« You Tube Flash AS3 / AS2 API

Published on › 13.10.07 | Filed under › Source, Play

Recently I have been working on something involving the use of video content from You Tube. With the lack of a good API out there I created my own. Below is a simple example of this working with sample code to download further below.

AS3 example

PLAIN TEXT

Actionscript:

import com.FlashDynamix.services.YouTube;
import com.FlashDynamix.events.YouTubeEvent;
//
var yt:YouTube = new YouTube();
yt.APIKey = "WplekwLy_Nw";
function onLoaded(e:YouTubeEvent) {
switch (e.method) {
case YouTube.VIDEOSBYTAG :
try {
for each (var video:XML in data) {
trace(video.name() + " : " + video);
}
trace("Videos For Tag : " + e.request.tag + " : " + e.data.length());
} catch (evt:ArgumentError) {
trace("ERROR : No Videos For Tag");
}
}
}
//
yt.addEventListener(YouTubeEvent.COMPLETE, onLoaded);
yt.videosbyTag("Top Gear");

AS2 example

PLAIN TEXT

Actionscript:

import com.FlashDynamix.services.YouTube;
//
var yt:YouTube = new YouTube();
yt.APIKey = "WplekwLy_Nw";
var obj:Object = new Object();
obj.loaded = function(evt:EventArgs) {
switch (evt.type) {
case YouTube.VIDEOSBYTAG :
var videos = evt.value.video;
break;
}
};
//
yt.addListeners(obj);
yt.videosbyTag("Top Gear");

The class I created YouTube.as supports both the legacy and current version of the YouTube API legacy documentation and current documentation.

Download the source here

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jer 13.10.07

excellent !

Pedro G 06.11.07

Hi. I very happy with yours ytAPI implementation. I’m just curious about what’s going to happen if flashdinamix.com gets offline… I may be unable to connect to youtube via this API since I couldn’t acess http://www.youtube.com/api2_rest directly by GET method since Flash’s Sandbox violation doesn’t allow my script to do it.

Any help?

aSnO® 06.11.07

Thanks for the files, I was looking for this API a long time ago, I’m working on a web project, when I finish it I will send you the link so you will see how you helped me on the project.

Sorry for my bad english, saludos from COLOMBIA

Shane McCartney 06.11.07

Hey Pedro
In the zip download are the files to proxy the communications (asp.Net) with the YouTube API , this is the intended way to use this example.

Pedro G 09.11.07

Hi Shane

Thanks for replying.

It seems that today (nov 08 19:55GMT) the URL for get_video (”http://74.125.15.85/get_video?video_id=”) stop working.

Do you know what this is? A friend told me that it’s google videos’ cache page, but i’m not 100% on that.

Have any clue of what’s going on?

Well… I’ve tried “http://cache.googlevideo.com/get_video…”
and it worked!!

Hope that works forever.
Any tips? Please reply.

Marcio 09.11.07

HI, it seems that is no longer working, i did test it, but with no sucess. I also have another version of this, made by me, yesterday it worked but now ( 08- 11 -2007 ) it isn´t. Maybe youtube changed something.

Shane McCartney 11.11.07

Hi guys,

I have come up with a better solution for the AS3 version of the You Tube Flash API, download an update with the link above. If you need the AS2 version updated let me know and I will get to this for you.

Shane M

aSnO® 12.11.07

I’ve been testing the as2 version and It doesn’t work, can you help me telling me what to do to make it work?

can anybody gimme a link with the example in as2 working?

Hi Shane, can you upload the actionscript 2 example working? just the same as the example with as3… thank you and excuse my bad english

Shane McCartney 12.11.07

No problem aSnO I will update the AS2 version shortly, though I do recommend using the AS3 version

Thank you Shane, I know it’s better using the as3 version, but I can’t do It because the application I’m working on it’s enterely made in as2. I’ll be reviewing this post waiting for your solution, thanks again

The AS2 version is now also updated from the source download above.

aSnO® 14.11.07

Thank you again shane, It really works, This is the last time I’m working with as2. I’ll send you the link when I finish the app.

