ytdlh

A simple video downloader helper for yt-dlp

Disclaimer: this tool is provided as-is, without any warranty. I am not responsible for any damage caused by this tool, as it is unable to cause any harm if used correctly.

Usage

Prerequisites:

• Windows 10 or 11
• FFmpeg (see Setup FFmpeg)

Setup ytdlh

• Get the latest version of ytdlp-build.zip and install_ytdlh.bat from the Assets section of the latest release or pre-release
• Extract the contents into your user directory (C:\Users\username) for easy access (optional, but your terminal will open in this directory by default)
• Or use the installer script to install ytdlh into your user directory:
  • Note: the installer and uninstaller scripts may be blocked by Windows Defender SmartScreen or your antivirus of your choice. You can safely ignore this warning, as the scripts only extract the files into your user folder, and delete them when uninstalling or if an existing version is there. To be safe, make sure you don't have a ytdlh directory and a ytdlh.bat file in your user directory before running the installer script.
  • Run install_ytdlh.bat if you have the ytdlp-build.zip file in the same directory as the installer script
  • Or drag the ytdlp-build.zip file onto the install_ytdlh.bat file
• Open your terminal (cmd, powershell, etc.)
• Run ytdlh.bat:

ytdlh.bat [options] [url]

Note: [options] are not required, [url] is, except when using --help and --version

For example:

ytdlh.bat "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"

Run ytdlh.bat --help for info on the available options

This command will download an mp4 video file into your Downloads directory. Its name will be the title of the video.

ytdlh selects the best video and audio streams available, based on bitrate. The codec of the video stream will not be converted automatically, you will have to do this manually. This feature will be added in a [future update] (#feature-updates).

Since you already have FFmpeg installed, you can use it to convert the video stream to H.264, and the audio stream to AAC:

• Open your terminal (cmd, powershell, etc.)
• Navigate to the video file's directory: Use the cd command followed by the path of the directory where your video file is located. ytdlh downloads the video into your “Downloads” folder by default. To get there in terminal, you should run cd Downloads
• Run the FFmpeg Command:

ffmpeg -i "input.mp4" -c:v libx264 -c:a aac "output.mp4"

• Replace input.mp4 with the name of your video file, and output.mp4 with the name you want for your converted video file. This command tells FFmpeg to convert the video file using the H.264 video codec (libx264) and the AAC audio codec (aac).
• Wait for the conversion to complete, it might take a while, depending on the length of the video and your computer. FFmpeg will display progress information in the terminal as it converts the video. Once the command has finished running, you should find the converted video file in the same directory as the input file.

If you would like to uninstall ytdlh, run uninstall_ytdlh.bat (you can also get this script from the releases). This will remove the ytdlh.bat file and the ytdlh directory from your user directory.

Setup FFmpeg

Not sure if FFmpeg is installed?

• Open your terminal (cmd, powershell, etc.)
• Run ffmpeg -version
• If you get an error, FFmpeg is not installed
• If you get a version number, and a bunch of text, FFmpeg is installed

If you don't have FFmpeg installed, there are two ways to install it.

Install FFmpeg:

• Using a package manager (recommended):
  • winget:
    • Open your terminal (cmd, powershell, etc.)
    • winget install ffmpeg
    • Accept the license agreement
  • Chocolatey
    • Open your terminal (cmd, powershell, etc.)
    • Run choco install ffmpeg
  • Scoop
    • Open your terminal (cmd, powershell, etc.)
    • Run scoop install ffmpeg
  • Notes:
    • winget should be installed by default on Windows 10 and 11 systems that have the 22H2 update installed. If you don't seem to have it, you can follow Microsoft's instructions on how to install it
    • Chocolatey and Scoop are third-party package managers. If you don't have them installed, you can follow their installation instructions on their websites: Chocolatey | Scoop
• Manually:
  • Open this page in your browser
  • Hover over or click on the Windows icon
  • Click on "Windows builds from gyan.dev"
  • Scroll down to the "Release builds" section
  • Download ffmpeg-release-full.7z
  • Extract the contents of the archive into a directory of your choice
  • Add the directory to your PATH environment variable:
    • Open the start menu
    • Type "environment variables"
    • Click on "Edit the system environment variables"
    • Click on "Environment Variables..."
    • Under "System variables", select "Path" and click on "Edit..."
    • Click on "New"
    • Enter the path of the bin directory of the extracted archive
    • Click on "OK"
    • Click on "OK"
    • Click on "OK"
  • Note: if you installed FFmpeg manually, you will have to close and reopen your terminal for the changes to take effect. Alternatively, you can run refreshenv in your terminal to refresh the environment variables

---

Set up for development (Windows)

Additional prerequisites:

• Python 3.11.7
  • make sure to check the "Add Python to PATH" option during installation
• Git
• powershell (for using the build script)

git clone https://github.com/szBene/ytdlh.git
cd ytdlh
python -m venv venv
venv\Scripts\activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

(nope, no linux yet)

Build

Don't trust the release version? No problem, you can build it yourself!

After setting up for development, run the following command in your terminal:

pyinstaller -c --onefile --name ytdlh.exe main.py ytdlp_handler.py

This command will create a portable, self-contained executable of ytdlh.

You will find the executable in the dist directory. From there, follow the instructions in the Usage section. However, instead of ytdlh.bat, you will have to run ytdlh.exe.

NOTE: this command, specifically the --onefile option, might build an executable that will result in a false positive detection by your antivirus. This happened to me with release 0.1.0. In the release notes, I included the Virustotal scan results of the executable.

I also created a build script, that doesn't use the --onefile option. It will create a zip file of the built executable in the project's root directory. To use the ytdlh executable created with this method, you have two options:

1. With the runner script:
   • Extract the contents of the zip file directly into your user directory (C:\Users\username)
   • Open your terminal and run ytdlh.bat just like you would run ytdlh.exe
2. Without the runner script:
   • Extract the zip file into a directory of your choice
   • Move the contents of the ytdlh directory into your user directory (C:\Users\username)
   • Open your terminal and run ytdlh.exe

Updates

This tool does not check for updates. For that, come back here from time to time

Feature updates

There are a few features that I would like to add some time in the future, not in any particular order:

• set output video codec to H.264, set output audio codec to AAC (convert if necessary)
• more usage options:
  • manual output codec selection for video and audio
  • manual stream selection
  • pre-select resolution
  • pre-select fps
  • pre-select audio quality (bitrate or sampling rate)
• download audio only
• download video only
• download playlist
• download multiple videos at once

Feel free to open an issue if you have any other ideas.

Contributions are also welcome.

Bug fixes

For any bugs or issues you find with the tool or this guide, please open an issue. I will try to fix them as soon as possible.

Don't forget to include the version of ytdlh and the entire console output of the program(s).

Check back frequently, in case I have any followup questions or updates.