So my new workflow is to use Piped to find a video, then copy the end of the link and type “yt-dlp ” in a terminal, wait for the video(s) to download, and open in mpv.

Why not just pass the YouTube link to mpv so you don't have to wait for the video to download?

[–] theshatterstone54@feddit.uk 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

I still have to wait a long time for the video to load in the Mpv cache, and sometimes I want a bunch of videos to watch later (or watch multiple times if they're educational). In which case, I either open up a bunch of videos in their own mpv windows and they all load while I'm watching the first one, or I download them while I'm doing something else.

But loading a bunch of mpv windows is heavier than a bunch of terminals running yt-dlp (and I could also just switch to using tmux.... which I probably should get around to at some point).

[–] nore@sh.itjust.works 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I still have to wait a long time for the video to load in the Mpv cache

In my experience the video loads in a few seconds compared to the minutes it'd take for it to download, but I get your second point.

[–] gramgan@lemmy.ml 2 points 4 months ago

Depends on the options mpv passes to yt-dlp—I personally have in my mpv config to grab 720p videos, so that it’s faster than downloading full quality.