Some advice on Q Download please.

[peterpi]

How do I ensure I get the best quality download? I have had a trawl through the forum, but to no avail. Do I enter the appropriate data in the Process options?

Thanks in advance.

 

[/df]

'best' will always be subjective, but ...

With the constraints that are set in the configuration file from the package (plus any set in the qtube Process Options), yt-dl will order the available formats for each download and give you what it believes to be the best quality subject to those constraints. That means ordering the formats according to whichever of these characteristics are available:

• first any specific preference set in the extractor;
• then the preferred language;
• then any "quality" set by the extractor;
• then the total bit rate
• then the file size;
• then the video bit rate;
• then the height;
• then the width;
• ...

If the extractor for some site doesn't deliver the quality you expect, you can fall back to a command-line solution.

List the available formats (disregarding any format constraints in the configuration):

youtube-dl -F theURL

Pick the format ID (left column) for what you believe to be the 'best' quality (row); then use that with the -f option in the Process Options field of the qtube page.

Extractors may not always be able to find what you think are the 'best' formats. For instance, the BBC has 11 different ways of listing the available formats (some require login or certificate authentication), each offering 7 media profiles, each having up to 5 sets of media formats: the extractor has to select a few combinations that generally provide a good range of qualities to suit both users with limited bandwidth and/or disk space and the eagle-eyed 4k-or-nothing users -- oh. and also users who aren't actually in the UK.

 

[Black Hole]

If the extractor for some site doesn't deliver the quality you expect, you can fall back to a command-line solution.

List the available formats (disregarding any format constraints in the configuration):

youtube-dl -F theURL

Pick the format ID (left column) for what you believe to be the 'best' quality (row); then use that with the -f option in the Process Options field of the qtube page.

You can do that in qtube, no need to "fall back to a command-line solution":

1. Put the URL in the URL box;
2. Put -F in the process options box;
3. Click "Run Download now"

That produces the manifest (the same as running youtube-dl -F <URL> on the command line). Then, as stated above, you can choose the download you want by using -f in the process options. See Black Hole's Summary Guide to Using youtube-dl and qtube for more explanation.

How do I ensure I get the best quality download?

qtube is already preset to choose the highest resolution compatible video format available, but not greater than full HD (1920x1080). If you want better than that you can override the setting in the process options, or modify the config file (click the link on the qtube page), but remember the HDR-FOX won't be able to play it.

I have modified my config file to limit at StDef quality (because of my slow broadband), and to put the download into My Video (prefixing a line with # comments it out):

--restrict-filenames
--prefer-ffmpeg
#-f "best[height<=?1080][fps<=?60]"
#-f "best[height<=?720][fps<=?60]"
-f "best[height<=?576][fps<=?60]"
-o "/mnt/hd2/My Video/%(title)s.%(ext)s"

 

[peterpi]

Thanks both.

I shall give it a try.