Frequently Asked Questions about VideoCache

Videocache is a Squid URL rewriter plugin written in Python for bandwidth optimization while browsing famous video sharing portals/websites like Youtube, Metacafe etc. It helps you save bandwidth when a particular video is requested more than once from the same network/machine.

Squid can not cache the videos served dynamically. Videocache fits into squid to help it cache the videos as well. The cached videos are stored on your server's local hard disk and you can browse them as if you downloaded them. You can copy them to other machines as well.

For more details on videocache, check the home page.

When a video is requested from a video website/portal, videocache stores the requested video in the local storage on proxy server. All the subsequent requests for that particular video will be served from the local storage. This helps in saving bandwidth and reduces the loading time of a video to a very large extent.

Videocache is available for download for free for various platforms and operating systems. Check the download page for downloading the latest version of videocache.

Videocache blog sends out the details about videocache development and discussions. Please subscribe to videocache blog feed for latest updates on videocache.

Make sure that the website you want to request is not already supported or its not in the Todo List. If you did not find it on those lists, please requests in the suggestions forum.

Prepare details statistics about your usage and bandwidth savings and create a new topic in statistics forum.

Normally the cached videos are stored in /var/spool/videocache/ .If the cached videos are not there or this directory doesn't exits, check the value of base_dir option in /etc/videocache.conf and look for videos there.

The supported list is growing continuously. Check the list of supported websites.

No. Audio files are also cached for some websites like wrzuta.pl.

Videocache can be installed from available binaries or source. For details on installation methods and steps, please check the installation page.

Yes. But your system must satisfy the requirements for videocache. If so, follow the installation from source tutorial.

Yes. If you have the required packages installed and working on your system, then it'll surely work. Follow the install from source tutorial.

Videocache is known to work with Python versions 2.4 or later. If you made it work with earlier versions also, share your thoughts in videocache forums.

VideoCache is know to work with Squid versions 2.6 or later. If you made it work with earlier versions, let us know on videocache forums.

For all unix/linux system, download python iniparse from iniparse website. Untar the package. Go to iniparse-x.x.x directory and use this command to install

[root@localhost iniparse-x.x.x]# python setup.py install

Yes. You can use any web-server you want. Videocache requires your web-server to alias /var/spool/videocache/ directory as /videocache/ so that it can be accessed via http://your_system/videocache/ . If you have a web server that supports aliasing, you can use it without any worries. Check this tutorial for videocache with lighttpd.

Check this tutorial for details instructions.

Configuring videocache involves setting some options to correct values for your system/environment. Check the configuration page for detailed instructions.

You can control bandwidth usage by videocache using max_parallel_downloads option in /etc/videocache.conf . See detailed description of max_parallel_downloads.

You can limit the cache size per website. See youtube_cache_size option for details. Options for other websites are similar.

You can control the caching of individual video based on their size using max_website_video_size and min_website_video_size. See max_youtube_video_size and min_youtube_video_size for reference.

This error occurs when Apache server on your proxy is not able to serve videos. There can be several reasons.

1. cache_host is not properly set in /etc/videocache.conf file. Please check cache_host reference and set it properly.
2. Apache web server is not working on your system. Please restart/reload your web server.

Please search the videocache website before filing a bug report. Make sure a similar bug doesn't exist already. If its a new bug, please report any bugs you encounter in bugs forum.

Search the videocache website for the error you are getting. Before filing a support request, make sure a solution doesn't exist already. If its a new issue, please report the complete error in support forum and we'll get back to you as soon as possible.

Videocache needs your help in development. There are simple task that can be done if you are familiar with Python/PHP. In case you are comfortable with these languages, please introduce yourself in developer forum. Have a look at the code repository. And ask away any questions you have.

The complete source code of youtube cache is available in git repository.

Use the following command to check it on Linux machines

[root@localhost ~]# netstat -atpn | grep port_number

The git repository has been tagged thoroughly to represent various versions of videocache (previously youtube_cache). Checkout the repository and get access to previous version.