I got it!
$dur = file_get_contents("https://www.googleapis.com/youtube/v3/videos?part=contentDetails&id=$vId&key=dldfsd981asGhkxHxFf6JqyNrTqIeJ9sjMKFcX4");
$duration = json_decode($dur, true);
foreach ($duration['items'] as $vidTime) {
$vTime= $vidTime['contentDetails']['duration'];
}
There it returns the time for YouTube API version 3 (the key is made up by the way ;). I used $vId
that I had gotten off of the returned list of the videos from the channel I am showing the videos from...
It works. Google REALLY needs to include the duration in the snippet so you can get it all with one call instead of two... it's on their 'wontfix' list.