Youtube Format IDs

youtube_formats.md

Last updated: April 2021

Also known as itag or format codes and way back they could be specified with the fmt parameter (e.g. &fmt=22). Depending on the age and/or popularity of the video, not all formats will be available.

DASH video

Resolution	AV1 HFR High	AV1 HFR	AV1	VP9.2 HDR HFR	VP9 HFR	VP9	H.264 HFR	H.264
	MP4	MP4	MP4	WebM	WebM	WebM	MP4	MP4
4320p		402/571			272			138
2160p	701	401		337	315	(313)	(305)	(266)
1440p	700	400		336	308	(271)	(304)	(264)
1080p	699	399		335	303	(248)	299	(137)
720p	698	398		334	302	247	298	136
480p	697		397	333		244		135
360p	696		396	332		243		134
240p	695		395	331		242		133
144p	694		394	330		278		160

• HFR stands for "High Framerate", which means up to 60 FPS, whereas non-HFR is limited to 30 FPS
• Non-HFR 1080p+ H.264 and VP9 variants are not provided for HFR videos anymore
• Same IDs are reused for 360° videos
• 1440p+ H.264 variants are only provided for 360° videos anymore
• At the moment, AV1 variants are only provided for popular videos
• All AV1 variants can be HDR (no separate non-HDR AV1 variants are offered)
• AV1 HFR High: High refers to the bitrate. These variants have ~3-4 times the bitrate of their normal counterparts. Additional side effect is providing AV1 HFR variants for low resolutions (<=480p). These variants are rare even among videos with AV1 variants. Found on this video.
• AV1 HFR 4320p: Format 571 has roughly 50% higher bitrate than 402. Sometimes only one of them is offered, sometimes both. Can be seen on this video.

DASH audio

Code	Container	Audio Codec	Audio Bitrate	Channels	Still offered?
139	MP4	AAC (HE v1)	48 Kbps	Stereo (2)	Rarely, YT Music
140	MP4	AAC (LC)	128 Kbps	Stereo (2)	Yes, YT Music
(141)	MP4	AAC (LC)	256 Kbps	Stereo (2)	No, YT Music*
249	WebM	Opus	(VBR) ~50 Kbps	Stereo (2)	Yes
250	WebM	Opus	(VBR) ~70 Kbps	Stereo (2)	Yes
251	WebM	Opus	(VBR) <=160 Kbps	Stereo (2)	Yes
256	MP4	AAC (HE v1)	192 Kbps	Surround (5.1)	Rarely
258	MP4	AAC (LC)	384 Kbps	Surround (5.1)	Rarely
327	MP4	AAC (LC)	256 Kbps	Surround (5.1)	?*
338	WebM	Opus	(VBR) ~480 Kbps (?)	Quadraphonic (4)	?*

• Surround audio can be found on some demo videos
• YT Music: These formats are offered on Youtube Music. Format 141 is only available to Premium users with High Quality option
• Format 327, 338: These have been found on this Stereo 3D video

Legacy (non-DASH)

Code	Container	Video Codec	Video Res.	Audio Codec	Audio Bitrate	Channels	Still offered?
18	MP4	H.264 (Baseline, L3.0)	360p	AAC (LC)	96 Kbps	Stereo (2)	Yes, GDrive
(59)	MP4	H.264 (Main, L3.1)	480p	AAC (LC)	128 Kbps	Stereo (2)	No, GDrive
22	MP4	H.264 (High, L3.1)	720p	AAC (LC)	192 Kbps	Stereo (2)	Mostly*, GDrive
(37)	MP4	H.264 (High, L4.0)	1080p	AAC (LC)	128 Kbps	Stereo (2)	No, GDrive

• Always limited to 30 FPS
• GDrive: These formats are offered for Google Drive video previews. Note that the video player on GDrive displays incorrect codecs on rightclick -> stats
• Format 22: Available for most videos, except music and music videos (not limited to official music channels!)

Livestreams (non-DASH)

Code	Container	Video Codec	Video Res.	Audio Codec	Audio Bitrate	Still offered?
91	MPEG-TS (HLS)	H.264 (Baseline, L1.1)	144p	AAC (HE v1)	48 Kbps	Yes
92	MPEG-TS (HLS)	H.264 (Main, L2.1)	240p	AAC (HE v1)	48 Kbps	Yes
93	MPEG-TS (HLS)	H.264 (Main, L3.0)	360p	AAC (LC)	128 Kbps	Yes
94	MPEG-TS (HLS)	H.264 (Main, L3.1)	480p	AAC (LC)	128 Kbps	Yes
95	MPEG-TS (HLS)	H.264 (Main, L3.1)	720p	AAC (LC)	256 Kbps	Yes
96	MPEG-TS (HLS)	H.264 (High, L4.0)	1080p	AAC (LC)	256 Kbps	Yes
300	MPEG-TS (HLS)	H.264 (Main, L3.2)	HFR 720p	AAC (LC)	128 Kbps	Yes
301	MPEG-TS (HLS)	H.264 (High, L4.2)	HFR 1080p	AAC (LC)	128 Kbps	Yes

• Non-HFR variants are limited to 30 FPS, HFR to 60 FPS
• Non-HFR variants for 720p and 1080p may not be offered if HFR is available
• Livestreams are also offered through DASH video (H.264, VP9) and DASH audio (AAC) streams

