How to set certain behavior settings

[Loan]

Good morning at all Video DownloadHelper users,

I'm a newbie from Fedora GNU/Linux and I was analyzing the tool settings and under the behavior

chapter I noticed some keys to possibly flag that I didn't understand, including:

1) Explore network;

2) Evident blocks required by the integrative application;

3) Data blocks required by the integrative application;

4) H264 adjustment;

I didn't understand furthermore the ADP variants meaning, are they the higher quality videos variants (compared to the MP4 format for example) normally (I always aim to download videos in the best quality and definition obtainable, especially from YouTube)?

I wait your kindly reply, thanks at everybody in advance for your attention, Loan from Italy.

[Wild Willy]

I think perhaps we are having a language problem here. I don't recognize the names of
the settings you have listed. Perhaps you should post some screenshots of the settings.
I'm sure the settings are in the same positions on the page in Italian as they are in
English. We should be able to figure out which settings you mean by seeing where they
are located within the dialog.

As for ADP, that is not an alternative to MP4. MP4 is a format for video content. ADP
is a mechanism for transporting content to your browser. For example, YouTube uses ADP
to transport MP4 content to your browser. The transport mechanisms can be HLS, DASH,
ADP, & possibly others I can't think of at the moment. Video formats can be MP4, MKV,
WEBM, & probably others. They're just 2 different concepts. Then there's the issue of
quality. In general, you are probably referring to resolution. You would prefer
1920x1080 over 1280x720. You would prefer 3840x2160 over 1920x1080. But those are
resolutions, not quality. The problem is that YouTube has chosen to use the word
"quality" when they should be using the word "resolution." In any case, HLS vs DASH vs
ADP does not affect resolution nor does it affect quality. Similarly, MP4 vs MKV vs WEBM
does not affect resolution nor does it affect quality. Resolution & quality are choices
made by the serving web site. VDH detects what is being offered by the web site & then
you select which item to download. Many sites offer the same video in multiple
resolutions, & sometimes in multiple quality levels within a given resolution. You have
no control over that. You get whatever the web site is offering. If VDH can detect it,
then you can select what to download. Generally speaking, VDH lists the resolutions in
descending order, highest resolution first followed by lower resolutions. If you see 2
or more variants of the same resolution, the first one will be of a higher quality than
the ones below it.

Since you are a new user, you will probably want to bookmark this link for easy
reference:

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

I recommend you read that entire thread, if not now, eventually. You will probably find
the topics discussed in there helpful as you use VDH more & learn more about it.

[Loan]

Good evening Wild Willy and thank you so much for your helpful reply.

Sorry for the delay in replying however but I haven't found a way to automatically

translate the Video DownloadHelper settings tab to English. Here below you can

see the snapshots of settings whose meaning I asked you in the past so,

with my translations from italian in evidence:

1) Network explore;

2) Flow divided into blocks;

3) Evident blocks required by the VdhCoApp;

4) Data blocks required by the VdhCoApp;

5) H264 adjustment;

Now, I ask you therefore what's the meaning of these settings and what's your suggest for set them in order to download video and audio in the best conditions from YouTube predominantly?

I wait for your kindly reply and thank you in advance for your patience, Loan from Italy.

[Wild Willy]

"Esplore rete" appears to be the Italian for "Network probe." I have to say I'm not
entirely sure what this does. The default is for it to be enabled & I have it enabled.
I speculate that it allows VDH to detect videos but you'd have to get a definitive answer
from Michel, who is the author of VDH. I'm just another user, like you.

"Flusso diviso in blocchi" appears to be "Chunked streaming." The default for this is
enabled & I have it enabled. This permits the processing of streams in chunks or blocks,
which is a very common way that multimedia content is transmitted from servers to users.
I wouldn't change this.

"Blocchi evidenti richiesti dall'Applicazione Integrativa" appears to be "Chunked
manifests CoApp requests." I believe this has to do with livestreams. Manifests for
livestreams are updated as the livestream progresses & they can grow. A manifest for a
livestream can't contain the information for the entire stream because part of the stream
is always in the future. A manifest for a livestream can't be complete until the
livestream is finished. So I believe (again, I'm not the developer so I'm just guessing)
this setting allows the CoApp to read manifests that might be supplied in multiple data
blocks as the manifest grows over time to be large enough to require multiple data
blocks. The default for this is disabled but I have it enabled. It just sounds like
something I ought to enable but I admit I am guessing.

