Can you tell by the network traffic whether a video was watched or downloaded from YouTube?

Posted by humanityANDpeace on Super User See other posts from Super User or by humanityANDpeace
Published on 2012-11-10T15:35:54Z Indexed on 2012/11/10 23:03 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 327

Filed under:

video

|

download

|

youtube

|

traffic

My question is about quite popular YouTube downloaders like youtube-dl (a command line program) or VideoDownloadHelper (a Firefox-browser extension).

Comparing two cases:

Watching a video on YouTube
Download the video using a downloader (to be specific let's assume youtube-dl)

Is it possible to tell – for instance by inspecting the network traffic – that the video was downloaded and not "only watched" on YouTube?

Maybe one could compare network traffic using programmes like Wireshark? I cannot do that myself, but maybe this will help somebody to answer the question.

© Super User or respective owner

Related posts about video

Smithsonian Showcases Video Game History with The Art of Video Games [Video]

as seen on How to geek - Search for 'How to geek'
The Art of Video Games is the Smithsonian’s look at the history of video games; check out this video trailer to see what the exhibition is all about and hear from some notable folks. From the Smithsonian listing for the exhibition: The Art of Video Games is one of the first exhibitions to… >>> More
Removing broken packages on distro update (13.04 to 13.10)

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
i'm kinda new to linux. last night i tried upgrading from 13.04 to 13.10 but i got the "could not calculate" error. i read this question and found this error in the main log: Dist-upgrade failed: 'E:Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.' and here's a list of my broken packages… >>> More
Ubuntu 11.04 update fail!

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
I try to update Ubuntu Natty Narwhal, but I got this error: dpkg: .../xserver-xorg-core_2%3a1.9.99.901+git20110131.be3be758-0ubuntu6_i386.deb miatt xserver-xorg-core-t is tartalmazza: xserver-xorg-core breaks xserver-xorg-video-8 nvidia-current provides xserver-xorg-video-8 and is present and… >>> More
Automating video generation by adding an intro and a trailing video to the main video

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I have a video project I am trying to compile. Here is the overview: I have many videos which are 5 minute training sessions - Main video. The Intro Video will be a standard 5 second video that will have the Video title and Author. This will be concatenated to the main video. The Trailing Video… >>> More
Stream video from one app to another in OS X (Software video input device)

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
Not sure how specifically to word this... I'm wondering if there's any way to take a video stream from one application, for example VLC Media Player, and present that video stream to other applications as a video input source. For example, could I broadcast a video file from my hard disk to a website… >>> More

Related posts about download

Slow Browsing/Direct Download, but Fast Bittorrent Download

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I'm using Windows XP SP2. I have a 1 MB connection via a SpeedTouch 585, and my internet speed registers at 0.3 MB, with a maximum download of 30kbps. Not to mention a terrible ping at 500-1500. On the other hand, I get full speed in uTorrent - a bittorrent program - reaching up to 100 kbps; the way… >>> More
Download the other half of the half downloaded video and download managers for Linux

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I tried downloading several videos last night on Chrome but most of them are downloaded incompletely. Is there a software that reads the flv or ogg files and downloads the rest of the file from the specified url? Downloading several GBs all over again gains me nothing, just adds to Global warming… >>> More
Download manager that can continue download

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I have a file half-downloaded. Do you know a download manager that can continue the download without loading the part I already loaded? Is this possible with HTTP? Thanks >>> More
Tracking download of non-html (like pdf) downloads with jQuery and Google Analytics

as seen on Developer IT - Search for 'Developer IT'
Hi folks, it’s been quite calm at Developer IT’s this summer since we were all involved in other projects, but we are slowly comming back. In this post, we will present a simple way of tracking files download with Google Analytics with the help of jQuery. We work for a client that offers… >>> More
Direct Links To Download Microsoft Office 2007 Products From Microsoft Download Servers

as seen on Tech Dreams - Search for 'Tech Dreams'
Downloading installers of Microsoft Office 2007 products from Microsoft Office website is not an easy task. To download any of the Microsoft Office 2007 products – you need to sign-in using Windows Live/Passport/Hotmail account, fill a big profile form and accept their terms & conditions… >>> More