256k dash audio no longer available

[travisbasevi]

Possibly not a bug with youtube-dl, but previously all videos had a 256k audio stream available - admittedly the vast majority were upscaled. Today the maximum is 128k, anyone know what's going on?

[jaimeMF]

Could you post some url that used to have 256k? so that we can check it and investigate. They may be using other itags.

[ghost]

Here is 256k, but only webm. I'm pretty sure that there was m4a i think it was 141 itag...

youtube-dl.exe -v -F http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IB3lcPjvWLA
[debug] System config: []
[debug] User config: []
[debug] Command-line args: ['-v', '-F', 'http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IB3lcPjvWLA']
[debug] youtube-dl version 2013.12.11.2
[debug] Python version 2.7.5 - Windows-XP-5.1.2600-SP3
[debug] Proxy map: {}
[youtube] Setting language
[youtube] IB3lcPjvWLA: Downloading webpage
[youtube] IB3lcPjvWLA: Downloading video info webpage
[youtube] IB3lcPjvWLA: Extracting video information
Available formats:
22      :       mp4     [1280x720]
18      :       mp4     [640x360]
43      :       webm    [640x360]
5       :       flv     [400x240]
36      :       3gp     [320x240]
17      :       3gp     [176x144]
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)
172     :       webm    [256k] (DASH Audio)
140     :       m4a     [128k] (DASH Audio)
171     :       webm    [128k] (DASH Audio)
139     :       m4a     [48k] (DASH Audio)

[travisbasevi]

Going through my logs, the last video I saw with 256k was this one on 7th December. Not sure which version of youtube-dl it would have been, but definitely pretty current.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZACtYbiSmA

As pulpe says, it was the 141 itag.

[DeusoftheWired]

Confirmed. 192 k / 256 k not available any longer. It definitely had the 141 tag, I just looked it up in a howto I wrote for myself when 2 weeks ago I read up on downloading separate DASH streams and combining them with ffmpeg.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuEiyb7xTa0

[himadri0327]

Same observation here...youtube videos that I downloaded using the 141 tag dash-audio (m4a AAC@256k) earlier in Oct/Nov no longer have them. Some of these old videos now show 172 tag dash-audio (webm Vorbis@256k). This was verified using old youtube-dl.2013.10.28 and current youtube-dl.2013.12.26, so it definitely looks like change at youtube.com.

Also observing that the old 141 tag dash-audio (m4a aac@256k) had a better freq-spectrum with high-freq upto 19kHz whereas the 140 tag dash-audio (m4a aac@128k) has high-freq upto 16kHz (so it should sound more like FM radio quality). The new 172 tag dash-audio (webm Vorbis@256k) has high-freq upto 19kHz (like the 141 tag it replaced). I think I need to download 172 tag and convert to aac@256k and mux with best avc dash-video into mp4 container. So I am now looking for best way to do that in my script. Does anyone know where to get a static compile of ffmpeg with libfdk_aac?

[DeusoftheWired]

@himadri0327: Now that is some pretty useful information. Thank you for the hint with the 172 tag! I had to look around for a while to find one using this tag but came across this example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGrfFzagzHs and indeed it lists the tags, containers and resolutions you mentioned.
Still, I wonder why videos of some of my YouTube subscriptions do not offer this tag although they use semi-professional audio recording gear … I’ll have to ask via pm if the files they upload contain audio with 192 kbps, 256 kbps or lower.

As for the static compile of ffmpeg you wanted: Maybe the static build section has what you want: http://ffmpeg.gusari.org/static/ But you can also build it yourself and include only the features you need. As a linux noob, I found this step for step tutorial extremely helpful https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/UbuntuCompilationGuide Good luck!

[himadri0327]

@DeusoftheWired: Thanks for tip, that works. I also found alternate workaround on windows platform (where I use powershell scripting) using regular ffmpeg to convert Vorbis@256k to WAV and then using fhgaacenc.exe (with winamp libraries enc_fhgaac.dll, libmp4v2.dll & nsutil.dll) to get a Fraunhofer encode to AAC.

Also, another info that may be useful to folks who are interested in getting audio only in best quality. I noticed that music videos marked 'audio' such as http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRFHAvdwXXs have freq-spectrum cutoff below 15kHz (like FM-radio quality) even with 172 tag (webm Vorbis@256k). However, the official music video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=My2FRPA3Gf8 has 172 tag audio with better freq-spectrum. I tend to think this is intentional from youtube.

[nbdyxsa]

The problem is not solved (2014.13.02 version ). 256k DASH audio is still not listed... Will this issue soon be fixed?

[jaimeMF]

Sorry for not having answered yet.
The problem is that it seems that youtube no longer provides this format, so we cannot download it.
I'm closing the issue then, if someone finds a way to download it we'd appreciate if you share it.
Thanks for the reports.

[corporate-gadfly]

Can you kindly have a look at this discussion about 256kb streams being gone? Something about the 256kb links still being available in the manifest URLs.

[jaimeMF]

We know that, you can force youtube-dl to use the manifest if you add the --youtube-include-dash-manifest option, but it only works in some videos (like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9LDPn-MO4I). In other videos we need to decrypt the signature, I've opened a new issue for that: #2393.

[jaimeMF]

@travisbasevi @DeusoftheWired at least the videos you have linked to, provide the 141 itag, you just need to run youtube-dl 'ZuEiyb7xTa0' --youtube-include-dash-manifest -f 141

[DeusoftheWired]

@jaimeMF When I run your recommended command, yt-dl nicely downloads the DASH audio and saves it as .m4a with a bitrate of 256 kbps. Thanks!

[schnapper1920]

It seems that Youtube stopped using the 141 itag and 256 kbps AAC for new videos. :-(