How to set aria2c as external downloader in ytdl_opts

[Karam-DEV]

Checklist

• I'm asking a question
• I've looked through the README and FAQ for similar questions
• I've searched the bugtracker for similar questions including closed ones

Question

Hi, How can i set aria2c to download videos
Here is my options:

ydl_opts = {
	'format': 'bestvideo+bestaudio',
	'logger': MyLogger(),
	'progress_hooks': [my_hook],
	'external-downloader':'aria2c'
}

But, that seems nothing has improved (I am not able to understand if it is correct or not)

[Lamieur]

Works for me by adding --external-downloader aria2c and --external-downloader-args to ~/.config/youtube-dl/config, but there are types of content that will make youtube-dl force ffmpeg, so it may depend on the site you're downloading from.

Anyways, "nothing has improved" may be right even if it IS in fact using aria2c - for me, actual YouTube download with aria2c (I've tried -c -j 3 -x 3 -s 3 -k 1M for args) is WAY slower (over 20x, not kidding!) than normal. Either YouTube detects those connections and rate-limits me, or I'm too conservative with them, or youtube-dl itself does things differently with external downloaders.

Easy to test - just youtube-dl -v and it will show you "[debug] aria2c command line:" somewhere there, not to mention aria2c's colorful progress bar showing up :)