How to use HappyGet

[aaronliu]

How to install

Just found today a new add-on “HappyGet” on QNAP’s QPKG Center. It is an app for downloading YouTube videos by Google Chrome to the QNAP Turbo NAS. To use this app, you need to install HappyGet QPKG add-on on the NAS.


Install the Chrome Extsnsion by the direct link https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/idighallhledkolmcaiapjnfngfipcfh?utm_source=chrome-ntp-icon. Or, search the chrome web store with the key word "QNAP".



A HappyGet button will be added to the browser after installing the add-on.



When you click the button for the first time, a setup page will be shown.

Step 1: Accept the terms of use and start up.


Step 2: Agree to the terms of service of YouTube. HappyGet creates a folder on the NAS to save the downloaded files (or so-called playlists) and uses the download date as the folder name by default. You may personalize the folder name by adding a custom prefix if your NAS is shared by different users.


Step 3: Set up the NAS connection. Enter the NAS IP, user name, and password. The app only accepts the “admin” account of the NAS currently.


Step 4: Click “Get your Youtube playlists” and login your account. The NAS will download your subscribed playlists on YouTube automatically. Or just click “Next” and skip this step.


After logging in your YouTube account, your subscribed playlists will be shown. Select the playlists to back up and click “Next”.


There you go. The NAS will download the files automatically so click “Finish” and relax.


The NAS will check the subscribed playlists and back up the contents automatically every day.



How to Download

Now search for a file on YouTube. A new button “Get this Video” has been added to the web page. Click the button and let the NAS download the video. Let’s try a movie trailer. Mouse over the “Get this Video” button to select the options such as resolution. Click the button to download the video.


The NAS starts downloading the video immediately.


Click the HappyGet button on the menu bar and you can view the download status.
Click “Show Details” to view the download list. You can also pause and clear the completed and deleted tasks.


The files are ready in the NAS under /Multimedia/HappyGet/. Several files have been downloaded as different resolution settings were chosen.



Surprisingly, HappyGet is not just a general download add-on like Youtube Downloader HD. I tried to click the add-on button on the menu bar and found the “Youtube Music” tab. The playlists from YouTube are shown. Try clicking “Billboard”.

The playlist of the top 20 singles for the USA Billboard are shown. Now there is a button “Get this Playlist”. Mouse over it to categorize the files as MV and enter a playlist title. Click the button and HappyGet will get all the music files in the playlist to the NAS!


A folder named after the playlist title is created under the HappyGet directory. When categorizing the videos as MV, the NAS will convert the MP4 files into M4A automatically as soon as the files are downloaded. That’s pretty fast.


The playlist of the 20 music files is immediately ready in the Music Station.


I used MPlayerX to check the music file and the quality is 147.8 kbps, 44.1 kHz 16-bit, dual mono. Not bad for listening on the PC.




More Fun

I also downloaded full episodes (HD version) of a drama for my wife.


More music from the Internet celebrities who haven’t released their official records yet.


There are HappyGet communities on Facebook, where popular songs from different countries are shared.
The English community: I Love HappyGet (http://www.facebook.com/ILoveHappyget)
The Chinese community: 我愛抓抓樂 (http://www.facebook.com/twhappyget)


The YouTube playlists of the hottest songs in different countries are shared. The following one is iTunes top 20 in Germany.


As the pop chart is updated from time to time, I’d recommend subscribing to the playlist. HappyGet will check the updates daily and download the new songs on the playlist. The songs that have dropped off the chart will be kept on the NAS.

When getting the music playlist, the files in all formats will be downloaded. It would be nice to have a setting for choosing M4A only as other formats are unnecessary.

When searching a keyword like Lady Gaga on YouTube, the recommended playlist is shown.


HappyGet is very helpful to get all the music files as M4A.


I also tried “Heineken” and the theme song of the advert was found. Other songs of The Asteroids Galaxy Tour were also recommended.


The YouTube recommendation feature is limited by the language. Most playlists are generated according to the English keyword. I tried to search “張惠妹” but the collections wouldn’t show up while trying “A-mei” worked. Also tried the keyword related to Japanese comics and the recommendations were not satisfactory. To download a list of videos that playlists or recommendations are not offered, I’d use the “Watch Later” function.

For example, I searched “マクロスF” (Macross F) and filtered the search by “HD”.


Mouse over the thumbnail of the search result and select “Watch Later”. The video will be added to the Watch Later playlist.


Having added all the videos I want to the playlist, use HappyGet to download them. The files are then ready in M4A format on the NAS.



Music playing on the go and instant notifications

HappyGet creates a playlist for the downloaded M4A files on the Music Station. That way, I can use QMobile app to play the songs on my smart phone. The Jukebox lists all playlists, and each of them plays live music stream form the NAS.

As HappyGet downloaded the video files in different resolutions, I can choose to view the HD video on TV and the SD video on my phone with QMobile. I can also download the files to my phone with QMobile for offline viewing.

I got a drama in 720P and 360P for viewing at home and on phone. The low-resolution one’s downloaded to my phone by QMobile so I can watch the video everywhere even the 3G network’s not available or too slow.

The file size of a 40-min 720P video is almost three times larger than a 360P one.


The viewing quality’s not too bad on an iPhone.


HappyGet supports email notification for completed downloads. A nice reminder when you have many running download jobs.You have to set up the mail server settings on the NAS in advance. Then set up the notification settings on HappyGet.Under the Settings page you can specify your personal email address, disable Youtube watermark cover, and set the time to update the subscribed playlists.



Conclusion

YouTube provides great source of videos and HappyGet is an excellent tool to get them. The batch playlists download is a nice feature to work with the search and recommendation functions of YouTube. The relevance sorting of YouTube helps searching for music files efficiently and HappyGet saves time by automatically converting them to M4A. And with the QMobile app, the downloaded files can be viewed on cell phones everywhere. Absolutely a helpful add-on.