Request to make the lower resolution video formats available again.

[Matt Carter]

I think I have been using for a decade so I have been through loads of ups and downs with YouTube changing formats.  I think the last major change was the worst.  I appreciate your work to get the app working again.  The one issue I have is the limit to the resolutions available for download.  I am eating a huge amount of storage space storing the videos I need for the technical data.  Please bring those options back as soon as possible.   Thank you

[Wild Willy]

My experience (as a user, NOT an employee of VDH) is that VDH now displays many more
resolutions on YouTube than it used to. Plus it offers both mp4 AND mkv, which it didn't
used to do. So you ought to provide a proper problem report. To learn how, click this:

https://groups.google.com/g/video-downloadhelper-q-and-a/c/BzPLK2YyL-s

Search for "problem report" within the text of that web page. That will give you a link.
Click it, read what you find, & follow the advice. Then maybe we can get to the bottom
of this.

[Matt Carter]

I specifically remember that we were told that to make VDH operable after the YouTube lock out several weeks, or months, ago that only the 4 highest resolution viewing options would be available for download.  This commonly is 1920 mp4, 1920 mkv, 1280 mp4, & 1280 mkv.  Sometimes I get only mp4 options, 1920, 1280, 360 & 200 something.  Sometimes I get a 480 mp4 and mvk option if nothing higher is available.  This has been the way it is since the lock out.  I did get many more options before the lock out.  Did you have the limit after VDH came back then it improved to having all the options or are you still limited?  I did look to see if I could limit the options to only mp4, something I thought possible in an older version, as this would enable lower resolution options.  I could not find a way to do so.

I am on VDH 8.1.0.0a4, Firefox 118.0.2, and MacOS 13.5.2

[mig]

Your wish might be fulfilled with the next beta to come very soon. It uses a new download method on YouTube that gives access to fewer quality variants but with a better resolution coverage. Please come back to this thread once you get the new beta, likely to be 8.1.0.0a5.

[Wild Willy]

You are specifically remembering wrong. VDH has never restricted the number of variants
it will list on its menu. There is a setting in VDH to limit the number of variants it
will show, but that's not VDH doing that. That's you. It's on the Behavior tab, Max
variants. If you have this set to 4, then that's your problem. I have it set to 128,
which is something I did. I don't remember the default value but it's not 128.

There is another setting on the same tab: Detect extensions. It's a list of file types
that VDH will recognize. I have never changed that from its default. My recommendation
is don't mess with that. Leave it at its default.

Meanwhile, you've provided almost a proper problem report. We're missing the release
number of your CoApp. We're also missing perhaps the most important part that would let
me investigate this.

URLs

Don't tell me it's everything. I see lots of variants on everything I visit on YouTube.
So you have to give me at least one URL to work with.

What do you mean by "lock out?" Are you talking about the problem that started back at
the end of May & lasted until about the beginning of July? I have not had a problem like
you're describing, not even right after Michel got VDH to start recognizing YouTube
content again. The only restriction I remember was that in an earlier iteration of the
betas, he couldn't recognize 4K content. But that was resolved after another beta or
two. It's ancient history now. He never said anything about recognizing only 4
variants.

There was a one-time operation that you did have to perform. You had to do it once with
any of the 8.x releases & it would be good for all of them since. If you haven't done
it, you should do it now. And if you don't remember whether you did it, it doesn't hurt
to do it again. I describe the process, complete with screenshots, in a thread on here
whose title is "How to download from YouTube." The relevant post within that thread
(which entire thread by the way continues to be applicable) is dated July 17.

[Wild Willy]

Have you noticed that your posts have 3 dots under them but mine don't? Click those 3
dots. Pretty wasteful, isn't it? That's what I call stealth quoting. You need to go
look here:

https://groups.google.com/g/video-downloadhelper-q-and-a/c/BzPLK2YyL-s

Look for "stealth quote" within the text of that page. That will give you a link to a
discussion, complete with screenshots, explaining how to quit stealth quoting. You
should quit stealth quoting.

[mjs]

> Re: Request to make the lower resolution video formats available again.

Did you ever do the video qualities reset in the extension, this something you never mention. This brought back resolutions that were missing.

Under Settings/More/Reset settings. Tick video qualities then click reset settings.

[Matt Carter]

First, my companion app was out of date.  I thought it updated with VDH.  Over all these years, I do not recall ever updating it separately.  It is now 2.0.2.  Two, I changed the "Max Variants" to 128.  It was actually at 6.  The change did nothing.  I then read mig's post about a new Beta coming that could fix this problem.  I will wait for it.

Thank you to mig for the reply.

Thanks for the note about stealth quoting.  I hope I deleted it.

[Matt Carter]

I reset the video resolutions and it fixed the problem.  THANK YOU!!!