Converts a YouTube or Twitch channel into a full blown audio podcast feed.

Features

• Completely converts the VoDs into a proper podcast RSS that can be listened to directly inside the client.
• The VoDs are not downloaded on the server, so no need for storage while self-hosting this app.
• VoDs are transcoded to MP3 192k on the fly by default, tested to be working flawlessly even on a Raspberry Pi 3-4.
• also works on standard rss podcasts feed if you want to have a lower bitrate version to save mobile data.

Limitations

• Youtube channel avatar is not present and results are limited to 15 when no YouTube API key is set.

Usage

Web UI

• just go where you hosted vod2pod and you will find an easy to use UI to generate the feed

Manually Generate A Podcast URL

• In a web browser go to where you hosted vod2pod, es: http://myserver.com/ or http://localhost/
  • In the web page that opens paste the channel you want to convert to podcast and copy the generated link.
• Optionally goto : http://myserver.com/transcodize_rss?url=channel_url
  • An RSS will be generated.
  • Replace channel_url with the URL of the YouTube or Twitch channel you want to convert into a podcast.
    • YouTube: http://myserver.com/transcodize_rss?url=https://www.youtube.com/c/channelname
    • Twitch: http://myserver.com/transcodize_rss?url=https://www.twitch.tv/channelname
    • RSS/atom feed: http://myserver.com/transcodize_rss?url=https://feeds.simplecast.com/aU_RzZ7j
      • Add the domain to the whitelist. See configurations below

Add The URL To A Podcast Client

• find a tutorial on how to add an rss feed to your favorite podcast app

Optional API Access

• Twitch: Get your SECRET and CLIENT ID https://dev.twitch.tv/console
• YouTube: Enable more than 15 items in the RSS feed, channel avatar
  • API key https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/getting-started
  • Enable API Access https://console.cloud.google.com/
    • APIs & Services > +Enable APIs and Services > Search "YouTube Data API"

See configurations below

Install

Clone This Repository

git clone https://github.com/madiele/vod2pod-rss.git

Docker

• Install Docker Compose
• Precompiled images are available here for linux machines with arm64, amd64 and armv7 (raspberry pis are supported).

Docker Compose

cd vod2pod-rss
nano docker-compose.yml

See configurations below

sudo docker compose up -d

Updating

sudo docker compose pull && sudo docker compose up -d
sudo docker system prune

• To get notifications of new release follow these instructions

Switching to the Beta branch

The beta branch is a version of vod2pod that is always updated to the latest yt-dlp releases in a matter of days, if you have problems try it out first to see if they are fixed, then open an issue so that I can consider making a new stable release

Also by being on the beta branch you might help me find bugs before I make any new stable release, so you'll help the project too

To switch open the compose docker-compose.yml and edit the vod2pod image section from "latest" to "beta", then follow the steps to update

Configurations

Web Server Port

• ports: "80:8080" (optional) Change 80 to another port if you already use the port 80 on your host
  • e.g. "81:8080" http://myserver.com:81/

Optional API Keys

• YT_API_KEY: Set your YouTube API key (works without but the feed is limited to 15)
  • e.g. YT_API_KEY=AIzaSyBTCCEOHm
• TWITCH_SECRET: Set your Twitch secret
• TWITCH_CLIENT_ID: Set your Twitch client ID

Note: These can also be set using Docker .env files

Advanced YouTube Configuration

• YOUTUBE_YT_DLP_GET_URL_EXTRA_ARGS: Additional arguments to pass to yt-dlp when extracting YouTube audio URLs
  • This variable allows you to pass custom arguments to yt-dlp for advanced configurations
  • Format: JSON array of strings, e.g. ["--arg1", "value1", "--arg2", "value2"]
  • Useful for scenarios like:
    • Using a proxy: YOUTUBE_YT_DLP_GET_URL_EXTRA_ARGS=["--proxy", "http://proxy.example.com:8080"]
    • Custom user-agent: YOUTUBE_YT_DLP_GET_URL_EXTRA_ARGS=["--user-agent", "Mozilla/5.0 Custom Agent"]
  • Note: These arguments are applied in addition to the default yt-dlp arguments used by vod2pod-rss
  • Default: [] (empty array)

Environment

• VOD2POD_RSS_HOST: Set the host address to bind to (default: "0.0.0.0")
• VOD2POD_RSS_PORT: Set the port to listen on (default: "8080")
• TRANSCODE: Set to "false" to disable transcoding, usefull if you only need the feeds (default: "true")
• MP3_BITRATE: Set the bitrate of the trascoded stream to your client (default: "192")
• SUBFOLDER: Set the the root path of the app, useful for reverse proxies (default: "/")
• VALID_URL_DOMAINS: (optional) Set a comma separated list of domain urls that are allowed to be converted into RSS (defaults to YouTube and Twitch urls)
• CACHE_TTL: (optional) Set the time to live of the cache in seconds, default is 600 seconds (10 minutes)
• YOUTUBE_YT_DLP_GET_URL_EXTRA_ARGS

Honorable Mentions

These projects were fundamental for the success of vod2pod-rss, originally they handled the feed generation for youtube and twitch, now this is all done by vod2pod-rss internally so they are not used anymore, but were still helpful to get vod2pod-rss up and running fast.

• Youtube support was possible thanks to the cool podtube fork project by amckee consider dropping him a star.
• Twitch support was possible thanks to my fork of lzeke0's TwitchRSS drop a star to him too!

Donations

This is a passion project, and mostly made for personal use, but if you want to gift a pizza margherita, feel free!

Contributing

check the CONTRIBUTING.md to find a tutorial on how to setup your enviroment for develpment