[YouTube] 8K/HDR/360-degree videos - Add dynamic itag support.

[FireMasterK]

• I carefully read the contribution guidelines and agree to them.
• I have tested the API against NewPipe.
• I agree to create a pull request for NewPipe as soon as possible to make it compatible with the changed API.

This PR adds support for dynamic itag loading and therefore 8K/HDR/360-degree videos.

Closes #485
Closes TeamNewPipe/NewPipe#5118
Closes TeamNewPipe/NewPipe#1892
Closes #39
Closes TeamNewPipe/NewPipe#2842
Closes TeamNewPipe/NewPipe#2835
Closes #672.

[FireMasterK]

This obviously requires extensive testing, a lot of hardcoded itags aren't covered but I have never seen them in the wild, do send me such videos here so I can handle those as well.

Test APK: app-debug.zip

[opusforlife2]

You need to add the 'closes' line in the OP for Github to link the issues. Doesn't work in a comment.

[FireMasterK]

You need to add the 'closes' line in the OP for Github to link the issues. Doesn't work in a comment.

Changed 👍

[opusforlife2]

You also need the 'closes' keyword in front of each link. :P

[FireMasterK]

So after some testing, I found out that HDR webm streams and 8K videos won't play on exoplayer (on my device atleast).

Any suggestions on what should be done on the NewPipe side?

[Stypox]

@FireMasterK you could take a look at https://exoplayer.dev/supported-formats.html

[FarisZR]

So after some testing, I found out that HDR webm streams and 8K videos won't play on exoplayer (on my device atleast).

Any suggestions on what should be done on the NewPipe side?

So i tested th apk, on a 4k video with HDR.
The video player crashes when trying to play any resolution higher than 1080p with HDR(mpeg).
And when playing in 1080 mpeg-4 HDR, its playing in like 5fps with everything kind of grey.

Now when switching to Webm it works(on all resolutions) but i barely notice the differences. Tried multiple videos and its the same issue.
The most noticeable difference is the contrast/saturation
When selecting HDR the video is noticeably desaturated

Device: S10+ with linage os(modpunk)

[FireMasterK]

In addition to Android’s platform decoders, ExoPlayer can also make use of software decoder extensions. These must be manually built and included in projects that wish to make use of them. We currently provide software decoder extensions for AV1, VP9, FLAC, Opus and FFmpeg.

It looks like this may be required for unsupported devices that don't support AV1 and VP9(.2).

Device implementations must support dynamic video resolution and frame rate switching through the standard Android APIs within the same stream for all VP8, VP9, H.264, and H.265 codecs in real time and up to the maximum resolution supported by each codec on the device. src: https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/media/media-formats#core

This suggests that software encoding is required for higher resolution.

Thoughts? @Stypox
Is there something I missed?

[Stypox]

A while ago it was decided not to include code requiring NDK into NewPipe, idk if this relates

[FireMasterK]

What's the solution then? I'm not sure what can be done on devices with no hardware decoding..

[orangpelupa]

Hiya, the "bad contrast" when playing HDR youtube video thru the debug newpipe posted above could be due to

1. It displays HDR to SDR directly, without proper tone mapping. Thus it looks to have a bad contrast. On the other hand if you play a HDR video thru 3rd party player (VLC, mx player, etc) it'll be displayed in SDR with proper tone mapping. So you loss its "white sky is brighter than a white paper" but the contrast and colors looks fine.
3. It did not switch the display mode from SDR to HDR, thus it was displayed in SDR. You can easily check this by swiping down the notification bar or opening the recent menu. In HDR mode (invoked by playing an HDR video in a stock Samsung video player), those overlays/screens will have wonky colors.

[TobiGr]

We need to implement something like "supported formats". Pass a List of supported formats to NewPipe when initializing the extractor (empty list => all formats are supported).

[Stypox]

We need to implement something like "supported formats". Pass a List of supported formats to NewPipe when initializing the extractor (empty list => all formats are supported).

