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Ripping a video with the best quality #

Last updated February 2021

youtube-dl seems to pick the best quality based on bitrate, this is a flawed method of selection. Sometimes it will pick a 720p over a 1080p file and is further complicated by new video codecs like h.265 and vp9 which produce better quality video at lower bitrates than older codecs like h.264.

If I want the best quality I download the video and audio separately and then merge them with ffmpeg.

Requirements

Steps

  1. Look at all the available formats YouTube provides for a video.

    youtube-dl -F https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqZYJ-NVQhI

  2. First pick a video format, look for the highest resolution and then look at the bitrate and codec of each of a particular resolution. Your choice will most likely be between h.264 (avc1) and vp9. Here are some tips for picking:

    • IMPORTANT: vp9 has poor compatibility and requires VLC player to play outside of a browser. If you're looking for compatibility, your best option is to always take the h.264 (avc1) version instead of re-encoding the vp9 file.

    • vp9 generally creates videos with a ~60% smaller file with similar video quality to h.264 (will be listed at avc1). If the two options are a h.264 video vs a vp9 video and the bitrate/filesize are similar, the vp9 version is most likely the highest quality version.

    • Don't worry about "audio only", we will manually grab the audio.

  3. Once you've picked the video format take a note of the number in the first column, e.g. 303, and download it with this number:

    youtube-dl -f 303 "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4Zi892Xn_w" -o chance-video.%(ext)s

  4. Now grab the best audio file:

    youtube-dl -f best "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4Zi892Xn_w" --extract-audio -o chance-audio.%(ext)s

  5. Merge the video and audio:

    ffmpeg -i chance-video.mp4 -i chance-audio.m4a -c:v copy -c:a copy change.mp4

    • NOTE: If you downloaded a vp9 video you'll need to throw the video and audio into a .mkv file and use VLC player to watch it. A normal .mp4 file can't hold a vp9 video.

    • Make sure you change the filenames if you copy and paste this line.


Watching a video without a browser #

Last updated February 2021

The video player mpv can play YouTube videos without opening the browser.

  1. Download both mpv and youtube-dl.
  2. mpv "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxwfDlhJIpw"

Audio Only

Add the --no-video flag to the command.


Custom filename with youtube-dl #

Last updated February 2021

youtube-dl "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxwfDlhJIpw" -o "download.%(ext)s"

Explained

You can give it any name and extension you desire but when unsure of the extension needed for the download you can include create a template to insert info into the name. Template names are encased in %(name)s, e.g. -o "download.%(ext)s"

There are lots of names and the most common are listed below. All names can be found on the youtube-dl man page under "OUTPUT TEMPLATES".

  • id (string): Video identifier
  • title (string): Video title
  • url (string): Video URL
  • ext (string): Video filename extension