lot of options, amongst which

[playlist-url]    : display videos from a playlistURL
:playlist=ID      : display videos from a playlistID

This means that just pasting a playlist's URL will show the playlist in the terminal as a list. (Alternatively, instead of the whole URL, :playlist=ID, where ID is the last part of the URL (after list=). Then, to play it in the video player, type the numbers of the playlist items: for a whole playlist of 10 items, 1-10, etc.

If you really don't care about the video and want mainly the audio, you can take a look at this question on how to play only audio of youtube videos.

The idea is to use mps-youtube, similar to Youtube Viewer, but audio only. To see a playlist there, just type pl <url or id>. Then similarly, something like 1-10, and the sound will be played.

Youtube Viewer can be also used with audio only by adding a corresponding argument for mpv player: youtube-viewer --video-player=mplayer -novideo.

To use VLC without video, the arguments are:

cvlc --vout none <URL>
cvlc --no-video <URL> 

NOTE that for some reason not all youtube playlists can be accessed in this way.

As YouTube is a video site, you are unlikely to find a music player with support for it. Also, even if you do, you should note that the YouTube API is fairly restrictive in what those apps would be allowed to do anyway, and you will likely only be able to get the low-quality versions of any videos, even those which may have 1080p video and 5.1 audio in the original upload.

I don't know if it'll meet your precise requirements, but have you given Minitube a shot? It's a very nice application that should go a long way towards helping you. Here is a link to the PPA's page: https://launchpad.net/~neversfelde/+archive/minitube

Actually the default Movie Player (aka Totem) is capable of doing that:

But I have to admit, that it is not very advanced and does not meet all your needs. But there might be a lot of plugins out there, since it is a quite popular default player.