How to download YouTube videos with no quality loss?

[sneaker]

BTW I highly recommend youtube-dl. Yes it is command line, but once you get used to it, it is so much simpler than all the GUI tools.

What I can't figure out is why on YouTube you can watch this video in 1080p, but... when you query the resolutions (1st command) it claims the highest resolution is only 720p. Also, when you download it asking for the highest quality, it only pulls down 720p intead of 1080p...

C:\youtube-dl.exe -F https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oegRlg9V4q8
C:\youtube-dl.exe -f bestvideo+bestaudio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oegRlg9V4q8

It lists 1080p for me. Make sure your youtube-dl version isn't outdated ("youtube-dl --version" for me: "2020.03.24"). (Or maybe it is some kind of geo-blocking because of corona or something to reduce stress on the networks?)


[Attachment 53020 - Click to enlarge]

[Selur]

Or maybe it is some kind of geo-blocking because of corona or something to reduce stress on the networks?

Probably.
YouTube will limit video quality for everyone by default for a month -> https://www.engadget.com/2020-03-24-youtube-standard-definition-default-worldwide-coro...-covid-19.html

[Eric-jan]

Or maybe it is some kind of geo-blocking because of corona or something to reduce stress on the networks?

Probably.
YouTube will limit video quality for everyone by default for a month -> https://www.engadget.com/2020-03-24-youtube-standard-definition-default-worldwide-coro...-covid-19.html

Click bait

[Selur]

okay, if you think so,...

[ScareDe2]

I have everything installed following a youtube tutorial (MPC-HC, madvr, Lavfilter and xysubfilter), but pressing ctrl+shift+alt+m doesn't work. I don't know how to change color conversion either.

Did you select madVR as video renderer in MPC-HC's Options ("Playback"->"Output")? See MPC-HC's filter list ("Play"->"Filters") during playback to make sure it is loaded.

Yes I figured how to play with these, I like the picture quality I get with MPC-HC more than with the other players. But not sure I like it more than youtube. There is a purple to pink tendency I can not fix yet, I tried playing with the different filters, hue, gamma, light, and with MPC-HC the purple still appears too pink to my liking. Rest of the picture looks pretty much the same as on youtube though. It's very close now.

[Videoenthusiat]

Hey awesome, the command "youtube-dl -f 248+251 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oegRlg9V4q8" worked!" I got 1080p- thank you. My only question is that it create a file with an extension called .webm. My VLC player in windows seems to play it just fine - and doing a quick google I see this format is because Youtube doesn't want to pay to license .H264. I am setting up a Plex Media server - for that the supported standard is .mp4 files. Will it lose quality if I convert this to .mp4?

I also used the comand example above, and ran this (below). I thought it would produce a file ending .mp4 but it made one ending in .mp4.webm:
youtube-dl -f 248+251 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oegRlg9V4q8 -o "YouTube-Rebecca-Gymra-%(title)s [%(id)s -f 22].mp4"

[Edit]: I found out I can do a youtube-dl.exe -f 137+140 (with same URL) and also get 1080p but in an .mp4. Which of these (.webm) or (.mp4) is "higher" quality or more true to the "original" upload?

[manono]

I see this format is because Youtube doesn't want to pay to license .H264.

Hardly.

There are several download programs that can easily get your video in all its 1080p glory, and as an MP4. I often use 4K Video Downloader for these kinds of things.

[sneaker]

Yeah, Youtube offers H.264 an ALL their videos to be compatible with virtually all clients because many only support H.264. Youtube also offers other codecs like VP9 and increasingly also AV1. Plex supposedly supports VP9 on some devices.
Often H.264 is not the highest quality available but then again if your hardware does not support anything else what is your choice? Either buy better hardware or suck it up.

If you want to download highly compatible videos you can tell Youtube-DL to download only H.264+AAC limited to 1080p. Those will play on almost any device:

youtube-dl -f "bestvideo[vcodec^=avc1][height<=1080]+bestaudio[acodec^=mp4a]/best[vcodec^=avc1][height<=1080]" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oegRlg9V4q8

(youtube-dl format selection logic is well documented: https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/blob/master/README.md#format-selection)

I found out I can do a youtube-dl.exe -f 137+140 (with same URL) and also get 1080p but in an .mp4. Which of these (.webm) or (.mp4) is "higher" quality or more true to the "original" upload?

