Play youtube on smart TV

janitha · May 29, 2020, 5:23am

In the webostv component docs, it mentioned pylgtv, so I went looking there and seems like this is definitely possible, so I tried out the following successfully

from pylgtv import WebOsClient

client = WebOsClient('1.2.3.4')

apps = client.get_apps() # At this point your TV will prompt you to authorized pairing app
youtube_app = [ app for app in apps if app['title'] == 'YouTube' ][0]
youtube_id = youtube_app['id'] # Mine returned "youtube.leanback.v4"

client.launch_app_with_content_id("youtube.leanback.v4", "dQw4w9WgXcQ") # It works!

The tricky part was determining the youtube id, which was “youtube.leanback.v4”. I imagine it will only change with a major youtube app update.

I tried to do this with webos.command service in home-assistant… but that didn’t work. Looking at the code, it seems just two days ago, https://github.com/home-assistant/core/commit/6f4829c390cf38ed6c727df1c2267ea4cc353af4 which should enable this! I’m thinking this change will be included in 1.111.0

If a brave soul wants to deploy the dev builds and try it out, I imagine this should should work

service: webostv.command
data:
    entity_id: media_player.foobar
    command: "system.launcher/launch"
    target:
      id: "youtube.leanback.v4"
      contentId: "dQw4w9WgXcQ"

janitha · May 30, 2020, 3:56am

Alrighty, I was successfully able to do it on homeassistant/home-assistant:0.111.0.dev20200530

service: webostv.command
data:
  entity_id: media_player.jtv
  command: "system.launcher/launch"
  payload:
    id: "youtube.leanback.v4"
    contentId: "dQw4w9WgXcQ"

Makis · May 30, 2020, 7:07am

That’s good news!
However to be honest I didn’t understand how you extract the id: "youtube.leanback.v4" i(s it python script?) neither the second part of how to use the service: webostv.command
When you find some time please explain a bit

janitha · May 30, 2020, 10:02pm

Certainly. First I was using the “Developer Tools > Services” in the home-assistant UI trying to invoke the possible services. I noticed that there were several services that started with webostv.* specifically the webostv.command and the documentation that was associated with it referred to a external python project called pylgtv. I installed pylgtv on my local machine and was playing around, calling get_apps returned a list of all the apps (and for each app there was a title, id, etc). I saw a function there called launch_app_with_content_id and I fed it app='youtube.leanback.v4', contentId='dQw4w9WgXcQ'. Looking at the function, it was also using EP_LAUNCH = "system.launcher/launch"

Given this info, I tried to see how I can feed it in to home-assistant’s webostv service. Noticed the last commit which was by @PotatoDrug which enabled passing the command + payload (and I took a guess that payload is where I would cram id/contentId)

Makis · May 31, 2020, 7:17am

Thanks for the details. I hope that it will be doable with the 0.111 release. When you know how we can call to play a particular playlist from youtube please leave here an example.
I am also wondering if with this way we could call a particular movie from Netflix for example. I think it could.

solomos · December 21, 2020, 6:35pm

The following code worked for my LG TV (55’’ with webOS).

entity_id: media_player.sofita_tv
command: system.launcher/launch
payload:
  id: "youtube.leanback.v4"
  contentId: "nEi2Udjc0lQ"

where contentId is the youtube video url.
It does work!

The only disappointment was that TV asks you if you want to play the video as it was called outside youtube app.

Disappointment indeed as I was planning to create some NFC tags for my son (he is 3 years old) to play his favorite cartoon without parental control

If anyone has found a way to bypass this window on TV it will be ACE!
Looked into youtube settings on our TV but there is no such an option.

