←back to thread

798 points bertman | 10 comments | | HN request time: 0.916s | source | bottom
Show context
bdz ◴[] No.45899768[source]
I use yt-dlp (and back then youtube-dl) all the time to archive my liked videos. Started back in around 2010, now I have tens of thousands of videos saved. Storage is cheap and a huge percent of them are not available anymore on the site.

I also save temporary videos removed after a time for example NHK honbasho sumo highlights which are only available for a month or so then they permanently remove them.

replies(12): >>45899869 #>>45899943 #>>45900007 #>>45900140 #>>45900275 #>>45900581 #>>45900630 #>>45901958 #>>45902752 #>>45902786 #>>45903073 #>>45905245 #
1. trallnag ◴[] No.45900007[source]
Do you ever go back and actually watch those videos? Whenever I start to journal, track, or just document something, after some time I notice again and again that most of the value has already been created the moment I finish working on a specific entry. Even with something seemingly very important like medical records. Maybe one exception I can think of are recordings of memories involving people close to you
replies(4): >>45900099 #>>45900127 #>>45900202 #>>45900606 #
2. rob ◴[] No.45900099[source]
I would be interested in knowing as well. I've been watching YouTube since it first came out and can't remember any times where I saw something I thought I needed to actually download and save in case I wanted it in 10 years. 10,000+ videos is a lot of videos to just seemingly save.
replies(1): >>45900412 #
3. f_devd ◴[] No.45900127[source]
I have the same with journals, but the video archiving has actually come up a few times, still fairly rare though. I think the difference is that you control the journal (and so rarely feel like you need it's content) while the videos you're archiving are by default outside of your control and can be more easily lost.
4. bdz ◴[] No.45900202[source]
I actually do! I have a perpetual VLC playlist which plays those videos randomly if I need some background noise.
replies(2): >>45900590 #>>45901115 #
5. ndriscoll ◴[] No.45900412[source]
Whether something is worth downloading is a good heuristic for whether it's worth watching in the first place. e.g. university lectures, technical talks, hobby technique tutorials, etc. are something you may want to reference in the future, or you may want to save for your kids in case they're interested in it one day, etc. The latest slop from professional "content creators" that you can't imagine keeping so you can pass it down one day? Not worth your time today either.
6. avhception ◴[] No.45900590[source]
I also have a ton of music videos from Youtube. Many of them are fan-made, many already unavailable I sometimes play them on a projector when I'm throwing a party.
7. dylan604 ◴[] No.45900606[source]
I don’t think journaling is the same thing though as hoarding pics/videos. Even if you never go back and read through old hand written journals, just the physical process of writing has mental effects that pics/videos do not. There’s also a bit of therapeutic results from slowing down and putting thought to paper. So to me the only similarity is that you might not ever look at it again, that does not make them the same at all
8. rob ◴[] No.45901115[source]
How many of the 20,000+ videos you've saved locally do you actually care about if they get "removed" from YouTube?
replies(2): >>45902101 #>>45903706 #
9. bdz ◴[] No.45902101{3}[source]
I'm not sure and that's a good question but after a point it was a principle of saving them rather than caring them about. Probably a digital hoarding attitude.
10. lurk2 ◴[] No.45903706{3}[source]
You never know until you need to find something and can’t find it.