YouTube is a social video-sharing website hosting millions of videos, with advanced features like subtitles and annotations, video commenting and more.
Video Formats
Videos are usually available in multiple formats, as specified by a numeric format id (fmt).
Format: | 34 | 25 | 18 | 22 | 17 | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Format Name: | Standard | Medium | High | HD (720p) | Mobile | |
Container: | FLV | MP4 | FLV | MP4 | 3GP | |
Video | Codec | MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) | MPEG-4 Part 2 | |||
Aspect Ratio | 4:3 or 16:9 | 4:3 | 16:9 | 16:9 | 11:9 | |
Max Resolution | 320x240 (4:3) or 400x226 (16:9) | 480x360 | 864x480 | 1280x720 (720p) | 176x144 | |
Average Bitrate (kbit/s) | 200 | 512 | 900 | 2000 | Unknown | |
Frame Rate (fps) | Unknown | 25 | Unknown |
Downloading a video
There are multiple methods used to gather the video's download URL. Most methods contain tokens which are tied to a specific IP address and expire after a short amount of time.
Method 1
- Get the VIDEO ID
- Navigate to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v= and your VIDEO ID.
- View the source code and extact the "t" value from inside SWF_ARGS
- Copy that t value (without quotes) and paste after http://www.youtube.com/get_video?video_id=VIDEO_ID&t=