Gracias y saludos desde Colombia

Pedro G 15.11.07

Yes, Shane. Thanks again.
Hope this time it works forever…

I’m working on a PHP version of yours aspx files, if I can make it right, I’ll send you the code so you can share, since your site is easy to find when searching for youtube api…

I’m working on a astonishing surf-videos site, when it goes online I’ll send you a link and maybe your name will apear on the thanks page…

This time, thanks from Brasil!

Shane McCartney 15.11.07

Hi Pedro
Send through the link once the site is done always interesting to see what other people are working on. As well I would be happy to supply alternatives to the .net code with PHP so if you’re happy to share this so am I.

Pedro G 20.11.07

Hello again Shane.

I was wondering if you tried load the youtube videos directly onto a FLVPlayback component, or are you using a NetStream object since the beggining.

I think that the .flv extension that is missing on the get_video URL makes the component to break (or just don’t load).

Pedro.

Shane McCartney 21.11.07

I can’t comment on using Adobe components as I dont use them. Though a quick check on the documentation says on the FLV source parameter ’source:String (default = null) — A string that specifies the URL of the FLV file to stream and how to stream it. The URL can be a local path, an HTTP URL to an FLV file, an RTMP URL to an FLV file stream, or an HTTP URL to an XML file. It is optional, but the source property must be set either through the Component inspector or through ActionScript or this method has no effect. ‘

aSnO® 26.11.07

Hi Shane, me again.
I need to play videos from a datagrid which its data provider comes from the database. I mean any person that administrates the database just gives the video id, I made it work but not as I want, because I couldn’t get the video information this way (description and the rest of info), I don’t know if you understand me. I’m testing it in this url: http://www.emage-nation.com/ciclon/
In the button “GALERIA”
Note the first datagrid that appears there, the one with the blue style applied. That datagrid brings me the id of the video. So, with this id, what can I do to get the rest of video info directly from youtube and make it play well?

Thank you very much and excuse me for my english…

Michael 07.12.07

Love your code and above example. Its pretty much what i want to do but I dont know how you extract the video id or where you get it from as you haven’t provided the code behind files. I know you pass through the webpage and obviously search that page for something but I don’t know what. I search for the id but it is not in there. Do you decode it somehow in your file. If you could let me know that would be great and then i can create my own server side pages. Thanks in advance, the code is really cool.

Cheers

icio 07.12.07

How do I tell the script to search by itslef the videos of a cetain user so it will automatically show the list of videos of that user without typing it and click “GO”?

Great script!

Shane McCartney 07.12.07

Hi Michael

Email me on the email address below and I can send you the c# code.

Hey Icio

If you want it to automatically do a search then just call the search method straight away rather than on the button click like I have.

icio 08.12.07

Hey Shane.

Will you share “getVideoId.aspx”, so I can put It on my server and skip queries to your website all the time that I use this script?

Shane McCartney 08.12.07

Icio
getVideoId.aspx is in the source download files above, there is also a dll file - YouTube.dll that you will need to place in the bin directory.

aSnO® 09.12.07

Sean 09.01.08

Great Job!

I am using flash 8, however the file included in the AS2 folder of youTube.zip won’t open in Flash 8. Is it possible to include or send me a Flash 8 compatible version?

Shane McCartney 09.01.08

Hi Sean
I have saved the FLA for the YouTube AS2 version to Flash 8 and reuploaded the zip. Enjoy!
Shane M

spock 25.01.08

Hi, error on script cant play movie

Shane McCartney 26.01.08

Thanks Spock
To fix this you will need to update with the latest YouTube.dll in the zip download.

spock 27.01.08

ok thanks great job man.. and you share it.. that is great.. sorry my english is bad :$

Shane McCartney 27.01.08

No problem Spock
thanks for pointing out to me that the YouTube API had changed. If you feel so inclined feel free to donate as this helps me to keep giving the free stuff

hi Shane,
I am still a student and i havent so much money but if i earn my self money than can i donate for you

Np spock, feel free to post to me the result then of using the code

Roy Hovden 06.02.08

Hi! This is such a great source you have provided for us here! I’m working on getting this over to flash 7 on “Windows Mobile” I’ve managed to port it, the sound is great, but the video has only a couple of frames per second on some and 10 or so on the “best ones”. Maybe this has to do with device video drivers, I don’t know, but do you have any tips on how I can improve on these things. I’ve reduced the actionscript quite a bit.

