Hi Liquid Yes your script is an improvement thanks. I'm trying to follow your suggestion and get youtube-dl to output the same as youtube-dl-x. Unfortunately it ain't that simple because youtube-dl-x has an additional parameter in the relevant line. Here is the line in youtube-dl-x (line 360)

cond_print('\nRetrieving video data: %5s%% (%8s of %s) at %8s/s ETA %s ' % (percent_str, counter, video_len_str, speed_str, eta_str))

and this is what we have in your version of youtube-dl

self.to_stdout(u'\nRetrieving video data: %s of %s at %s ETA %s' %
(percent_str, data_len_str, speed_str, eta_str), skip_eol=True)

I think the problem is the counter parameter in youtube-dl-x code, which does not exist in youtube-dl. I guess this is what tells mytube to launch mplayer. I'm trying to add the counter somehow , but is is proving difficult and isn't helped by the fact that I don't know python. What we need is a kind and friendly python programmer!
Regards