Use youtube-dl to turn a Youtube playlist into a set of Markdown embeddable image links.

generate_markdown_links.py

import subprocess

def get_command_output(cmd):
    """Yield full lines of text from an external command."""
    #adapted from http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1388753/ddg#1388807
    process = subprocess.Popen(
        cmd, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.PIPE)

    line = bytes()
    while True:
        out = process.stdout.read(1)
        if out == '' or process.poll() != None:
            yield line.decode("utf-8")
            raise StopIteration
        line += out
        if out == b'\n':
            yield line.decode("utf-8").strip()
            line = bytes()

def get_playlist_info(url):
    """Use youtube-dl to process sets of 3 lines into a Markdown link."""
    cmd = ["youtube-dl", "--get-id", "--get-title", "--get-thumbnail", url]
    lines = []
    for line in get_command_output(cmd):
        lines.append(line)
        if len(lines) == 3:
            yield markdown_img_link(*lines)
            lines = []
    raise StopIteration

def markdown_img_link(title, video_id, img_url):
    return '[![{0}]({1})](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v={2} "{0}")'.format(title, img_url, video_id)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    my_playlist = "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLocvuO0AgFX5k-E1PovJjts6zJkOj853R"
    for link in get_playlist_info(my_playlist):
        print(link)
        print("")