Standardize output for available formats

[Rudloff]

I am planning to add the ability to select the format to AllTube, but currently the list outputed by the -F is not formated the same way for every website.

For Vimeo:

format code    extension resolution  note
h264-mobile    mp4       426x320     (worst)
h264-sd        mp4       640x480     
h264-hd        mp4       960x720     (best)

For Youtube:

22  :   mp4 [720x1280]
18  :   mp4 [360x640]
43  :   webm    [360x640]
5   :   flv [240x400]
36  :   3gp [240x320]
17  :   3gp [144x176]
137 :   mp4 [1080p] (DASH Video)
136 :   mp4 [720p] (DASH Video)
135 :   mp4 [480p] (DASH Video)
134 :   mp4 [360p] (DASH Video)
133 :   mp4 [240p] (DASH Video)
160 :   mp4 [192p] (DASH Video)
141 :   m4a [256k] (DASH Audio)
140 :   m4a [128k] (DASH Audio)
139 :   m4a [48k] (DASH Audio)

I am using regular expressions to hack around this but it would be cleaner to have the format everywhere.

[jaimeMF]

The Youtube extractor is using a custom process for handling the formats, instead of the new system. I have started working on this (https://github.com/jaimeMF/youtube-dl/tree/youtube-formats), but I have to fix some problems with the --prefer-free-formats option.

[Rudloff]

Another useful thing would be the ability to output only the formats list and not the other information (e.g. [youtube] Setting language).

[jaimeMF]

I think that request is too specific, I would personally write the info.json and the look into the formats field, you'll probably get better and more reliable results with that. (This won't work yet for Youtube, but it can already be used for other extractors).

[Rudloff]

Oh, I totally forgot about this option.
Is there a way to output the JSON instead of writing it ? That would be perfect.

[jaimeMF]

@Rudloff now you can use the --dump-json option to get the info.

[Rudloff]

This is very useful, thanks !
You can test format selection in AllTube here: http://alltubedownload.net/beta/

[jaimeMF]

Nice job!

[jaimeMF]

In the latest version youtube uses the new format system, so I will close the issue.