Getreel; youtube-dl wrapped in a web app
Posted on 2014-12-08
My friend Jezra was recently put into the same predicament that I've been in for the last year and a half. We live in beautiful areas that are full of natural splendor, but very light on the technology front. As a result, we both have our Internet beamed to us from frickin' space via a satellite.
One of the most onerous results of this is our connection cap. We are given a paltry 5GB monthly to live on - and the Internet at large is not designed to work with that level of restriction. You can annihilate your entire cap in an afternoon, watching adorable cats on YouTube. You also get another 5GB of bonus bytes, which are conveniently accessible between the hours of 2AM and 8AM. A fat lot of good that does me.
I've implemented proxies, download scheduling, and cut way back on my usage to cope, but Jezra is not one to go quietly into the night. He created GetReel, a service that can schedule video downloads to occur when you're using your bonus bytes. This allows you to watch some videos (albeit with a time delay) and not blow through your monthly allowance.
I was able to contribute the responsive interface, which uses lots and lots of Javascript to interact with the API underneath. This gave me an appreciation for how awful Javascript is, and how very, very much I have to learn about it.
Combined with MuttonChop, GetReel helps to make satellite services that much more useful. If you're on a restricted connection, or just want an easy way to download & view a whole pile of videos.
That reminds me; I wanted to create a "add to GetReel" bookmarklet. I should get on that.
Tags: css html javascript