X-Git-Url: http://git.bitcoin.ninja/index.cgi?a=blobdiff_plain;f=README.md;h=93a2750c265ad90e8d84ae37c6f9319313ff46d5;hb=416c7fcbce86324587afae11414c71ff603ad296;hp=b4afe17d264eb8e1f0664261eaa0eec0a9b99ef4;hpb=7fc2cd819e10ca6c69cb3601c0bbe7d577256da7;p=youtube-dl

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@@ -449,6 +449,14 @@ Since June 2012 (#342) youtube-dl is packed as an executable zipfile, simply unz
 
 To run the exe you need to install first the [Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable Package](http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=29).
 
+### How can I detect whether a given URL is supported by youtube-dl?
+
+For one, have a look at the [list of supported sites](docs/supportedsites). Note that it can sometimes happen that the site changes its URL scheme (say, from http://example.com/v/1234567 to http://example.com/v/1234567 ) and youtube-dl reports an URL of a service in that list as unsupported. In that case, simply report a bug.
+
+It is *not* possible to detect whether a URL is supported or not. That's because youtube-dl contains a generic extractor which maches **all** URLs. You may be tempted to disable, exclude, or remove the generic extractor, but the generic extractor not only allows users to extract videos from lots of websites that embed a video from another service, but may also be used to extract video from a service that it's hosting itself. Therefore, we neither recommend nor support disabling, excluding, or removing the generic extractor.
+
+If you want to find out, simply call youtube-dl. If you get no videos back, chances are the URL is either not referring to a video or unsupported. You can find out which by examining the output (if you run youtube-dl on the console) or catching an `UnsupportedError` exception if you run it from a Python program.
+
 # DEVELOPER INSTRUCTIONS
 
 Most users do not need to build youtube-dl and can [download the builds](http://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/download.html) or get them from their distribution.