Any small hints would be gold value to the “windows mobile” enthusiasts. thanks!

And I forgot, what are those dll’s for?
thanks!

Shane McCartney 06.02.08

Hi Roy,
I haven’t done any testing using FLV’s with Flash Lite. I am interested though is the frame rate performance related to the length/dimension of the video ? which means longer/ larger the FLV then the flash player would need more memory allocated to it to play it.

An ideal way of loading the FLV would be through Flash Media Server but uncertain wether this is a possibility for you.

Roy Hovden 09.02.08

Hi Shane,
It’s not flash lite, it’s flash 7 as2

On the videos that are actually “watchable” the framerate seems to go up and down abit. Larger videos seems to skip more.

Is there any way to download the videos to a “temp file”, before playing? I think the streaming takes too much processing power from the windows mobile

Thanks!

New info:
the “video” seems to be playing after the sound is finished

Ronny 09.02.08

Hello,

first let me say thank you for this wonderful script, I’m very existed about that. But I’ve got a question.

If I remember correctly there was a php proxy script in the package some time ago but now there isn’t.

My question is… (Why) did you remove this script? Are there any errors or problems with that?

I don’t have asp and it would be great if you could bring the php proxy script back…

Thank you!
Ronny

Shane McCartney 11.02.08

Hi Ronny
this code was supplied to me by another developer but recently there were some changes on YouTube so I have removed this code because I only code C# and updated this version only.

Hi Roy
Sounds like this is definately a memory issue due to the phone and flash player. Even though youre using Flash 7 AS2 you must be using the Flash Lite Player ? As this is the Flash Player which is best used on mobile devices or so I thought. Maybe you would find this interesting http://www.adobe.com/products/flashlite/version/

Roy Hovden 13.02.08

Thank you so much for your answer.

The flash lite 2.1 (Which is the latest on Windows mobile) doesn’t support flv files or rtmp streaming. Flash 7 however does that.

Finding a way to download the flv file instead of streaming it would probably be a good way to get around the problem.

My windows mobile has 400 mhz and 128 mb rams. so it should be able to handle it at a reasonable framerate (at least 15 fps).

Ronny 14.02.08

Thank you for your reply, Shane! I’ve searched on my old hdd and find an older release which included the php files. The getVideoId.php didn’t work for more, but the proxyScript does.

I’ve spent some time, looked at your new youtube response and made some changes on the script. Now the getVideoId script works fine, too.

I can send you the script if you want. And if I got the permission. I’m sure there are a lot of persons out there who can’t or don’t use C#.

Ronny

Shane McCartney 14.02.08

Thanks send it through and will revise with this version.

igr 19.02.08

hey Shane,

this sure is very interesting and very useful. Could you share the code of the dll with us ? Many people cannot use dlls or simply don’t like the idea of having to use an unknown binary.

Thanks

Shane McCartney 19.02.08

Hi igr

There is the PHP source in there for a language which uses uncompiled code.

spock 23.02.08

Hi Shane,

how can i make it with playlist? Can you please help me..?

Spock

mike 26.02.08

Hey Shane! Awesome work! One problem though, the white ’seek bar’ extends far to the left outside of the video. Once a video is loaded and the and start playback, this corrects itself. It does this on the example on this page. I’ve attached a screenshot here: http://missingtoof.com/Picture-1.jpg

This happens in Firefox, Safari & Camino on OSX. I’m running the latest version of flash 9,0,115,0.

Shane McCartney 26.02.08

Hey Mike

Thanks for reporting this I have fixed this problem which strangely only affects Mac for getting the load percent before a video has been requested to be loaded.

mike 27.02.08

wow, you’re fast! amazing!

Geraint 28.02.08

Great bit of code, I was just wondering is “recording_location”,”recording_country” and comments suported? If so how to you use them?

Thanks for you help geraint

Shane McCartney 28.02.08

Hi Geraint
Have a look at the method videoIdDetails this will give you this data for a specific Video Id

Geraint 29.02.08

Thanks Thats sorted what I need! However I have one small question, not all You tube videos work. Not sure if its me. Try the following user and not all of them work.

kirkflyingvet

Shane McCartney 01.03.08

Hi Geraint

Thanks for spotting this and I have updated the .Net code to fix this.

