Print a list of available formats

[dd1]

It would be nice to have a CL option enabling one to obtain a list of all available formats for a specific video (URL). In other words, how can I know what to specify as FORMAT for -f? Thanks in advance.

[devconsole]

Here's what I do, but maybe there's a better way:

./youtube-dl --all-formats --get-filename http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

That gives you a list of file names like so:
dQw4w9WgXcQ-35.flv
dQw4w9WgXcQ-34.flv
dQw4w9WgXcQ-18.mp4
dQw4w9WgXcQ-5.flv

The numbers next to the dashes are the video formats (35, 34, 18, 5). The list of formats is documented here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube#Quality_and_codecs

[shirishag75]

At the extent of being an idiot, can somebody explain me how can I make sure that I get the format. While the above works, I do have an issue with downloading a specific version. I have seen this happen with few other videos as well.

This is on a friend's window machine.

C:\Documents and Settings\Admin\Commands>youtube-dl.py --all-formats --get-file
name "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssxB0a3Js7I"
ssxB0a3Js7I-22.mp4
ssxB0a3Js7I-35.flv
ssxB0a3Js7I-34.flv
ssxB0a3Js7I-18.mp4
ssxB0a3Js7I-5.flv

C:\Documents and Settings\Admin\Commands>youtube-dl.py --format=mp4 "http://www.
youtube.com/watch?v=ssxB0a3Js7I"
[youtube] Setting language
[youtube] ssxB0a3Js7I: Downloading video webpage
[youtube] ssxB0a3Js7I: Downloading video info webpage
[youtube] ssxB0a3Js7I: Extracting video information
ERROR: requested format not available

Can somebody explain that to me.

[dd1]

ssxB0a3Js7I-22.mp4
[...]
ssxB0a3Js7I-18.mp4

Which of the above do you mean?

youtube-dl.py --format=mp4 "..."
[...]
ERROR: requested format not available

I guess you should probably try --format=22 or --format=18.

Dmitry Chistikov

[nirbheek]

Isn't this solved with the "-F" option now?

[andrew-aladev]

yes. "-F" works perfect

[Sepero]

I think this issue can be marked as closed also. Cheers

[viliyam2811]

It's not youtube-dl.py --format=mp4.... it's youtube-dl.py --format mp4