Youtube: --get-url option not always returning direct video links

[MPeti1]

Checklist

• I'm reporting a broken site support
• I've verified that I'm running youtube-dl version 2019.11.28
• I've checked that all provided URLs are alive and playable in a browser
• I've checked that all URLs and arguments with special characters are properly quoted or escaped
• I've searched the bugtracker for similar issues including closed ones

Verbose log

youtube-dl -v -g --ignore-config "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oo_t_CQ_XWs"
[debug] System config: []
[debug] User config: []
[debug] Custom config: []
[debug] Command-line args: ['-v', '-g', '--ignore-config', 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oo_t_CQ_XWs']
[debug] Encodings: locale cp1250, fs mbcs, out cp852, pref cp1250
[debug] youtube-dl version 2019.11.28
[debug] Python version 3.4.4 (CPython) - Windows-10-10.0.18362
[debug] exe versions: ffmpeg git-2019-11-17-b741a84, ffprobe git-2019-11-17-b741a84
[debug] Proxy map: {}
[debug] Default format spec: bestvideo+bestaudio/best
https://manifest.googlevideo.com/api/manifest/dash/expire/1575597512/ei/aGHpXamxF4PN1gLC3azABQ/ip/2001%3A4c4c%3A22b0%3A9500%3A8cad%3A6231%3A3959%3A292a/id/3a8fedfc243f5d6b/source/youtube/requiressl/yes/playback_host/r4---sn-h5bt5guxax3vh-c0qk.googlevideo.com/mm/31%2C29/mn/sn-h5bt5guxax3vh-c0qk%2Csn-c0q7lnsl/ms/au%2Crdu/mv/m/mvi/3/pl/39/hfr/all/as/fmp4_audio_clear%2Cwebm_audio_clear%2Cwebm2_audio_clear%2Cfmp4_sd_hd_clear%2Cwebm2_sd_hd_clear/initcwndbps/1345000/mt/1575575867/fvip/4/fexp/23842630/itag/0/sparams/expire%2Cei%2Cip%2Cid%2Csource%2Crequiressl%2Chfr%2Cas%2Citag/sig/ALgxI2wwRQIgVW0RZsV_GtVhvDv1QzajrhL8ioxtgqCg4LGtoo_9jIkCIQDCd-xAeVGHplre9T_DgavA6oO9oxhC4nOHcuKsoc5G0w%3D%3D/lsparams/playback_host%2Cmm%2Cmn%2Cms%2Cmv%2Cmvi%2Cpl%2Cinitcwndbps/lsig/AHylml4wRQIhALjJrpp1e5u9NE8ZDnsW9QTwP7tM5FxqjGdPuL3aryzoAiB1Yak7Wq7tJ_PHy6RbE0n6Th4Aqnd6KE1RLRpdaS4tyw%3D%3D
https://manifest.googlevideo.com/api/manifest/dash/expire/1575597512/ei/aGHpXamxF4PN1gLC3azABQ/ip/2001%3A4c4c%3A22b0%3A9500%3A8cad%3A6231%3A3959%3A292a/id/3a8fedfc243f5d6b/source/youtube/requiressl/yes/playback_host/r4---sn-h5bt5guxax3vh-c0qk.googlevideo.com/mm/31%2C29/mn/sn-h5bt5guxax3vh-c0qk%2Csn-c0q7lnsl/ms/au%2Crdu/mv/m/mvi/3/pl/39/hfr/all/as/fmp4_audio_clear%2Cwebm_audio_clear%2Cwebm2_audio_clear%2Cfmp4_sd_hd_clear%2Cwebm2_sd_hd_clear/initcwndbps/1345000/mt/1575575867/fvip/4/fexp/23842630/itag/0/sparams/expire%2Cei%2Cip%2Cid%2Csource%2Crequiressl%2Chfr%2Cas%2Citag/sig/ALgxI2wwRQIgVW0RZsV_GtVhvDv1QzajrhL8ioxtgqCg4LGtoo_9jIkCIQDCd-xAeVGHplre9T_DgavA6oO9oxhC4nOHcuKsoc5G0w%3D%3D/lsparams/playback_host%2Cmm%2Cmn%2Cms%2Cmv%2Cmvi%2Cpl%2Cinitcwndbps/lsig/AHylml4wRQIhALjJrpp1e5u9NE8ZDnsW9QTwP7tM5FxqjGdPuL3aryzoAiB1Yak7Wq7tJ_PHy6RbE0n6Th4Aqnd6KE1RLRpdaS4tyw%3D%3D

Description

There are videos (example) for which the -g option returns a link containing video info instead of direct download link to video. Currently it prevents the user from easily downloading multiple videos at once, for example exporting a playlist's videos' into a file and using an external downloader to download them.

The video is on my channel and it's an unlisted video. There are a lot more actually, and most of them are outputted in this format. The ones that were outputted in the directly downloadable format are mostly old (or just small/low quality?) videos. I currently mainly use my account as an archive account, and it doesn't really have any viewer traffic on it, so I expect these videos to be deleted in the near future (when the new ToS will activate).

[MPeti1]

Oh and almost forgot to mention that I found that the directly downloadable links are duplicated in a way that for each video there is a link with the audio and an other with the video. Judging by the fact that there are 2 times more links than how many videos I have, it's probably true for the other links too.

[dstftw]

There are no direct links for formats you're requesting cause they are served in segments. This has been answered numerous of times. Bother to use search.

[remitamine]

this is partially valid as the direct URLs for the same formats can be extracted(from the webpage) when --youtube-skip-dash-manifest is used.

youtube-dl -g -f bestvideo+bestaudio --youtube-skip-dash-manifest https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oo_t_CQ_XWs
https://r4---sn-5abxgpxuxaxjvh-j1al.googlevideo.com/videoplayback?...&itag=299&...
https://r4---sn-5abxgpxuxaxjvh-j1al.googlevideo.com/videoplayback?...&itag=140&...

[MPeti1]

I bothered to use search (for get-links), but found nothing relevant.

@remitamine with this option yt-dl gives the right links, thank you

[remitamine]

I bothered to use search (for get-links), but found nothing relevant.

because there is no such option as --get-links.

[MPeti1]

Oh! You're right. I don't know why I remembered --get-links, sorry!

[MPeti1]

I wondered about this again, and thought I could ask if you could change the --get-url mechanism to automatically use --youtube-skip-dash-manifest for videos that are served in segments. What do you think?