Command Line instruction for non-YouTube sites

[pooksahib]

Hi. When using youtube-dl on YouTube, all available options are numbered so you could, for example, ask to download:
youtube-dl -f 137+251 "https://www.youtube.com/watch etc etc"

It's possible to use youtube-dl with the BBC iPlayer but the available streams have no numbers. See the attached pic. If I didn't want to download the highest quality (which would be youtube-dl -f best "https://www.youtube.com/watch etc etc") how would I instruct it? Thank you.

[sneaker]

Isn't the long name the ID, i.e. like youtube-dl -f strea[........]hls-16816 https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplay[....]
?

[jagabo]

Sneaker is correct. The long name is the ID.

[JVRaines]

Never mind. I misread the snapshot.

[pooksahib]

OK, thanks. I had thought there'd be some kind of shortcut somewhere. Thank heavens for 'copy and paste'...

[JVRaines]

It's quite brutal to have that long string instead of a short number!

[David Banner]

For BBC iplayer I just put youtube-dl-exe and the url and get a 652MB download which is good quality MPEG4 of https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01n8dv0 Should i be able to get better?

Edit I did it and got mp4 container of 708 MB MPEG TS

Anyone know why the MPEG 4 as no thumbnail but the MPEG TS has?

[jagabo]

You can limit youtube-dl downloads by resolution. For example, to get the best video that's less than 1280 pixels wide:

youtube-dl -f "bestvideo[width<1280]+bestaudio" URL...