Liveclipper
VisitA web app for clipping and downloading segments from YouTube videos and livestreams. Used AWS ECS for processing and S3 for storage.
The Story
Liveclipper was built to solve a personal frustration: clipping specific moments from long YouTube videos or livestreams. The web app let users specify timestamps and get downloadable clips.
Technical Architecture
- Laravel backend with queue workers
- Vue.js frontend for clip selection
- AWS ECS for scalable video processing
- S3 for temporary clip storage
- Lambda for cleanup tasks
The Downfall
The app worked great until Google started blocking AWS IP ranges from accessing YouTube. YT-DLP, the tool used for downloading, became unreliable from cloud infrastructure. The cost of residential proxies made the project unsustainable.
Lessons Learned
Building on third-party platforms is risky. This project taught me about the importance of having fallback strategies and not depending too heavily on services you do not control.
Project Discontinued
Google cracked down on YT-DLP from AWS IPs