YouTube download in high quality

I have been having over and over the same problem: inability to easily download in highest possible quality videos from at least YouTube

I thought that http://www.clipconverter.cc was the answer, but aside from recently self-implemented restrictions, it found out that is has the same flaw as other sites and plugins for Firefox that I've recently tried: it is able to get a video in the highest resolution, but downloads it with a lesser audio quality that there is. And I know this because I can with compare in spectrogam a downloaded file with a file containing a what-you-hear recording of the same content played from the source location [as it turns out, what I hear on YouTube has usually 20 kHz, and various plugins save files with only 16kHz]

Does anyone know a free of charge site, plugin [not necessarily for Firefox] or software [for Windows 7 x64], than can download videos with both best available video and audio quality; without additional transcoding?

[I have a tested and working solution: <a href="http://www.tecmint.com/install-youtube-dl-command-line-video-download-tool" target="_blank">http://www.tecmint.com/install-youtube-dl-...-download-tool/</a>; but it requires way too many steps / manuall work and automating them with a script is way beyond my capabilities and thus I will be using it only as a last resort for some single problematic cases]

And the solution to that problem is this:
a free "YouTube™ Video and Audio Downloader" add-on by InBasic for Firefox
[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/ad...-and-audio-dow/]

But beware: having a few add-ons like this in the same time can make them work incorrectly or even mess up your whole Firefox beoynd repair, resulting in a need to either go back to older setting without them [which was my case] or installing browser from scratch. Here is some info about issues of that kind: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.ph...50c90ca2fc2b0b0

As for that particular odd-on, in the beginning it can somehow change it settings by itself. So be sure just to double check them when it is not working properly, even after you have configured it

have you tried https://filsh.net ? Download origin and convert locally

I did now

Unfortunately:
a] You have to wait for an e-mail each single time containing a link; which is little not user friendly
b] some mail services view e-mails from them as spam; which can be an issue
c] my test subject https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-k9qDxyxS3s was downloaded with lesser audio quality

This one only ads more drawbacks in comparison with other pieces of software / websites that I've tried

I would never say: use your main mail account !!! No no NEVER !
You should alway use an spam account :stuck_out_tongue:

edit:
trash-mail.com etc. is often blocked, but you can register a spam account at yahoo or somewhere else - no name, never read

I have almost 20 e-mail accounts. All of my mail is dowloaded viad Thunderbird and kept on my hard drive. After ~3 years I make new account in the same service, changing only the email adress in my Thunderbird configuration

If service X will throw something into spam, I will not get it, because I do not log on to services via websites

And my serious e-mail accounts work on a completely different basis- but those I do not use for such trivial tasks or tests like those

There was a time that these two would get my every e-mail through: seznam.cz, mujmail.cz [and I am not from a Czech Republic and do not speak czech]. But not any more. Also yahoo sends me most of the "spam"

In most cases, you choose what kind of resolution you need before downloading video from YouTube, and then you can output the downloaded video to any hot devices including Apple devices, Samsung, 4K TV etc, as well as many file formats. For example, you can convert Youtube to wmv, if you want to play the video on the wmv-based players or devices. :sunglasses:

In most cases, you choose what kind of resolution you need before downloading video from YouTube, and then you can output the downloaded video to any hot devices including Apple devices, Samsung, 4K TV etc, as well as many file formats. For example, you can convert Youtube to wmv, if you want to play the video on the wmv-based players or devices. :sunglasses:

Cases of what? Web browser plugins and other means of downloading?

Quality of video was never the issue

It is the preservation of the original audio quality that is [was] the problem

I just wanted to make an update

Add-on YouTube Video and Audio Downloader (Dev Edt.) for Firefox works [almost] every time. And now it evens allows for downloading of music videos, which for the longest time was impossible

I like MediaHuman YouTube Downloader. It is flexible and feature rich.


But yes, as Zerow wrote in the first post, it does not download in the best possible quality, too. (Comment 2021.07.27.: unfortunately, YouTube Video and Audio Downloader (Dev Edt.) in Firefox seems to be broken already for a month. So, now the only way to download the best original sound quality, is Audacity recording -- but it is very time consumable, and requires excellent equipment.)

But, as AudaCity manual say,

Recording from an analog audio interface is relatively inexact and lossy, because the digital source is converted to analog to play it, then back to digital to record it. The resulting quality will depend (amongst other things) on the quality of your audio interface's digital to analog and analog to digital converters.

You must to have an excellent equipment. I did a try (on this). Sound, recorded with a mid-class laptop, is noticeably worse, than downloded with MHYTD. Despite the fact, that the frequency transmission is weaker (only 16 kHz instead of 20, with a sharp cut).


So, MHYTD:
For downloading only music i use settings:
General: Add links from the clipboard automatically. Start download automatically. Expand playlist automatically.
Audio output: place in subfolder named as playlist title.
Filename template:
{Artist}___{Title}___{VideoAuthor}___{UploadDate}___{ItemID}
Add number to filename.
Output: Original M4a.

