[youtube-dl] Download files from youtube.com or other video platforms

/df said:
This SE answer proposes options to eliminate the DTS errors. yt-dl isn't using those options
Click to expand...
I couldn't even find where to add them to test in yt-dl code. I tried adding --external-downloader-args, but then it moaned that it couldn't use them, even though it effectively could as --hls-prefer-ffmpeg was being used (and I even tried adding --external-downloader ffmpeg, but that didn't make any difference either).

It's probably easier to just force --hls-prefer-native in the /mod/bin/youtube script for iPlayer.
 
The --...-args ... options are a bit limited for ffmpeg where the significance of options depends on their position, but that doesn't seem to be a problem here. With the 2024.04.06 desktop yt-dl and ffmpeg 5.1.4-0+deb12u1, this skips the PTS/DTS messages but I can't find any way to eliminate the Invalid timestamps ... messages without silencing the output altogether:
Code: 
youtube-dl -v -f mf_akamai-1013-0 --hls-prefer-ffmpeg 'https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001z735/tokyo-vice-series-2-1-dont-ever-fing-miss' --external-downloader-args '-fflags +igndts'
 
In case anyone is trying to access actual YT with the CF youtube-dl, be aware it will fail due to a combination of YT hardening and a latent bug. The latest youtube-dl master code and nightly release solve the problem.
 
Not a user - I use yt-dlp with the Tartube front end under Windows - but few days back I noticed the highest MP4 available from YT was dropped from 1024 to 360.
 
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That's just the best format with both video and audio. Tell youtube-dl what quality you want and, if no suitable combined format is offered, it will try to get separate video and audio streams matching your requirements and merge them with ffmpeg. Similarly, but more so, for yt-dlp; check the -S ... option.
 
Regarding https://hummy.tv/forum/threads/wip-handling-large-files-for-qtube-and-youtube-dl.11315/, some discussion from here on may be relevant.

There is extra functionality in yt-dlp (-P temp:wherever) that supports creating WIP files in a user-specified location wherever and then moving the final files to their expected location, but it would be painful to implement in youtube-dl:
Code: 
    -P, --paths [TYPES:]PATH        The paths where the files should be
                                    downloaded. Specify the type of file and the
                                    path separated by a colon ":". All the same
                                    TYPES as --output are supported.
                                    Additionally, you can also provide "home"
                                    (default) and "temp" paths. All intermediary
                                    files are first downloaded to the temp path
                                    and then the final files are moved over to
                                    the home path after download is finished.
                                    This option is ignored if --output is an
                                    absolute path
(it should say "intermediate")
 
/df said:
That's just the best format with both video and audio...
Click to expand...
Advantage of being able to do a download in 720p MP4 (not 1020 as I mis-typed) was speed as no conversion was needed. Meant I could do YT downloads using an old HP laptop without having it run at 100% CPU for what seemed like hours. Even the main PC with an old I7 3770K takes minutes to transcode a 5-10 minute video to 720p with no external graphics card hardware to help out.
But I've found 360p is good enough for ephemeral stuff as the Humax does a pretty good job of upscaling.
 
Generally, there is no re-encoding when combining video and audio streams under youtube-dl (or it would not be practical on the HD/R platform). Rather, the streams are multiplexed, frame by frame, into a single container. This works fine for 480, 540, 720 resolutions; 1080+ may cause problems because of the gigantic file sizes. But any laptop that is not able to vote in Scotland should have no trouble (older laptops may need to be rebuilt with an efficient OS). Problems on such platforms can be raised in the main yt-dl issue tracker.

@BH, you may need to read the quoted post again.
 
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