Geraint 01.03.08

No problem, thanks for the great API.

Is it possible to get a copy of the .net code?

Geraint

Sure just email me and I’ll email it to you

Matt 13.03.08

Hey Shane, once the video XML is parsed, and you come up with the path, how do you play it? There’s no FLV ending. I’ve tried with the “previewVid” Video in the library and with an FLVplayback component and nothing wants to play it. I’ve also tried adding “rtmp” instead of http, and throwing an flv extension on the end. From looking at your code it looks like you just tell it to .play(path) How? Please help.

Matheus 13.03.08

I’m trying to use the class with PHP but all I get is is the following XML, no matter what I try to do:
4Missing required parameter.

Nevermind Shane, I finally got it. You must use the netstream and netconnection. I looked at your implementation of “FLVPlayer” and thought it was “FLVPlayback.” Thanks for the code!

Shane McCartney 17.03.08

Hi Matheus,
I was supplied this Php code, I would recommend using the .Net code as I never really liked this Php code so I initally removed it from the download ZIP but ppl asked me to add it back. Though I quickly looked at it I noticed an obvious bug and fixed it.

thviy 22.03.08

Hey

i am trying to make desktop youtube player using your example on your
website. but i keep getting this security sandbox violation error all
the time.

i tried hosting all the php files in my server, but looks like my
hosting does not support curl. Is there any way you could provide me
with cross domain policy file?

thanks

thivy

Charalambos Constantinou 24.03.08

Can this code work for searching other tubes also?

Eduardo Neves 25.03.08

Hello Shane,

Your Code is really nice, I’ve update my site with your code with a simple modification, I didn’t allow the users do the search by themselves, I’ve set the tag in the Main.as script and every time when the users enter in the site they need click in the bottom to have my Video list as response. It was working fine till last week when it’s stop work on IE. I didn’t do any change after the implementation and now it’s just working on Firefox; Do you know some issue happening that avoid this code work on IE? Or maybe am I doing something wrong?

Thanks in Advance,

Eduardo Neves

Sorry Shane,

I forgot tell you, I’m using the AS3 Flash Scritp.

Shane McCartney 28.03.08

Hi Eduardo
Theres no reason why it shouldn’t work in IE, though I did just recently block cross domain access to scripts on flashdynamix as there were getting abused. Though all these server side scripts are provided and can be implemented in either .Net or PHP on you’re own server. I recommend using the .Net as I wrote this version

Eduardo Neves 29.03.08

I did like you suggest installing the YouTube.dll in my own server and changing the youtube.as to execute the aspx direct from my server, but no luck.
All the time I’m getting this error:

“ERROR loading method : youtube.videos.list_by_user”.

Do you have any idea what it can be solved. I know for sure I doing something wrong, but really don’t know where and what !!!

Thanks for you help again

Shane McCartney 31.03.08

Eduardo
Send me the url you are testing this error with, so I can debug it for you.

Eduardo Neves 02.04.08

Shane,

I got a help from my WebPage host, and we figure out what problem is occuring.
We thought that YouTube.dll was successfully installed but wasn’t. Every time we try install it by command “regsvr32″ the msg below is displayed:
“youTube.dll was loaded, but the DllRegisterServer entry point was not found. This file can not be registered.”
The same occurs for the ToolKit.dll.
Do you know how can we proceed to apply it on our server successfully?

Our link for the Videos Page is:
www.free4christ.com/Videos/videos.asp

Shane McCartney 02.04.08

Hi Eduardo,
Using a HTTP Analyzer the problem is your reference to the script returns a 404 error. So I’ld say this is the error.

Rick 02.04.08

How do I get it to load a specific playlist?

Shane McCartney 03.04.08

Hi Rick,
There is a method called videosPlaylist on the YouTube class. It requires at least the playlist Id as a parameter.

