Only audio downloading .MKV videos from Youtube

[Erch]

VDH is only downloading the audio file for .MKV files. Any suggestion?

This can be tested with the Video overview on How to use Video DownloadHelper referred in the Details tab of the addon information.

Video DownloadHelper

Version 7.4.0

Browser locale: en-US

Production build

Built on Tue Dec 15 2020 17:14:16 GMT+0100 (Central European Standard Time)

Build options: browser=firefox

Platform

Platform Win x86-64

Browser Mozilla Firefox 84.0

Companion App installed

Found companion app: VdhCoApp 1.6.0

Companion app binary: C:\Program Files\net.downloadhelper.coapp\bin\net.downloadhelper.coapp-win-64.exe

[Wild Willy]

Erch, you know you need to provide some examples.  Post some URLs that are giving you trouble.

[FransK]

I have the same problem, tried on 3 computers:

firefox 84.0   x86-64 on  ubuntu 18.04, vdh 7.4.0, vdh-coapp 1.6.0 and 1.5.0
firefox 84.0   x86-64 on xubuntu 20.04, vdh 7.4.0, vdh-coapp 1.5.0
firefox 84.0.1 x86-64 on windows10 vdh, vdh 7.4.0, vdh-coapp 1.5.0 and 1.6.0

From feb-2016 on I downloaded about 40 .mkv videos.
first problem I noticed on 23-nov-2019, vlc player would play audio but video window remainded black, with message "error, codec not supported: "  (no codec name)
From then on I had about 10 mkv downloads without video, and 4 normally playing .mkv files from several different yt- channels, both older and quite new videos.
Later video's did not give an error in vlc player anymore, just no showing video.

Next 3 videos I downloaded recently and tried to figure out the problem:
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yhMmDPM13c
    "Smile - Charles Chaplin ☺ Re-harmonization ☺ Jazz Piano College"
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvh63zky2Zc
    "Jazz Piano College | A Train | basic theory, chords, improv, bass line"
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bljmNfHyG4A&feature=emb_imp_woyt
    "Master Class #48 - How to Sing with Master Solos w/Dave Frank"
    
When loaded in vidcutter video editor, there are no thumbnails.
mkvinfo tool shows that there is both an audio and a h264 video stream
mkvextract for both streams gives message that there is no data to process, an output file for the audio steam was created and can be played, the output file for the video is 0 long.

I had 3 recent (less that half a year old) videos that downloaded correct, and one older video.
In the channels of the authors of above videos there are more mkv videos that might fail.

If needed, I could try to search for the url of the other problematic downloads that I had, or send the mkvinfo output for the videos.
I hope this can help to tackle the problem. Thanks in advance.

[Wild Willy]

I don't have time at the moment to download these 3 videos but in all 3 cases, I notice essentially the same thing.  VDH offers some variants that are only 5M or 10M.  These are obviously not big enough to be full videos with both an audio track & a video track.  But there are other variants offered that are 100M or larger.  These are much more likely to contain both audio & video.  Sometimes, you might need to click the little tool icon within the YouTube player & change the resolution of the video in order to make VDH recognize a variant that contains both audio & video.

Let us know if this advice advances your case at all.

[FransK]

Thanks,

I tested download with different video settings in  yt, clearing the vdh hits and messages before each download and reloading of the page with the video.

After a page reset the  yt video setting is always auto plus the and the last-used manual setting.

Also I took note of the informatieon in the vdh hits menu, ignoring the entries with a shorter duration then the video (commercials) and entries with mp4 without extra information (dwnload just a small file, does not play anything), and looking at the source size compared to the video duration (14 MB for 15 minutes of 720p is good for audio only but way to short for video)

Only yt video settings 1080p and 360p result in a file that contains both video and audio (didn't try lower then 360p).

yt video settings of 720p and 480p resulted in output without video.

When keeping the vdh download progress window open, half way the progress bar the download stopped with message "nothing to process" (meaning no video data?).

I like to download these videos at quality 720p, as this is a good compromise between file size and video quality.

And it seems that my normal setup of a firefox window resuls in a video setting in yt of 720p.

Download at 1080p is no problem for me, I can scale them down using an appropriate video tool.

Can I see somewhere in the vdh hits menu which entries will result in a complete audio+video download (except for guessing the file compared to the audio size)?

That would be nice, as when I open the vdh menu on new page, only the current video format (apart from the .js file and and mp4 without extra info) is shown and that might one of the bad settings.

(one of the the tests, an mp4 entry, resulted in a video-only file)

[Wild Willy]

I've said all along that YouTube is flaky.  If you can find a resolution that makes VDH show a variant that at least has a reasonable chance of being both audio & video, then we're all stuck with just taking what we can get.

The further detail indicating this is audio without video, this is video without audio, this is video+audio, is not available in VDH as we know it today.  I have discussed with Michel the possibility of extracting that information from a video but it's not something he's implemented yet.  And I don't want to sound like he's assured me he would implement it.  He just said he would take it under consideration.  On other sites with simpler videos, it's probably not too hard to do.  On YouTube, it is my understanding that you have to turn endless somersaults to get it to work at all.  It may simply not be possible to glean that information from whatever it is that YouTube provides to VDH.  On other sites, you can see the information in manifests (m3u8 files).  YouTube does not appear to use manifests, as far as I can tell, but I'm certainly no expert on this.  Michel has never explained exactly how YouTube works.  I suppose that's a trade secret, which I am perfectly happy to accept.

[FransK]

Thanks again for the support.

I can live with it now that I know what to look in order to get a complete video.

[rob...@pansmanse.co.uk]

Useful tip to change resolution. That worked for me. Thanks!