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From Reddit.com

Tired of crappy flash performance? Play YouTube videos in MPlayer with one click (self.linux)

You need the following software:

* Firefox
* MPlayer (but other players should work too)
* youtube-dl (Don’t use the version that comes with ubuntu, it’s two years old)
* CommandRun add on

If you want to start the video with a mouse gesture, then you need

* FireGestures

If you want to start it from the context menu, then you need

* Context Options

You can of course use both.

First, create a script named “yt” (or whatever you like) somewhere in your path with the following content:

#!/bin/sh
mplayer "$(youtube-dl -g -f 18 $1)" &

and make it executable (chmod +x yt). You can of course add custom options to mplayer and choose the youtube format you like best (i.e something different than 18).

Next, in Firefox go to Tools – Add-ons – commandrun – Preferences and add your script to the allowed commands. You need to add the full path enclosed in double quotes and square brackets (e.g. [“/usr/local/bin/yt”]).

If you want to start videos with a mouse gesture, go to Tools – Add-ons – FireGestures – Preferences – Mapping – Add Script…, give it a name (e.g. Play with MPlayer) and paste the following code into the Script field:

var srcNode = FireGestures.sourceNode;
var linkURL = FireGestures.getLinkURL(srcNode);
if (!linkURL) throw "Not a link";
var CR = new CommandRunHandler();
CR.run("/usr/local/bin/yt",[linkURL]);

and change “/usr/local/bin/yt” to the path of your script. Finally assign a gesture to it.

If you want to start the video from the context menu, go to Tools – Add-ons – Context Options – Preferences, click on New, uncheck everything but Hyperlink and paste the following code into the bottom field:

try {
var linkURL = get_link_url();
if (!linkURL) throw "Not a link";
var CR = new CommandRunHandler();
CR.run ("/usr/local/bin/yt",[linkURL]);
} catch (err) {
alert ("Error: " + err.description);
}

Again, remember to insert the right path. Finally give it a name in the upper text box in the middle column.

That’s it! Right click on any youtube link or perform your mouse gesture to watch the video in MPlayer.