Anyhelp would be much appreciated.

solomos · December 22, 2020, 9:27pm

I found a way to bypass the popup box on TV.
Created a script, added some delay and then press ENTER (via service webosTV.button)
It works so smoothly

video1:
  alias: video1
  sequence:
  - service: webostv.command
    data:
      entity_id: media_player.sofita_tv
      command: system.launcher/launch
      payload:
        id: youtube.leanback.v4
        contentId: nEi2Udjc0lQ
    entity_id: media_player.sofita_tv
  - delay: 00:00:08
  - service: webostv.button
    data:
      entity_id: media_player.sofita_tv
      button: ENTER
    entity_id: media_player.sofita_tv
  mode: single

Soccs · February 5, 2021, 10:30am

just what ive been looking for! thank you, but i still ahve to click the play this video… any idea why?

solomos · February 7, 2021, 6:02pm

Raise the delay value a little bit.
I end up with the following and it works

video4:
  alias: video4
  sequence:
  - service: webostv.command
    data:
      entity_id: media_player.sofita_tv
      command: system.launcher/launch
      payload:
        id: youtube.leanback.v4
        contentId: EsdyiNQgmIE
    entity_id: media_player.sofita_tv
  - delay: 00:00:08
  - service: webostv.button
    data:
      entity_id: media_player.sofita_tv
      button: ENTER
    entity_id: media_player.sofita_tv
  mode: single

Please notice the delay after the video is triggered

- delay: 00:00:08

I delayed for 8’’ before I sent the ENTER command.
Hope that helps!

Soccs · February 7, 2021, 6:23pm

im going to try like 20 seconds! maybe thats the issue. mine takes longer to load up

solomos · February 13, 2021, 5:34pm

Did you make any progress?

Soccs · February 14, 2021, 5:15pm

Hello,
thank for the messge. not yet. i had to postpone this, because i had other major issues. but i will get back to this , this week! and will let you know for sure. but the delay of 20 seconds didnt work.

solomos · February 15, 2021, 10:37pm

Please share the code with us

Soccs · February 16, 2021, 12:12pm

alias: Play welcome Video Youtube
sequence:
  - service: webostv.command
    data:
      entity_id: media_player.lg_webos_smart_tv_3
      command: system.launcher/launch
      payload:
        id: youtube.leanback.v4
        contentId: n_5i_nzS1z0
    entity_id: media_player.lg_webos_smart_tv_3
  - delay:
      hours: 0
      minutes: 0
      seconds: 10
      milliseconds: 0
  - service: webostv.button
    data:
      entity_id: media_player.lg_webos_smart_tv_3
      button: ENTER
    entity_id: media_player.lg_webos_smart_tv_3
mode: single
icon: 'hass:youtube'

Soccs · February 16, 2021, 12:12pm

so it still stoped at do you want to play this video

solomos · February 18, 2021, 9:59pm

Try to raise the delay time and make sure that the ENTER command is passed properly to the TV. Get back to me

Soccs · February 18, 2021, 10:19pm

will try tomorrow then! thank you

moulder6 · February 21, 2021, 11:53am

Do u include the whole url or just the letter&numbers sequence at the end?
For some reason if i use just the latter youtube app launches but no video starts. If i use the whole url it opens the app and loads the video as a small window in the middle of a white screen.
To get it open normally i have to edit the url and replace the “watch” part with “tv” and only then it asks me if i am sure i want to play it…

Soccs · February 21, 2021, 5:20pm

It worked! the problem is in the yaml code actually when i done the code with your specifications, for some reason on the call action button enter it didnt recognize the media player. so i had to manually ad again the media player

on the picture i had to add again the media player there. because i didnt show

here is my code

alias: Play welcome Video Youtube
sequence:
  - service: webostv.command
    data:
      entity_id: media_player.lg_webos_smart_tv_3
      command: system.launcher/launch
      payload:
        id: youtube.leanback.v4
        contentId: n_5i_nzS1z0
    entity_id: media_player.lg_webos_smart_tv_3
  - delay:
      hours: 0
      minutes: 0
      seconds: 30
      milliseconds: 0
  - service: webostv.button
    data:
      entity_id: media_player.lg_webos_smart_tv_3
      button: ENTER
    entity_id: media_player.lg_webos_smart_tv_3
mode: single
icon: 'hass:youtube'

solomos · February 22, 2021, 10:34pm

No you don’t include the whole URL. You just need the content id

and here is the code

  - service: webostv.command
    data:
      entity_id: media_player.lg_webos_smart_tv_3
      command: system.launcher/launch
      payload:
        id: youtube.leanback.v4
        contentId: XXXXXXXXXX
    entity_id: media_player.lg_webos_smart_tv_3

replace XXXXXXXX with contentID
hope that helps