Eduardo Neves 03.04.08

I could solve this problem using the “PHP” files instead of “ASPX and *dll files”.
Now it’s working fine on both browser IE and Firefox.
Thanks a lot for your help;

Anthony Maness 20.04.08

I am trying to use your API to develop a multimedia site for school. Do you have deploy the site on a web server or can it be tested locally? The videos will not play once selected. Thank you for your help.

Anthony Maness

Shane McCartney 23.04.08

Hi Anthony,
The server side scripts need to be used either on your localhost or on a remote host.
Shane M

Matt 24.04.08

Well, it’s me again Shane. I’m still working with your setup and I have to say that you have some beautiful code. I’ve finally got it working exactly how I want it. And I just wanted to throw out something to you. In Main.as, I had to issue a command like this: fvc.myVid.smoothing = true; That removed a lot of jagged edges, and let me bump up the size of the player. Thanks again!

Shane McCartney 24.04.08

Cheers Matt,
I am glad you like the code.

Geraint 25.04.08

It’s me again sorry!

Is there a method for getting a users playlist? Or getting a playlist?

Thanks Geraint

Thanks again for the help here is what we did with it
http://kirkflyingvet.com/video.aspx

Myran 26.04.08

Good job on this thing, I wonder though.. why does the seeking bar not work? Also, is it possible to modify sound volume and not just toggle mute?

Shane McCartney 26.04.08

Hi Myran
The seeking bar can be activated via a property called allowSeek in the VideoPlayback class. Though I disabled this because I discovered YouTube specific problems seeking partcular videos.

Hi Geraint,
Nice work there is a method videosPlaylist in the YouTube class to get a video playlist.

Cory 02.05.08

Hey Shane, this code is great. I just want to know how to load one specified video file from youtube to flash, say this file:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbHAjSxm5P8

thx man
Cory

Shane McCartney 02.05.08

Hi Cory,
The example files should get you started and demonstrate how to do this, so refer to these as downloaded above. Use the getVideoId method and pass this url once you get back the t parameter you can load the flv using the videoId as well.

Just to let you guys know there is now a new version of the YouTube class which supports there new API as documented here http://code.google.com/apis/youtube/developers_guide_protocol.html. The legacy API is still also included in the download zip file.

Geraint 03.05.08

Cory 03.05.08

Hi Shane, it’s me again, thanks for your reply, I think I didn’t make myself clear, I was meant to say how would I load a YouTube video directly into the player automatically (without the user having to click anything)?

For instance: I want to have this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbHAjSxm5P8 appear when someone goes to the page.

P.S : I’m not great at actionscript so please tell me slowly

Shane McCartney 04.05.08

Hi Cory
This is best explained I think by some sample code.

import com.FlashDynamix.services.YouTube; import com.FlashDynamix.events.CustomEvent;


var yt:YouTube = new YouTube();

yt.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, onLoaded);
function onLoaded(e:CustomEvent):void {

	switch (e.id) {

		case YouTube.VIDEOID :

			trace(YouTube.FLVUrl+e.value.id+"&t="+e.value.t);

			break;

	}

}

yt.videoId("http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbHAjSxm5P8");

Cory 04.05.08

Thx Shane you helped me a lot there.

btw, is there a folder called CustonEvent?

thx

Sorry for posting 3 comments in a row. After trying this many times, I still couldn’t get it right, if you have time would you mind just uploading the source file for the “loading a YouTube video directly into the player automatically without the user having to click anything”

sorry for my bad english

I would be very grateful
Cory

philippe 06.05.08

hi, Thx for source.
work with php, need php-curl installed

sorry for my bad english, i’m french

Shane McCartney 07.05.08

Hi Phillippe,
that’s right for the php source you will need curl installed on your server. But this is often easily done via adding the curl dll reference to the php.ini file.

jj 13.05.08

Somehow i can’t make this work. I can’t open the youtube.fla… did anyone successfully got this working w. the PHP version.. please help …. there are too many files.. which ones are required for the PHP version…?

Shane McCartney 14.05.08

JJ,
There are example files showing this working as above example SWF and you need to use CS3 to open the FLA’s. The same files are used in Actionscript whether you’re using .Net or PHP, just change the videoIdUrl var in the YouTube class. There are only 5 classes required to use this service, so not that many.

YouTube YouTubeData DataLoader DataItem CustomEvent

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