"Dali a blocchi richiesti dall'Applicazione Integrativa" appears to be "Chunked data
CoApp requests." This is a partner setting for the one I just talked about. That one
applies to manifests. This one applies to the data of the livestream. This one defaults
to enabled & I have it enabled.

"Regolazione H264" appears to be "H264 tuning." The default for this is not enabled & I
do not have it enabled. I believe enabling this would force something that is not H264
to be changed to H264. This does not sound to me like something I should waste my CPU
power on. If something is not H264, leave it as it is.

I don't think any of these affects YouTube content much, unless you're trying to record a
livestream from YouTube. Something else controls the resolution of what you download
from YouTube. That something else is the little gear icon within the player on the
YouTube page. When you click that, you are offered a menu that lists the resolutions
available for that video. Every video has its own list of resolutions. Some videos have
only one resolution. Some videos have several resolutions. It's up to you to select
what you want. Usually, VDH displays only one variant for a YouTube video & this is
usually whatever resolution YouTube has chosen as the default for you. If you want VDH
to download some other resolution, you have to click the gear icon & select the
resolution you want. That causes VDH to recognize this new resolution & add it to the
VDH menu for you to download. In my reply to you back in August, I mentioned a URL. You
should click that. Within that web page, the first link takes you to a tutorial on how
to use VDH. The example in the tutorial is a YouTube video. The tutorial shows how to
click the gear icon & select another resolution.

What has been your experience downloading from YouTube? Have you been able to get the
content you wanted? What made you question the meanings of these VDH settings?

[mig]

Wild Willy is correct. A bit more explanation:

Here are the original parameter titles and descriptions in English:

1) Network probe (Scan network traffic to detect hits)

2) Chunked streaming (Chunked streaming enabled)

3) Chunked manifests CoApp requests (Request chunked manifests using companion app)

4) H264 tuning (Force H264 tuning in aggregation)

1) should the extension scan network requests to discover potential videos. Usecases where this parameter should be OFF are seldom, like gallery captures only

2) should the extension try to recognize chunked streams. Originally, videos on the web were not chunked, it was one url = 1 video file,  chunked streams protocols (HLS and DASH) came after. Nowadays, you probably want to keep this parameter ON to keep VDH useful.

3) audio/video data for chunked protocols are downloaded through the coapp, but the manifest (the small file describing where to get the chunks for the video) could be read by the extension directly or through the coap. This is  not a very important parameter. It might be safer to keep it OFF as this is the default.

4) if the downloaded video to be aggregated is H264, this forces the coapp to use the 'libx264' codec. With the latest versions of the coapp, this might be the default anyway.

Those parameters shouldn't probably be changed and are mostly the result of the evolution of VDH over the years (the extension is over 16 years old), so it's more archaeology than anything.

[Loan]

Wild Willy, mig you were both extremely kind!

I seem to have understood all your explanations quite well.

Taking advantage of your availability one last time, I would have

3 last parameters of which I would like to ask you the operation

(with the relative snapshots and my translations in the bubbles as the last time):

1) Automatically block (Block the connection after downloading so):

My question in this case is: why should I terminate the connection after a download?

2) HLS as M2TS;

3) Live HLS history;

As in my previous question, in addition to the meaning of these settings, also tell me if they can be set in order to download video and audio in the better possible conditions from YouTube predominantly please.

I wait for your kindly reply, with my best regards, Loan from Italy.

[mig]

1) "Auto Pin" (Pin hit after download.). Maybe the Italian translation is not accurate here. Basically, it means that after a download, the entry won't disappear even if you close the tab from which the video has been downloaded. It means "pinned" not "blocked".

2) "HLS as M2TS" (Download HLS streams as M2TS). On an HLS stream download, VDH won't try decode the M2TS frame format but directly save the received (M2TS-formatted) media data "as is", leaving to your media player the care of decoding the video frames. This proved to be useful in some tricky situations but you should not change the value (OFF by default) unless you have a reason to, otherwise you may lose time synchronisation.

3) "HLS live history" (Remember previous HLS live chunks). When set to ON (not the default), in the case of a live video (only a few A/V chunks around the "present time" are known), VDH will remember former chunks so that when you decide to download the entry, the recording will start from the moment when the video has been detected.

