New User Question - working with youtube

[Francois]

Greetings

Background:
I am trying the following command:
ffmpeg.exe -i "​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLp_GCYlLzw" -c copy -f segment -strftime 1 -segment_time 600

I am getting an error Error opening input: Invalid data found when processing input

I then tried just:
ffmpeg.exe -i "​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLp_GCYlLzw" output.mp4. Same error

Output from running the ffmpeg command:
ffmpeg version 2025-05-15-git-12b853530a-full_build-www.gyan.dev Copyright (c) 2000-2025 the FFmpeg developers

built with gcc 15.1.0 (Rev4, Built by MSYS2 project)
configuration: --enable-gpl --enable-version3 --enable-static --disable-w32threads --disable-autodetect --enable-fontconfig --enable-iconv --enable-gnutls --enable-lcms2 --enable-libxml2 --enable-gmp --enable-bzlib --enable-lzma --enable-libsnappy --enable-zlib --enable-librist --enable-libsrt --enable-libssh --enable-libzmq --enable-avisynth --enable-libbluray --enable-libcaca --enable-libdvdnav --enable-libdvdread --enable-sdl2 --enable-libaribb24 --enable-libaribcaption --enable-libdav1d --enable-libdavs2 --enable-libopenjpeg --enable-libquirc --enable-libuavs3d --enable-libxevd --enable-libzvbi --enable-libqrencode --enable-librav1e --enable-libsvtav1 --enable-libvvenc --enable-libwebp --enable-libx264 --enable-libx265 --enable-libxavs2 --enable-libxeve --enable-libxvid --enable-libaom --enable-libjxl --enable-libvpx --enable-mediafoundation --enable-libass --enable-frei0r --enable-libfreetype --enable-libfribidi --enable-libharfbuzz --enable-liblensfun --enable-libvidstab --enable-libvmaf --enable-libzimg --enable-amf --enable-cuda-llvm --enable-cuvid --enable-dxva2 --enable-d3d11va --enable-d3d12va --enable-ffnvcodec --enable-libvpl --enable-nvdec --enable-nvenc --enable-vaapi --enable-libshaderc --enable-vulkan --enable-libplacebo --enable-opencl --enable-libcdio --enable-libgme --enable-libmodplug --enable-libopenmpt --enable-libopencore-amrwb --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libshine --enable-libtheora --enable-libtwolame --enable-libvo-amrwbenc --enable-libcodec2 --enable-libilbc --enable-libgsm --enable-liblc3 --enable-libopencore-amrnb --enable-libopus --enable-libspeex --enable-libvorbis --enable-ladspa --enable-libbs2b --enable-libflite --enable-libmysofa --enable-librubberband --enable-libsoxr --enable-chromaprint
libavutil 60. 2.100 / 60. 2.100
libavcodec 62. 3.101 / 62. 3.101
libavformat 62. 0.102 / 62. 0.102
libavdevice 62. 0.100 / 62. 0.100
libavfilter 11. 0.100 / 11. 0.100
libswscale 9. 0.100 / 9. 0.100
libswresample 6. 0.100 / 6. 0.100

[in#0 @ 00000273963b6180] Error opening input: Invalid data found when processing input
Error opening input file ​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLp_GCYlLzw.
Error opening input files: Invalid data found when processing input

Question:
What settings am I missing to download / work with YouTube video's

[Timo R.]

FFmpeg has no YouTube website scraper, or scraper for any website really.
If you want to watch or process a YouTube video, use appropriate tools like yt-dlp.

[Michael Niedermayer]

While we dont support this currently. A patch adding such support (maybe as a source plugin like ​https://github.com/michaelni/FFmpeg/tree/sourceplugin-libpostproc) is welcome!

[MasterQuestionable]

͏    I doubt the viability of this.
͏    The extractors have to be frequently updated for the effective extraction.
͏    Which would likely just resort `yt-dlp` alike:
͏    And become circular dependence...
͏    (these downloaders typically depend on FFmpeg)

͏    ----

͏    That "-extension_picky" regression:
͏    ​https://trac.ffmpeg.org/ticket/11435#comment:12
͏    ; did influence `yt-dlp`:
͏    Seems to disprove.

[Balling]

(these downloaders typically depend on FFmpeg)

No, yt-dlp does not depend on ffmpeg, it just uses it in the end to remux, anyway, the fact is cookies are needed nowadays to download using yt-dlp, and that is very annoying.

[Francois]

Greetings

Can I suggest that a note is added to the home page stating that FFmpeg is not a web scraper?
I agree that it will be a waste of valuable resources to add this functionality as there are other projects that have it as a core function.

[MasterQuestionable]

͏    Where exactly, would you suggest?