-By default youtube\-dl tries to download the best quality, but sometimes
-you may want to download in a different format.
-The simplest case is requesting a specific format, for example
-\f[C]\-f\ 22\f[].
-You can get the list of available formats using
-\f[C]\-\-list\-formats\f[], you can also use a file extension (currently
-it supports aac, m4a, mp3, mp4, ogg, wav, webm) or the special names
-\f[C]best\f[], \f[C]bestvideo\f[], \f[C]bestaudio\f[] and
-\f[C]worst\f[].
+By default youtube\-dl tries to download the best available quality,
+i.e.
+if you want the best quality you \f[B]don\[aq]t need\f[] to pass any
+special options, youtube\-dl will guess it for you by \f[B]default\f[].
+.PP
+But sometimes you may want to download in a different format, for
+example when you are on a slow or intermittent connection.
+The key mechanism for achieving this is so called \f[I]format
+selection\f[] based on which you can explicitly specify desired format,
+select formats based on some criterion or criteria, setup precedence and
+much more.
+.PP
+The general syntax for format selection is \f[C]\-\-format\ FORMAT\f[]
+or shorter \f[C]\-f\ FORMAT\f[] where \f[C]FORMAT\f[] is a \f[I]selector
+expression\f[], i.e.
+an expression that describes format or formats you would like to
+download.
+.PP
+The simplest case is requesting a specific format, for example with
+\f[C]\-f\ 22\f[] you can download the format with format code equal to
+22.
+You can get the list of available format codes for particular video
+using \f[C]\-\-list\-formats\f[] or \f[C]\-F\f[].
+Note that these format codes are extractor specific.
+.PP
+You can also use a file extension (currently \f[C]3gp\f[], \f[C]aac\f[],
+\f[C]flv\f[], \f[C]m4a\f[], \f[C]mp3\f[], \f[C]mp4\f[], \f[C]ogg\f[],
+\f[C]wav\f[], \f[C]webm\f[] are supported) to download best quality
+format of particular file extension served as a single file, e.g.
+\f[C]\-f\ webm\f[] will download best quality format with \f[C]webm\f[]
+extension served as a single file.
+.PP
+You can also use special names to select particular edge case format: \-
+\f[C]best\f[]: Select best quality format represented by single file
+with video and audio \- \f[C]worst\f[]: Select worst quality format
+represented by single file with video and audio \- \f[C]bestvideo\f[]:
+Select best quality video only format (e.g.
+DASH video), may not be available \- \f[C]worstvideo\f[]: Select worst
+quality video only format, may not be available \- \f[C]bestaudio\f[]:
+Select best quality audio only format, may not be available \-
+\f[C]worstaudio\f[]: Select worst quality audio only format, may not be
+available
+.PP
+For example, to download worst quality video only format you can use
+\f[C]\-f\ worstvideo\f[].
Rapsys Git / youtubedl / blobdiff