CODEWITHSUNDEEP
shellvideoyoutubeyoutube-apiosx-yosemite
Sybil
Sybil

Reputation: 2592

youtube-dl DASH video and audio in highest quality without human intervention

With youtube-dl I first look what video quality is available and then in second step I download highest possible quality (in this example -f 137+140). Youtube-dl will automatically merge audio and video stream (DASH format)

How to automate that with shell script? With every URL, choose highest audio and video quality?

> youtube-dl -F 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAdRBLyjLRQ&feature=youtu.be&t=8m14s'                              
[youtube] Downloading login page                                                                                                      
[youtube] Logging in                                                                                                                  
[youtube] VAdRBLyjLRQ: Downloading webpage                                                                                            
[youtube] VAdRBLyjLRQ: Downloading video info webpage                                                                                 
[youtube] VAdRBLyjLRQ: Extracting video information                                                                                   
[youtube] VAdRBLyjLRQ: Downloading DASH manifest                                                                                      
[youtube] VAdRBLyjLRQ: Downloading DASH manifest                                                                                      
[info] Available formats for VAdRBLyjLRQ:                                                                                             
format code  extension  resolution note                                                                                               
249          webm       audio only DASH audio , opus @ 50k                                                                            
250          webm       audio only DASH audio , opus @ 70k                                                                            
251          webm       audio only DASH audio , opus @160k                                                                            
171          webm       audio only DASH audio  117k , vorbis@128k (44100Hz), 7.68MiB                                                  
140          m4a        audio only DASH audio  128k , m4a_dash container, aac  @128k (44100Hz), 11.58MiB                              
160          mp4        256x144    DASH video  112k , avc1.4d400c, 15fps, video only, 9.94MiB                                         
278          webm       256x144    DASH video  136k , webm container, VP9, 15fps, video only, 9.10MiB                                 
133          mp4        426x240    DASH video  248k , avc1.4d4015, 30fps, video only, 22.27MiB                                        
242          webm       426x240    DASH video  316k , vp9, 30fps, video only, 22.20MiB                                                
243          webm       640x360    DASH video  557k , vp9, 30fps, video only, 41.05MiB                                                
134          mp4        640x360    DASH video  609k , avc1.4d401e, 30fps, video only, 52.94MiB                                        
244          webm       854x480    DASH video 1021k , vp9, 30fps, video only, 74.05MiB                                                
135          mp4        854x480    DASH video 1115k , avc1.4d401f, 30fps, video only, 97.02MiB                                        
247          webm       1280x720   DASH video 2011k , vp9, 30fps, video only, 150.61MiB                                               
136          mp4        1280x720   DASH video 2282k , avc1.4d401f, 30fps, video only, 189.40MiB                                       
248          webm       1920x1080  DASH video 3838k , vp9, 30fps, video only, 286.61MiB                                               
137          mp4        1920x1080  DASH video 4209k , avc1.640028, 30fps, video only, 354.19MiB                                       
17           3gp        176x144                                                                                                       
36           3gp        320x240                                                                                                       
5            flv        400x240                                                                                                       
43           webm       640x360                                                                                                       
18           mp4        640x360                                                                                                       
22           mp4        1280x720   (best)                                                                                             
> youtube-dl -f 137+140 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAdRBLyjLRQ&feature=youtu.be&t=8m14s'                      
[youtube] Downloading login page                                                                                                      
[youtube] Logging in                                                                                                                  
[youtube] VAdRBLyjLRQ: Downloading webpage                                                                                            
[youtube] VAdRBLyjLRQ: Downloading video info webpage                                                                                 
[youtube] VAdRBLyjLRQ: Extracting video information                                                                                   
(...)

Upvotes: 42

Views: 97196

Answers (5)

Pritom
Pritom

Reputation: 89

youtube-dl -f best 'youtube_URL'

or, 

youtube-dl -f 'bestvideo+bestaudio/bestvideo+bestaudio' --merge-output-format mp4 'youtube_URL'

or, 

youtube-dl -f 'bestvideo[ext=webm]+bestaudio[ext=m4a]/bestvideo+bestaudio' --merge-output-format mp4 'youtube_URL'

Hope it helps!

Upvotes: 8

John Smith Images
John Smith Images

Reputation: 15

Since the numbers of format are limited I did: 

youtube-dl -f 299+140 "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9pzm5b6FFY"
youtube-dl -f 137+140 "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9pzm5b6FFY"
youtube-dl -f best "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9pzm5b6FFY"

If the 299+140 has been downloaded the 137+140 won't be and if none of those have you'll have the best starting with 22. The only problem is that you'll have the best in webm as a duplicate but you can use the ext!=webm to avoid this.

Of course you can start at 313+140 or whatever higher format you want.

Upvotes: 1

Firsh - justifiedgrid.com
Firsh - justifiedgrid.com

Reputation: 5667

I've found some weird cases where the default (see #5447, #5456) bestvideo+bestaudio/best would download 720p video even when a 1080p was available. The reason that the bitrate on the 720p was very slightly higher, therefore it seemed better quality for youtube-dl. I prefer the higher res, also all other fancy youtube downloader applications downloaded the 1080p (as control).

Therefore I propose and use this:

-f ("bestvideo[width>=1920]"/bestvideo)+bestaudio/best

It will look for the best, at least 1920 wide video. If that's not available, it'll resort to what it would normally choose. The /best part at the end is part of the default config.

On a side note I recommend putting the %(format_id)s somewhere in the filename, so you know what that file is using. If you later want to re-download a bunch of videos without using archive, with --no-overwrites, a better/different quality will form a new filename next to the old one (so you can compare or whatever).

Upvotes: 28

Lilylakshi
Lilylakshi

Reputation: 735

Or you could just use,

youtube-dl https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blabla

This will download the highest quality video and audio and merge them automatically. And I think I have heard somewhere that you need ffmpeg installed to have this automatic behavior. But I bet most systems have it already.

Upvotes: 10

dstftw
dstftw

Reputation: 3059

Just use -f bestvideo+bestaudio/best for highest resulting quality available.

If you wanted to prefer MP4 format containers instead of WebM, use:

-f bestvideo[ext!=webm]‌​+bestaudio[ext!=webm]‌​/best[ext!=webm].

Upvotes: 78

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