In browser i copy the link of a playlist. MHYTD downloads all into a new folder. I drop the folder into Mp3tag and process an action group:

[#0]
T=5
1=%_filename_ext%
F=TEMPSTORE

[#1]
T=4
F=TEMPSTORE
1=^(\d*)(?: - )*(.*)___(.+)___(.+)___(.+)___(.+)\..{2,4}$
2=$1___$2___$3___$4___$5___$6
3=0

[#2]
T=7
F=%tempstore%
1=%track%___%artist%___%title%___%youtube_uploader%___%encodingtime%___%youtube_item_id%

[#3]
T=5
1=$replace(%encodingtime%,-,.).
F=ENCODINGTIME

[#4]
T=5
1=cs\u00f6ved (oder deiner\u00f6hre) (%youtube_uploader%)
F=WWWAUDIOSOURCE

[#5]
T=9
F=TEMPSTORE;YEAR

[#6]
T=13
1=front$if($or($grtr(%_cover_height%,1600),$grtr(%_cover_size%,524288)),' big',$if($or($grtr(%_cover_height%,850),$grtr(%_cover_size%,98304)),, 850))
3=0|3
2=0

[#7]
T=9
F=PICTURE

[#8]
T=1
F=_FIELDNAME
1=2
2=

After, i check the frequencies with Spek 0.8.2.3, as its image is very informative*. If cutoff 16 kHz, dense frequencies (as often), i convert in foobar into mp3 VBR v2 kbps (or into other quality, corresponding to the frequencies), preserving tags.

Then i select in Total Commander all images "front 850.jpg", send them into IrfanView Thumbnails, and with a batch process crop all images to a square from the centre (usually 720×720 pixel). Add them into mp3 files with an action group in Mp3tag.

In rare cases MHYTD may not work for some songs -- then i use JDownloader

Some times could be useful: YouTube Favorites Back Up To Excel

'*' Spek i use in foobar with a custom created button. I select a whole disk, and see all frequencies. Spek 0.8.2.3 can resize and remember image dimensions.

Practically, once you get into it, the whole thing works at amazing speed. I recently downloaded Evans, Gómer Edwin's 180 hours of music (from his topic) in just a few hours. Glamorous music, that takes you to another world.

The overall problem is, as it was explained to me, the constant changes done to API by YouTube and joggling with their serves

The end result is add-ons and other ways of downloading stopping to work after some time, be it partially or completely

Exactly; but not too much trouble. It will be out for a few days, but the fresh, working version comes out soon.

There was a suggestion to make these public, about Spek 0.8.2.3:

From that site download this msi version on the bottom of the page, and run it on Windows.

And here is the manual. You must configure the image dimensions in the preferences file in C:\Users\YOUR-USER-NAME\AppData\Roaming\spek. Edit it with simple text redactor. The content of mine is:

[update]
check=1
last=737163
[general]
height=746
width=1276
showdetails=1
language=hu
hidepath=0

A little trick: set the width to the width of the screen minus the tray (my tray is on the side - i am using a laptop), but leave the height a bit lower at the top. Otherwise, when you click on the button in foobar to start scanning a whole album, then you start to close the images one by one, you will inevitably close foobar after the last image, if the red closing crosses are on the same position.

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(Instead of a new post, i redacted my earlier one.)

As the users of the Internet of in the times of Ancient Rome like to say: nihil novil

Once again Mozilla made an update of Firefox - once again this third party plugin was broken for weeks - once again it is now working A-OK

This cycle never ends

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You haven't heard of Real Player then lol it's like an all in one music player, converter and it downloads videos from youtube and other websites and probably not all websites but definitely from youtube which is now the best place to get music because it's all on there now.

Well you can select it to download the videos in the highest quality but the main song videos you may want to switch to a video with just the song instead especially club or higher base songs to get a higher quality track a lot of the videos are older quality so it may not be as clear sounded as the tracks sound.

It gives you a little box at the top of your browser screen and you can see it poking out because it usually flashes orange when it's detected the video, then click "More download options" and you can select the quality of the video.

This music player has been around for ages i used it on and off in the past but it's all updated and honestly way better than it ever was because it's not just like windows media player like most of them were lol it actually does something useful now.

Wait until you have checked the sound quality of the YouTube downloads with programs as "spek". It's a bit like playing the lottery... :wink:

Haven't found that with real player or VLC, if i think the sound quality for the official music videos isn't good enough and too quiet then i just search for it and type audio at the end and most likely just the song will be there, because bands and singers have uploaded all their albums in better to quality to youtube. It's slightly less quality than on a CD but only a bit but still loud and clear and tracks with ear to ear effects and what not it's there, doesn't change it when i then convert it to mp3. It sounds even better when i play it on my mp3 player with lossless sound :wink: