yt-dlg video codec

[IoanPaleru]

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What operating system do you use ?

Windows 10 64 bit

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When downloading videos from youtube with yt-dlg using the -f "bestvideo[height<=720][ext=mp4]+bestaudio[ext=m4a]/bestvideo+bestaudio" command line option, yt-dlg downloads .mp4 videos with the vp09 (lavcodec vp9 dxva2) codec, instead of the avc1 (h.264/mpeg-4 avc) codec.

Is there a way to download those videos with the avc1 (h.264/mpeg-4 avc) codec, using a similar command line option to specify downloading the video with 720p for the video quality?

[oleksis]

Can check the yt-dlp Wiki:

• How do I download the best quality possible?
• How do I get an h264 encode mp4 from YouTube

[IoanPaleru]

Thanks for those links, especially https://www.reddit.com/r/youtubedl/s/GlAwPHQRyN, which contained a link to https://www.reddit.com/r/youtubedl/wiki/h264/.

It seems that after adding [vcodec^=avc] after the [ext=mp4] part of -f "bestvideo[height<=720][ext=mp4]+bestaudio[ext=m4a]/bestvideo+bestaudio", yt-dlg downloads the .mp4 video with the proper avc1 (h.264/mpeg-4 avc) codec, instead of the vp09 (lavcodec vp9 dxva2) codec.

It would be great if you could put that information in an easier to find way in yt-dlg's documentation, or just include simple format and codec selection options in yt-dlg's gui to be able to choose to download files with different formats and codecs (like avc and vp9), which will change the command line options automatically for people who aren't very familiar with command line options.

[oleksis]

Welcome 🙏🏾 and glad the yt-dlp wiki help you. The format selection for video and audio is on features request in nexts releases. If this issue was resolved please comment your solution (command line options you use in the Extra tab in yt-dlg) and close the issue. Thanks for your comments!