Video Downloader

Video Downloader downloads video and sound from video sites: a single video, a playlist or a whole channel. This page covers the quality, the files it makes and their names, the extra files it can save, and sites you have to sign in to.

What it takes

Video Downloader takes addresses on the video sites it knows. It does not look for video on pages of other sites; those are for the other plugins.

Give the wizard the address of a video, a playlist or a channel. For a playlist or a channel, the run goes through all of its videos.

Quality

Quality, under Video format, is asked in the wizard and can be changed later in the project's Plugin settings. The choices are Best available (up to 8K), Up to 2160p (4K) and so on down to Up to 240p, and Audio only.

For a single video, the wizard offers only the qualities between the smallest and the largest that video has.
Each video comes in the best quality it has, no higher than the one you chose. A video that has nothing at or below it is not downloaded, and the Journal has a line about it.
The number is the short side of the picture, so for a vertical video it is the width: a vertical video downloaded at Up to 1080p is at most 1080 pixels wide.
Audio only takes the sound alone, when the site has it as a separate stream.

Changing the quality

Change Quality and run the project again, and its videos are downloaded again in the new quality, beside the files already there: the names differ in the quality at the end. Where the site gives a video in the same quality as before, that file is already on disk and nothing new is written.

In the free version

In the free version Quality goes up to 1080p. Above the choices is Free version: up to 1080p with Upgrade to Premium, and the choices higher than 1080p, Best available (up to 8K) included, are shown but cannot be picked. Audio only is never locked. A new project starts at Up to 1080p rather than Best available (up to 8K).

In the free version a project downloads up to 10 videos; see The free version's limit.

Files and names

Video Downloader puts every file straight into the project's folder, with no folders inside it.

A video's name is its title, cut to 80 characters, then its id on the site in square brackets and the quality it arrived in - for example, Evening walk [a1B2c3D4e5F] 1080p.mp4. A file downloaded with Audio only has no quality at the end of its name.

Subtitles, cover and metadata

Extra files in the project's Plugin settings:

Download subtitles saves subtitles in the languages listed in Subtitle languages - codes separated by commas, such as en,uk,de; en by default.
Save cover image saves the video's cover as a picture.
Save metadata saves the title, description and technical details in a .info.json file.

All three are off by default. The files are saved beside the video under the same name, with their own ending - .en.vtt for English subtitles, for example.

Show the page before starting, under Access, decides whether a run opens the site's page for you first:

Never - the page does not open, and the run does not use a sign-in.
If the site needs it - the default. The page opens only on a site known to want a sign-in, and only when NeoDownloader has no sign-in for that site; on other sites the run does not use a sign-in.
Always - at the start of the run the page opens in Sign in on the site, once for each site. Sign in if you need to, then click Continue.

For a site you have to sign in to that is not known to want a sign-in, choose Always. Ticking This site needs me to sign in first on the wizard's last step sets Always for the new project.

What downloads after you sign in comes down under your account, and the site counts it as your activity. More in Signing in to a site.

When a video does not arrive

When a site refuses a video, Video Downloader asks for it again a few seconds later and gives up on that video after three attempts in all. A private or deleted video in a playlist does not stop the run: the rest of the playlist downloads, and the Journal has a line about the video that did not.

Sites change, and a plugin can stop downloading from a site until it is fixed; the fix comes in a new version of NeoDownloader - see Updates.