G+_Ryan O'Hara Posted May 21, 2015 Share Posted May 21, 2015 I have a question about a tip from an episode a while back. In ep 119, you mention the way to rip YouTube streams using VLC. You claimed that this got you the original video because it's the file YouTube uses to send out its streams. This appears to not be the case. I just decided to try this trick out today as a way of transferring video back and forth for projects between two people and it would seem it's not the original video. In fact I couldn't even open the download, but after some messing around I figured out what it was. It ends up being a webm version in what YouTube would consider the default stream for that content. I'm searching high and low and I keep coming across this tip as well as websites that offer the same service in an automated format, but they're all doing the same thing. Nothing can get me above 720p. I've even tried out by testing out my own 4k content and I still get a 720p webm version. If I use some of these other sites or utilities, some will offer something higher (ie en.savefrom.net), but the audio is stripped. URL hacks seem to not work either anymore. So, is this technique kind of dead? Did YouTube change something to semi-kill this form of downloading as well? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Ben Reese Posted May 22, 2015 Share Posted May 22, 2015 I haven't tried it myself, but the tip I keep seeing come up is a command line interface called something like YouTube.dl... Seems pretty versatile from what I'm seeing. But, yeah... I don't think you can ever download the original upload from what I've seen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Ryan O'Hara Posted May 22, 2015 Author Share Posted May 22, 2015 Oh wow, that's pretty amazing. That's a nice insight into how YouTube works. That script can't download anything better than a 720p as a whole as well, BUT there are audio only and video only for all the way up to 4k. So I can get the audio and video and mash them together, which must be what the YouTube player does and how it can immediately jump between resolutions without skipping a beat. It's not the original, but it's closer. Thanks a lot! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts