YouTube live streams through HLS or DASH in 2026

[StreamBabyStream]

File this under 'checking before I go insane and give up'. Is it still possible to extract a m3u8 or mpd link from a YouTube livestream and play it externally, in an IPTV player for example?

I know these url's are dynamic and expire, but until a few months ago I had a working system that took a video id, used ytdl-core to get the corresponding m3u8 link and forwarded my player to that (temporary) url. Seems ytdl-core is unmaintained but still mostly works, expect for the fact that the url that gets returned won't actually play (403 error).

Does anyone know of another way that still works? Or should I really give up?

[djvu]

if you look at the ytdl-core readme they have suggested a replacement which you can probably use in the exact same workflow as you were previously:

https://github.com/LuanRT/YouTube.js

for me though, the most reliable way to get a stream m3u8 will always be with the latest version of yt-dlp

yt-dlp -g <url>

or if you just want playback in a regular media player (mpv/vlc) you can open the stream directly as long as yt-dlp is installed

mpv <url>