ytdl_hook should respect youtube-dl's config file

[rndusr]

I have this line in my ~/.config/youtube-dl/config:

--format bestvideo[height<=720][vcodec!*=av01]+bestaudio/bestvideo[height<=1080][vcodec!*=av01]+bestaudio/best[height<=720][vcodec!*=av01]/best[height<=1080][vcodec!*=av01]/best

It should pick a non-av01 video if possible. If I run youtube-dl <YouTube URL>, this works as expected. But if I run mpv <YouTube URL> --msg-level ytdl_hook=trace, I can see that youtube-dl is called with --format bestvideo+bestaudio/best.

1. According to the man page, bestvideo+bestaudio/best is already the default: "Since the end of April 2015 and version 2015.04.26, youtube-dl uses -f bestvideo+bestaudio/best as the default format selection (see vo_gpu: Segfault when switching scaler and pausing simultaneously (hwdec=vdpau) #5447 (Document and make default --format='bestvideo+bestaudio/best' ytdl-org/youtube-dl#5447), Protocol whitelist in ytdl_hook #5456 ([YoutubeDL] Make bestvideo+bestaudio/best default format when merger is available ytdl-org/youtube-dl#5456))."

2. ytdl_hook should respect my preferences.

It also enforces --sub-format ass/srt/best and --all-subs, which I would leave to the user to configure.

I could fix this by adding ytdl-raw-options ... to my ~/.config/mpv/mpv.conf, but then I'd have to maintain the same settings in two different files.

[wiiaboo]

It could be argued that you might not want the same settings to download videos as well as streaming them.

We would need to stop setting a default format, since we're for sure not going to check if youtube-dl.conf exists and has a format line, as the path for it changes for all platforms, or even doing youtube-dl and parsing the debug output.

Other than format ytdl_hook respects your youtube-dl.conf as it's directly calling youtube-dl without --ignore-config. We just need to set format to set some sane defaults.

At most I'd agree with a way to prevent ytdl_hook from setting those defaults if --ytdl-format is also unset.

[rndusr]

You are making good points. I haven't thought about people using different formats for downloading vs streaming. I guess there is no scenario in which nobody has to have special settings for mpv. That's probably why --ytdl-format exists. ytdl_hook.lua already seems to not set youtube-dl's --format option if --ytdl-format is given, but it doesn't work for me: $ mpv --ytdl-format='video[height<=360]' 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-fLkdVRMwE' mpv should fail like youtube-dl does: $ youtube-dl --format 'video[height<=360]' 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-fLkdVRMwE' [...] requested format not available But it plays the video in 720p instead. Also, one tiny nitpick: The man page says for --ytdl-format: Default: youtube-dl's default, currently bestvideo+bestaudio/best That's practically true, but technically wrong because "bestvideo+bestaudio/best" is hardcoded in ytdl_hook.lua.

[wiiaboo]

Yes, it's copied from youtube-dl's default, not actually using youtube-dl's default.

[wiiaboo]

mpv should fail like youtube-dl does: $ youtube-dl --format 'video[height<=360]' 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-fLkdVRMwE' [...] requested format not available

If you use a bad format value, ytdl's -J still returns all the formats and defaults to bestvideo+bestaudio/best for the requested_url or requested_formats key. That's youtube-dl's intended behavior of -J, not an issue in ytdl_hook or youtube-dl.

[ghost]

There were also some cases mpv couldn't handle, while youtube-dl could (since youtube-dl has its own code for dash etc.).

[rndusr]

Oops, I was wrong about the --ytdl-format. Forgot I still had ytdl-raw-options set in my mpv.conf. I guess this can be closed now.

[sergeykish]

Release 0.33.0 adds

--ytdl-format=ytdl

The ytdl value does not pass a --format option to youtube-dl at all, and thus does not override its default. Note that sometimes youtube-dl returns a format that mpv cannot use, and in these cases the mpv default may work better.

43c13e5

This includes default format too, no --format bestvideo+bestaudio/best:

$ cat .config/mpv/mpv.conf 
ytdl-format=ytdl
$ mpv  --msg-level=ytdl_hook=trace ...
...
[ytdl_hook] Running: youtube-dl --no-warnings -J --flat-playlist --sub-format ass/srt/best --all-subs --no-playlist -- ...

Thank you!