It's subjective. Download both and compare. It can be different for different videos though my guess is VP9 is a bit better on average.

[sneaker]

I have everything installed following a youtube tutorial (MPC-HC, madvr, Lavfilter and xysubfilter), but pressing ctrl+shift+alt+m doesn't work. I don't know how to change color conversion either.

Did you select madVR as video renderer in MPC-HC's Options ("Playback"->"Output")? See MPC-HC's filter list ("Play"->"Filters") during playback to make sure it is loaded.

Yes I figured how to play with these, I like the picture quality I get with MPC-HC more than with the other players. But not sure I like it more than youtube. There is a purple to pink tendency I can not fix yet, I tried playing with the different filters, hue, gamma, light, and with MPC-HC the purple still appears too pink to my liking. Rest of the picture looks pretty much the same as on youtube though. It's very close now.

Did you try switching between BT.601 and BT.709 as suggested? (ctrl+shift+alt+m)

[ScareDe2]

I have everything installed following a youtube tutorial (MPC-HC, madvr, Lavfilter and xysubfilter), but pressing ctrl+shift+alt+m doesn't work. I don't know how to change color conversion either.

Did you select madVR as video renderer in MPC-HC's Options ("Playback"->"Output")? See MPC-HC's filter list ("Play"->"Filters") during playback to make sure it is loaded.

Yes I figured how to play with these, I like the picture quality I get with MPC-HC more than with the other players. But not sure I like it more than youtube. There is a purple to pink tendency I can not fix yet, I tried playing with the different filters, hue, gamma, light, and with MPC-HC the purple still appears too pink to my liking. Rest of the picture looks pretty much the same as on youtube though. It's very close now.

Did you try switching between BT.601 and BT.709 as suggested? (ctrl+shift+alt+m)

Yes for some reason ctrl shift alt did not work on my keyboard so I just reassociated the command with the letter z. But I still did not figure how to get the exact colors found on youtube. Here is an example where I think MPC-HC is giving me too much color instead of the sweeter, more tamed down, colors found on youtube. Basically with the colors orange and pink:




To the left it's MPC-HC, and to the right Youtube. I know it's subjective but I would like to get the exact same colors than on Youtube.

[ILikeToHelp]

I have found a way using youtube-dl. First, use the command youtube-dl -F and look for the best quality (ex: 720) with the largest size (mb).
After that, use the command youtube-dl -f bestvideo+bestaudio but replace the bestvideo with the number that you found after the first command.

I put an image with an example so that you can understand.

This is the only way that I found to keep the image quality for youtube.

Ps: you have to download and install ffmpeg or avconv ( i have ffmpeg from here https://ffmpeg.zeranoe.com/builds/)

Ps2: if you let the command bestvideo+bestaudio or if you just do youtube-dl url it will not take the best video quality. It will take the best file that contains both video and audio. With the command that i wrote above it will take the best video file and the best audio file and it will merge them at the end. Keep that in mind.

Ps3: sorry for my pour english and I hope that I could help you

[dellsam34]

To the OP: If you are not into command line programs and scripts 4K Video Downloader is the way to go, Most applications if not all just dump youtube compressed streams to computer including 4K Video Downloader so there is no such one is better than the other in terms of quality, Some people may see paying $15 lifetime licence for 3 computers is a burden, there is nothing wrong with that but to say 4K Video Downloader re-encode the stream while downloading it doesn't make any sense, Why would it?

[sneaker]

Ps2: if you let the command bestvideo+bestaudio or if you just do youtube-dl url it will not take the best video quality. It will take the best file that contains both video and audio.

This is not true. "best" is single-file, "bestvideo"/"bestaudio" is best quality single stream.

