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  1. I just read the howto on downloading youtube videos. I am not clear about what thing. On Youtube there is the choice to select video quality - 240p, 360p or 480. Does this choice affect the quality of the video being downloaded?
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  2. Member
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    Mar 2008
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    Yes it does. Some of the download apps pick the best possible and/or allow you to pick what you want.
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  3. Thanks! I have noticed that most of the programs that download youtube, google, etc come a "lite" version and the higher quality features require paying a fee - most about $40. Is there freeware that will download at the higher quality res? I am new to this whole arena - I feel like I have been new to this technology for the past 30 years because it keeps changing so rapidly - and have a few questions that will hopefully save me a lot of time and grief. I know that flac is the best archive standard for audio. Is the avi standard the best archive for video? I would like to choose the highest quality to download and then modify it for my android, pc, etc after that.
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  4. Member ranchhand's Avatar
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    Here you go: http://www.freemake.com/
    I use the Video Converter for everything. Paste the Youtube URL you want to copy, choose the final format you want, and click Convert. I have found no difference in the finished download from the original Youtube video. I also use it a lot to strip the music off the video. Excellent quality. If you want to enhance music to your personal taste, I use Audacity with the Steven Bramley (spelling?) installed filters.
    Last edited by ranchhand; 17th Sep 2011 at 23:15. Reason: spelling
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  5. VH Wanderer Ai Haibara's Avatar
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    The best format would be the format as it's stored on YouTube. If you choose a different output format/container, you're converting the video and audio, and likely suffering a hit in quality as a result.

    The 'best' container for video? Probably MKV or MP4 would be the average vote, although I couldn't be sure. Just be aware that you can have terrible quality video stored in an MKV or MP4 container, just as much as you can have good quality video stored in an AVI container.

    Depending upon your browser, there are probably a handful of plugins that will allow you to grab YouTube (among others) videos, for free; a number of them do also allow you to convert the videos as well, in the process.
    If cameras add ten pounds, why would people want to eat them?
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  6. thanks! ...and youtube is FLV?
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  7. Always Watching guns1inger's Avatar
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    or Mp4. The MP4 versions are usually higher quality. Freemake has two tools - the videoconverter, and the downloader. Use the downloader if you only want to download, which is best if grabbing the higher quality MP4 files, or use the converter if you are grabbing flv files and need to re-encode them.
    Read my blog here.
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  8. Member bat999's Avatar
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    ... or webm
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  9. It used to be flv or mp4. Sometimes you get best quality with flv and sometimes with mp4. The biggest file used to be the best quality. I use BYTubeD. Good settings! Right click and choose BYTubeD. You can choose to always download the best quality. You can choose download directory and the files got the same name as YouTube.
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  10. Another simple solution is to type pwn into the youtube url for example ...

    http://www.pwnyoutube.com/watch?v=Example

    just type pwn before youtube in the address bar. youll be redirected to a site which offers the download link and you can select flash or mp4
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  11. Firefox with the Download help plugin will let you download from youtube. You can pick whichever version of the video you want.

    Click image for larger version

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    As Ai Haibara pointed out, leaving the video in whatever format you downloaded it will give you the highest quality. Remuxing to another container won't hurt. But recompressing with some other lossy codec will cause a loss of quality.
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  12. Ditto on what jagabo & guns1inger said. Both of those programs work very well.
    If I'd known I was going to live this long, I'd have taken better care of myself.
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  13. Originally Posted by ranchhand View Post
    Here you go: http://www.freemake.com/
    I use the Video Converter for everything. Paste the Youtube URL you want to copy, choose the final format you want, and click Convert. I have found no difference in the finished download from the original Youtube video. I also use it a lot to strip the music off the video. Excellent quality. If you want to enhance music to your personal taste, I use Audacity with the Steven Bramley (spelling?) installed filters.
    What is Audacity with the Steven Bramley (spelling?) installed filters ?
    Even Google search gives ZERO result!
    Sword is no substitute for kitchen-knife.
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