Template youtube-dl formats

For archiving videos: Only choose combinations that fit WebM (VP9+Opus) or MP4 (H.264+AAC)

bestvideo[ext=webm]+251/bestvideo[ext=mp4]+(258/256/140)/bestvideo[ext=webm]+(250/249)/best

For archiving audio: Choose any format that's best

AAC Surround 384 / Opus 160 / AAC 192 / AAC Surround 192 / AAC 128 / Opus 70 / AAC 96 / Opus 50 / AAC 48

258/251/22/256/140/250/18/249/139

For streaming videos: Allow any combination

bestvideo+bestaudio/best

youtube-dl usage example

Archive videos

youtube-dl --download-archive youtube-dl.list --ignore-errors --write-info-json --add-metadata --write-sub --sub-lang en,de,ja --write-thumbnail --embed-subs -f "<format>" "<URL>"

Archive audio

youtube-dl --download-archive youtube-dl.list --ignore-errors --write-info-json --add-metadata --write-sub --sub-lang en,de,ja --write-thumbnail --embed-thumbnail --extract-audio -f "<format>" "<URL>"

@Raprodent If I'm understanding you correctly you are trying to download 1440p/2160p video with audio in the same file right? If so you can merge any VP9 WebM video with any opus audio track and output it as a WebM file.

This is the command I use
yt-dlp -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" --add-metadata -f "bestvideo[ext=webm]+251" --merge-output-format webm [video link]

As YouTube only offered videos with embedded audio tracks on 360p (18) and 720p (22) quality.

Looks like video quality DOES sometimes affect audio quality.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPVu5xaZk-4

opus (250) in 144p, opus (251) for the rest. (not that it makes a huge difference with lofi)

This Youtube Video boasts that it contains NonPoint In the Air Tonight HQ 432hz HD 1080p (I guess they meant those Hz to be KHz). However, I can't find a way to get that high-resolution audio with youtube-dl.

C:\Tools>youtube-dl.exe -F https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MM8n2Ipa5c
[youtube] 0MM8n2Ipa5c: Downloading webpage
[youtube] 0MM8n2Ipa5c: Downloading MPD manifest
[info] Available formats for 0MM8n2Ipa5c:
format code  extension  resolution note
139          m4a        audio only DASH audio   50k , m4a_dash container, mp4a.40.5 (22050Hz), 1.55MiB
251          webm       audio only tiny  127k , webm_dash container, opus @127k (48000Hz), 4.13MiB
140          m4a        audio only tiny  127k , m4a_dash container, mp4a.40.2@127k (44100Hz), 4.13MiB
278          webm       192x144    DASH video   95k , webm_dash container, vp9, 30fps, video only
160          mp4        192x144    DASH video  108k , mp4_dash container, avc1.4d400b, 30fps, video only
242          webm       320x240    DASH video  220k , webm_dash container, vp9, 30fps, video only
133          mp4        320x240    DASH video  242k , mp4_dash container, avc1.4d400c, 30fps, video only
134          mp4        480x360    360p   43k , mp4_dash container, avc1.4d401e@  43k, 30fps, video only, 1.42MiB
243          webm       480x360    DASH video  405k , webm_dash container, vp9, 30fps, video only
135          mp4        640x480    480p   77k , mp4_dash container, avc1.4d401e@  77k, 30fps, video only, 2.53MiB
244          webm       640x480    DASH video  752k , webm_dash container, vp9, 30fps, video only
18           mp4        480x360    360p  170k , avc1.42001E, 30fps, mp4a.40.2 (44100Hz) (best)

The best audio available is 4.1MB, at 48KHz which surely is not the audiophile quality that was promised. What's going on here? Maybe youtube just drops very heavy audio streams at the moment the video is uploaded? Can anybody point me to a Youtube video with a very high-quality audio track in it? Thanks.

This Youtube Video boasts that it contains NonPoint In the Air Tonight HQ 432hz HD 1080p (I guess they meant those Hz to be KHz).

Actually @pgorod, they did mean 432Hz. This isn't referring to a sample rate, but rather a tuning standard. Instruments are usually tuned using the note A4 as reference. Most of the time, A4 is considered to be 440Hz, but there are some who believe that everything sounds better when tuning A4 as 432Hz instead. You can read more about it here, if interested.

So this has nothing to do with audio quality or specs, and as such you don't find anything useful about it with youtube-dl. It's not a claim for a superior experience in a technical sense, but rather a musical sense.

Ah. That completely surprises me, but ok, makes sense. Thanks for explaining.

Well, just a thanks for this effort

please add new audio format (Dolby Digital\Plus 5.1)
youtube-dl -F https://youtu.be/XcD10pgTRZs

380          m4a        audio only tiny  384k , m4a_dash container, ac-3 @384k (48000Hz), 2.25MiB

328          m4a        audio only tiny  384k , m4a_dash container, ec-3 @384k (48000Hz), 2.25MiB

I did a little research on Youtube 360 videos.
https://gist.github.com/gtk2k/2aa7aa1a1c6beeb9f9829c7be335a08f

Anyone know about 148 or 149? These are MP4 audio tags shown on the stereo movies.

old af, many new formats missing (incl 616)

Does anyone have a 2023 version of this document?

Does anyone have a 2023 version of this document?

https://gist.github.com/MartinEesmaa/2f4b261cb90a47e9c41ba115a011a4aa
HTH.

It does.

Thank you!