Note: The language is intentional above. This will be a guide to GET Youtube 60FPS videos VIA Firefox, but they still wont play ON Firefox.
Now, Youtube playing videos at 60 FPS is great. The problem? That option is currently only available in Chrome. Fuck that shit. Nothing against Chrome Users, but there is no reason to limit it to just Chrome.
And I AM a Firefox user because I like all the options it has for customization. So I decided that I'm still going to do everything I can to not use Chrome, and eventually figured it out.
3. Now when you go to a Youtube video, downloadable links for all the video qualities will appear on the top of the page. The 60fps videos are the ones labeled (HFR) for High Frame Rate.
The problem? Most of the qualities allow you to download it in .mp4 format. Those videos have both audio and video in them.
However, certain qualities do not let you get the video in .mp4, and have had their audio and video separated into .m4v and .m4a format. No idea what .m4a is, I have never been able to get it to play on MPC-HC, but VLC plays it just fine.
Anyways, the qualities that this effects are: 480p 720p (HFR) 1080p 1080p (HFR)
For these, you can download the .m4v videos, but will have to download the audio files separately. There are 3 different audio options: 1. A smaller .m4a, a slightly larger .m4a, and .webm. I don't know what .webm is, so I just download the .m4a file with the bigger size, since I'm ASSUMING it has the higher quality. If you want to use MPC, rename the file format you're downloading from to either .mp3 or .mp4 (since .mp4 and .m4a are exactly the same if they only contain audio content). Because like I said, I have never been able to get .m4a to play on MPC, but apparently, changing the file format to .mp3 allows it to play just fine on MPC.
But now you're probably saying "But dabom88, I don't want to have to use a video editing program to merge the video and audio files together into a single video". Well with MPC and VLC at least, YOU WONT HAVE TO! There are multiple methods to do so.
1. If you downloaded the audio as .mp3, just make sure the file names are the same (make sure their file formats are still different, i.e. .m4v and .mp3), and then open the .m4v file with MPC, MPC will automatically play the video and audio in sync. As long as they: A. Have the exact same name. B. Are in the same folder.
2. For MPC, open MPC, go to File >> Open File, you see will see two boxes: 1 for Video, and another for Dub. Put the .m4v file into video and the .mp3 or .mp4 audio file into Dub.
3. If you want to watch in VLC, you will have to use the "Open Multiple Files" option to get this method to work. See instructions here: https://wiki.videolan.org/Play_external_audio_track_with_video/ . This method does work with .m4a, .mp3, and .mp4 files for audio, since VLC can play .m4a audio files, but I have not been able to get MPC to play .m4a audio files.
Method #1 uses the fewest number of clicks, so that's the method I use.
Now you Firefox users can also experience the joys of Youtube 60fps without having to have 2 browsers open, which can really take up a lot of resources on your computer if you have a very low-end one like I do. Sorry, but I'm just a one-browser dude. I don't want to have to open a different browser just to watch Youtube videos at 60fps.
For an example video where I think one can easily see the difference, I used this Halo: Master Chief Collection video as a bit of a test:
It's the first video I downloaded and watched using my method, and could easily see the difference between the 30fps and 60fps videos right away.
Another note: Some of the video files are very large, especially 1080p and 1080p (HFR). And you might think it will annoying to have to wait for the entire video to download before getting to watch it. Well, VLC and MPC can play incomplete video files as they're downloading. So if you want to watch a video right away, just download the audio first, and then start playing the video as it's downloading.
For more tips on improving your Youtube or web experience, check out my other vlogs:
.m4a is the mp4 audio format. No idea why you would have trouble playing it in MPC or VLC, because it's a pretty damn standard format (is somewhat under-used). I've never had issues playing m4a files (the few times I've come across them) but you should also be able to rename the to .mp4 and see if that helps (m4a and mp4 are absolutely identical if they contain only audio content). Renaming file extensions is a pretty hacky way to make things work, and usually only works when your media player is being retarded and not properly identifying the file format based on the actual contents of the file.
.webm is the standard html5 video format and uses VP8 or VP9 video (it's similar to .mkv)
On November 21 2014 13:34 Bobbias wrote: .m4a is the mp4 audio format. No idea why you would have trouble playing it in MPC or VLC, because it's a pretty damn standard format (is somewhat under-used). I've never had issues playing m4a files (the few times I've come across them) but you should also be able to rename the to .mp4 and see if that helps (m4a and mp4 are absolutely identical if they contain only audio content). Renaming file extensions is a pretty hacky way to make things work, and usually only works when your media player is being retarded and not properly identifying the file format based on the actual contents of the file.
.webm is the standard html5 video format and uses VP8 or VP9 video (it's similar to .mkv)
Alright, I haven't tested the VLC method in a while, so I guess I'll throw that in with my VLC Testing.
Okay, further testing has shown that: 1. I still can't get .m4a files to play on MPC. However, VLC plays .m4a just fine. 2. VLC method does not work automatically. You have to use the "Open Multiple Files" option to get this method to work. See instructions here: https://wiki.videolan.org/Play_external_audio_track_with_video/ . That method does work with the .m4a file, but that's a lot more clicks to do than just renaming the file to .mp3. And MPC is my primary video player anyway. 3. Renaming the audio file to .mp4 allows me to open the audio file with MPC, but it wont play the audio automatically like with method #1. I have to use Method #2 to get the audio to play with the video. See Updated Blog to know which methods I'm referring to.
I have updated the blog to reflect these changes.
Questions:
1. Which audio file has a higher quality, .webm or .m4a?
2. You say it's "hacky", but is there really any loss of audio quality from renaming the file extension from .m4a to .mp3?
I'm not entirely sure of the difference in quality between the webm and mp4 (even if it's separate audio and video, m4v and m4a files are both mp4) options. They're probably quite close in quality.
No, there's no loss in quality for renaming the file. I just meant that renaming files is really just a workaround for the media player not doing something correctly. If you change the filename, the contents of the file are still in whatever format they were originally. Changing the filename causes the media player to do something differently, usually because it recognizes that the extension doesn't match the content format.
On November 22 2014 01:55 aike wrote: There is a reason to limit it to Chrome... the fact that Firefox does not fully support it yet
Do you have technical specifics as to why Firefox doesn't support it? The fact that the 60 FPS links exist make me think that this is just another video stream.
Twitch on Firefox supports 60 FPS. Why can't Firefox support 60 FPS on Youtube?
On November 23 2014 02:35 aike wrote: It has to do with Firefox's HTML5 video support. Twitch uses flash still, where as youtube uses HTML5 for 60fps videos.
Thank you for the clarification.
On November 22 2014 22:21 Yourmomsbasement wrote: It worries me how often you don't know what something is. The internet is full of fast answers.
It also has to do with the fact that I don't NEED to the specifics of .m4a or .webm in order to get this method to work. I don't need to spend the time on the internet looking for those answers.
2) I right-click M4V (HFR) and choose Save Link As 3) I choose a destination and begin the download 4) After around 200MB has downloaded the download stops
Figured out an alternative method of acquiring the 60FPS video, JDownloader will do it for free and AnyVideoDownloadHelper will also do it but the latter will charge you a fee. I've noticed that both require a "converter" program to merge multiple files together (Audio and video may be separate files), even for some 60FPS Youtube videos that are apparently a single file to begin with.
I tested this script again earlier this week and it downloaded the above 60FPS Metroid video without issue so I don't know what was wrong back then, maybe Youtube servers were chucking a fit at the time or something.
EPT