Parameters 2 and 3 are not used in the case of Youtube (it's not HLS).

[Loan]

Dear mig , your help proved very valuable once again, thank you!

Reviewing the formats with which you can convert video and audio tracks downloaded from YouTube, I asked myself:

1) Is possible get MP3 audio files with a better bit rate than MP3 HQ (like 320 kbps instead 256 kbps) always if it's worth it for the videos generally available on YouTube?

2) What's the video conversion format that returns the best quality (considering a high definition multimedia stream transmitted by YouTube) between MP4 4Mb and Re-encoded MP4 (h264 / aac)? Or if there's a format that can guarantee even better quality, what's it?

I wouldn't like to take advantage of your kindness again, just answer without haste. Thanks as always and best regards, Loan from Italy.

[Wild Willy]

When it comes to resolution & quality (these are NOT synonyms), we are at the mercy of
the server web site. You get what they have. If their audio is at sample rate 44kHz &
bit rate 128kbps, that's the best you can get. If you try to convert it to something
better, it won't be better. It started as what it is & you can't make it better.
Similarly, if the top resolution on the site is 1280x720, you might convert it to
3840x2160 but it will still be only 1280x720. All you will do is make a bigger file, but
it will neither look nor sound any better than the original. It might even be worse.

VDH does its best to sort the contents of its menu from best to worst. The items higher
on the menu have the higher video resolutions & each variant as you scroll down has a
lower resolution. Same thing for audio-only content. The variants higher on the menu
have higher bit rates than the ones lower down. Occasionally, you'll encounter more than
one variant on the VDH menu showing the same resolution. In such an instance, the
variant higher on the VDH menu will be the better quality variant than the one lower down
with the same resolution.

Converting is generally a waste of time. The quality of the content is determined by the
server web site, not VDH & not you. You can't make it better than it already is.

When 320kbps audio is available, VDH will download it. You just have to select it on the
VDH menu. But if the best the server is offering is only 256kbps, or more likely 192kbps
or 128kbps, then that's what VDH will offer. No conversion you do will make it better.
It might be helpful if you lift the mystery & offer some URLs that you are considering
converting. It may be that you want 320kbps but it could be that their content just
isn't that good. Let me look at it & I might be able to determine whether you can do any
better than what VDH is already offering you.

[Loan]

Good evening dear Video DownloadHelper support staff,
A long time has passed since the last time I used your powerful add-on and that I therefore wrote you. Lately it was useful to me and I noticed a new setting with the last release under the "Behavior" tab and so "Extraction method" (as visible in the rectangle in orange evidence of the image below):



Can you explain me the usefulness of this new setting then please? It sets its greatest utility in the multimedia files processing for O.S. on ARM architecture (iOS and Android for example)?

I remain in waiting for your kindly reply, with my best regards, Loan from Italy.

[Wild Willy]

I have noticed that one myself & wondered what it's for. I have left it at its default
value. To the best of my knowledge, VDH does not run in any browser on any type of cell
phone. Maybe this is a setting that they are using to develop a cell phone version of
VDH. But such a version is not available even in beta form at the moment. I'm looking
forward to the explanation of this one myself.

[Loan]

Thank you for your quikly reply dear Wild Willy,
I understood what you intended to express ;-)

I've another more practical question now instead:
I recently had the need to download a video from the Streamyard platform
(the video corresponding to this URL in detail, but I don't know if you can view it too as it could be reserved:
https://streamyard.com/watch/e8c84pDZcGnA) and I haven't succeeded in any way despite I can download each video from YouTube without any problem.

Could it be for the different streaming flow (if I remember correctly, YouTube uses DASH while Streamyard uses HLS from what I understand)?

I remain in waiting for your kindly reply, sincerely, Loan from Italy.

[mig]

We never communicated on the meaning of the "Extraction method" parameter. It has been  introduced a few months ago when we rewrote the YouTube downloading process. The meaning of this parameter has changed over time and it was only a convenient way to switch between options without having to release a new version of the add-on. We intend to hide this parameter from the user view in the stable version.

Concerning the downloading issue on streamyard.com, it appears it requires an account to display the video so i could not test it.  If you haven't done so yet, i recommend giving a try using a recent beta of VDH: https://www.downloadhelper.net/beta

Note that if this site sells their videos, it is possible they use DRMs to protect their content. VDH does not (and never will) support DRMs.