I'd go with the opposite: let the NewPipe app filter out the unsupported formats

[AudricV]

Sorry @Co0olboi, your suggestion was indentical to what FireMasterK made, and GitHub dosen't allow to hide the comment, so I deleted it before I saw that I can dismiss your review, sorry :(.

[Stypox]

Add final when possible ;-)

[Stypox]

Looks good to me, though my opinion on this is not much valuable

[FireMasterK]

Note: There are some changes in NewPipe to be made before merging this. (I need some help with Exoplayer for this)

[litetex]

A reason for deprecating this/what to use instead in JavaDoc would be great here 😄

I also noticed that

NewPipeExtractor/extractor/src/main/java/org/schabi/newpipe/extractor/utils/DashMpdParser.java

Line 150 in 6db4bea

final ItagItem itag = ItagItem.getItag(Integer.parseInt(id));

still relies on that code, so maybe some fixing has to be done there

[Stypox]

See #488 (comment)

[litetex]

Thank you @Stypox
However when I read the code I couldn't link these comments (and the next one who reads it without background information will also fail to do so).
I think it would still be a good idea to somehow mention this in the code/javadoc.

[litetex]

I also tested this together with #706 on an experimental branch with the NewPipe app and got the same problems as stated above (black screen on resolutions >1080 etc) on my emulator - Pixel 3a Android 11.0/API 30, e.g.:

Personally I would also currently not recommend implementation:

• <10% of all android devices even support AV1, which is optionally (decoder) shipped with Android 10+
  
  
• there could be certain changes from YT's side - this PR is now open since about 9 months; in likely 2-4 years we will see a noteworthy market share of Android 10+ with >20-40% - that may render it useless and it has to be (completely) reworked again

For now, I'll stay out of this topic as it's too subject-heavy.

[FireMasterK]

The solution obviously would be to hide resolutions that aren't supported by NewPipe/Exoplayer.

I haven't made any changes in the NewPipe app yet, which is essential to even consider merging this.

From prior conversations, Stypox said it was decided to not allow NDK/software decoding for unsupported devices, so selectively filtering formats on the app is the only suitable solution.

[0Karakurt0]

Mmmm... Where can I find new testing .apk or sources AND instruction?
One in the beginning of the thread is quite outdated and can't load videos fast enough to viev HDR

[Stypox]

@0Karakurt0 @FireMasterK I rebased here but couldn't push here since I don't have permission. Anyway, here is the apk built upon the latest version of the app and the extractor: app-debug.zip

[0Karakurt0]

here is the apk built upon the latest version of the app

Mmm. Idk if I'm lacking hardware, but I belive that on earlier version I did not had that issue.
I am expiriencing frame skipping and video slowdowns on 1080p HDR. 720p HDR is okay.
Hardware is Mi 9T, I'll write later if the same issue is present on earlier build. And add more testing overall, tho I gave no idea what information would be helpful in solving this.
May the OS have a part in preformance penalty? I'm running DoT OS on my phone

EDIT:
So, I did a bit more testing, and found out some interesting results. My hardware is laking for 1080+ HDR or MPEG-4 720p60 HDR, but some videos where played correctly on that resolution (MPEG-4 1080p HDR too). Selecting any resolution higher (MPEG-4) leads to critical player error.
WebM had no issues at all

[0Karakurt0]

Another strange issue noticed is that sometimes audio is doubled. I am using Bluetooth headphones and sometimes during the queue change phone's loudspeakers get activated in parallel to headphones.
But I'm not sure if it's New Pipe's fault, because if takes effect on the whole system and fixes only after reboot.
New Pipe debug edition is the only app causing that behavior

[0Karakurt0]

Just right now same doubled sound happened in main build, so it's either not NewPipe specific or a bug from mainstream.
What it had in common was HDR, I was watching downloaded HDR video in Just Player right before opening a video in NewPipe.

[Valmar33]

@FireMasterK Is there a more recent test APK that we can test? Cheers.

[synchrone]

Here's an
app-debug.zip built with this PR and with aa67363 merged in.
In my testing it does not show HDR in player quality dropdown, but at least lets you download the HDR video.