• best: Select the best quality format represented by a single file with video and audio.
• worst: Select the worst quality format represented by a single file with video and audio.
• bestvideo: Select the best quality video-only format (e.g. DASH video). May not be available.
• worstvideo: Select the worst quality video-only format. May not be available.
• bestaudio: Select the best quality audio only-format. May not be available.
• worstaudio: Select the worst quality audio only-format. May not be available.

If you don't set -f then the default will kick in:

Since the end of April 2015 and version 2015.04.26, youtube-dl uses -f bestvideo+bestaudio/best as the default format selection (see #5447, #5456). If ffmpeg or avconv are installed this results in downloading bestvideo and bestaudio separately and muxing them together into a single file giving the best overall quality available. Otherwise it falls back to best and results in downloading the best available quality served as a single file.

https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/blob/master/README.md#format-selection

Like you say it's important to have ffmpeg/avconv.

[LigH.de]

Remark: If you select "best audio" and "best video" independently, they may not be compatible to every container in their combination, so you may have to use MKV as the only "one fits all" container. Specifically, YouTube will probably treat Opus as the best audio format which is not compatible with older players supporting the MP4 container with only AAC or MP3.

You can select "the best audio/video stream compatible to a format family" as well. Example for MP4:

youtube-dl.exe -f "bestvideo[ext=mp4]+bestaudio[ext=m4a]/mp4"

This will probably provide a combination of AVC and AAC.

[sneaker]

That might get you AV1 as Youtube uses mp4 container for it. Post #38 shows an example on how to force AVC+AAC from Youtube.

[LigH.de]

OK, missed that in the heap of new replies, sorry...

[wile.e.coyote]

So I have a situation where I have a blocked video on my channel that I want to download. It has 50 fps. With the youtube download button it gives me 25 fps only. I tried to login with my youtube credentials to jdownloader to have access but keeps failing. How do i go about it?

[LigH.de]

If we knew the YouTube ID, someone could check how it behaves in their location; they might even tell you in private how to get access to their result.

[wile.e.coyote]

The video is blocked in every country

[LigH.de]

How many more times do we have to recommend the same optimal tools until someone cares to read and try our recommendations? ... youtube-dl is the best-maintained software for this purpose, just keep it up-to-date – and add ffmpeg to allow it to rebuild containers for separately downloaded streams; and if you don't like command lines, use a GUI for it, there are a few.

[marchingson]

i have to say i agree with master tape. i download videos for screenshots and the quality drop is obvious. i have an extension on google that can take 4K photos even if you don't have a 4K display and it takes the exact quality of the photo. so say the extension snap is 1.7MB. when i download it and use quicktime to take x amount of photos per second, the picture quality would be lowered to say, 1.3MB with 4K video downloader. with youtube-DL the quality is sightly better but still lowered (so 1.5 as an example) on best settings. so at this point i think that it's impossible to download yotube videos losslessly.

[davexnet]

You can use Youtube-dl with the -F parameter then pick the version you want

[marchingson]

You can use Youtube-dl with the -F parameter then pick the version you want

i used the GUI before so just to make sure somehow the GUI messed up the quality, i just used the CMD and this appeared.

[Attachment 59558 - Click to enlarge]

[davexnet]

Try this version
https://www.videohelp.com/download/youtube-dl.exe

[marchingson]

thank you that worked, but i don't know how to apply the code? do i apply it after D:\killua\downloads\youtube-dl>youtube-dl.exe -youtube link- 299? or simply 299 after the prompt? apologies for the ignorant questions.
EDIT:i figured it out

[marchingson]

here's my comparison results from the photo i got from the 4K snaps through google extension. barely a difference in MB quality. not a complaint, just a simple number jotdown (the quality from cmd is better than the GUI, for some reason). but the real difference here is the bit quality. i assume because it's higher through pure ripping from the YT browser you can get all 32? that's the only thing that really separates the two.

[Attachment 59627 - Click to enlarge]
[Attachment 59628 - Click to enlarge]

anyway, it's not directly lossless but it's almost impossible to visually tell the difference for me (if anything, YT-DL looks better in the example below), so i consider this a home run in either case.

[Attachment 59629 - Click to enlarge]