difficulty downloading videos in the av1 format

Brant · 04-28-2020, 10:48 AM

I seem to see more and more often videos in the av1 format.

I am able to watch them with Firefox, but if I download them they will not play, and show a message such as

"video/x-av1 decoder is required to play the file"

or will play only the audio. I often prefer to download things because my connection speeds can be very erratic.

crts · 04-28-2020, 11:24 AM

Which distro are you using? How are you trying to play the file, i.e., which player are you using?

Brant · 04-28-2020, 12:22 PM

Sorry, I wrote that a little quickly!

Linux Mint 19.3 Cinnamon 64 bit, on a Lenovo Thinkcentre desktop.

The default is a program called Celluloid, which I have never used before, and I installed VLC at once. I have tried both. Celluloid flashes a message so quickly I was unable to read it; VLC shows:
Codec not supported:
VLC could not decode the format "av01" (AOMedia's AV1 Video)

ondoho · 04-29-2020, 06:28 AM

A quick search on my machine shows me that you might need the 'dav1d' decoder, and/or ffmpeg configured with support for it.

An example video would be nice.

Brant · 04-30-2020, 12:14 PM

This is a good example:

https://mashable.com/video/trump-pre...dvisor-sketch/

If I open it with Celluloid, it flickers and closes again.
If I pen it with VLC, it shows:
Codec not supported:
VLC could not decode the format "av01" (AOMedia's AV1 Video)

but it does play the audio.

ondoho · 04-30-2020, 01:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brant

This is a good example:

https://mashable.com/video/trump-pre...dvisor-sketch/

You mean this youtube video?

mpv/youtube-dl sees it as h264 video codec - that's pretty standard stuff:

Code:

mpv 'https://www.youtube.com/embed/tNzsNkGUI4g?enablejsapi=1&'
 (+) Video --vid=1 (*) (h264 1920x1080 29.970fps)
 (+) Audio --aid=1 (*) (aac 2ch 44100Hz)
     Subs  --sid=1 --slang=en 'vtt' (webvtt) (external)
AO: [alsa] 48000Hz stereo 2ch float
VO: [gpu] 1920x1080 yuv420p

BUT - it is entirely possible that YT serves different formats to different clients, so a YT video maybe isn't such a good example.

PS: funny video though!

shruggy · 04-30-2020, 01:18 PM

If you're not comfortable with installing the snap for Linux Mint, there're PPAs for Ubuntu 18.04 and 20.04.

Brant · 04-30-2020, 04:13 PM

I followed the link in Ondoho's post, and watched the video again (it is a good thing that I chose an example that I found amusing!) and downloaded it again. The file was significantly larger than the one from Mashable (16.5 G versus 10.5 G) but when I attempted to open the download it failed again with the same message.

I am not sure what the "snap" referred to — clicking on the link only took me to 404-page not found.

shruggy · 05-01-2020, 02:25 AM

Repaired the link

ondoho · 05-02-2020, 12:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brant

I followed the link in Ondoho's post, and watched the video again (it is a good thing that I chose an example that I found amusing!) and downloaded it again. The file was significantly larger than the one from Mashable (16.5 G versus 10.5 G) but when I attempted to open the download it failed again with the same message.

That YT link was the only link I could find on that site.
Maybe you can share the direct download link?

Brant · 05-05-2020, 10:38 AM

I installed snapd from the software manager and then ran sudo snap install dav1d and rebooted but without result.
All the links I have found for that video seem to go through youtube--I'll try to find another.

ondoho · 05-06-2020, 02:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brant

All the links I have found for that video seem to go through youtube

Then the reason you're getting av1 is on YT's side - or rather, your browser reports to not have any suitable video playback capabilities, and YT then defaults to av1.
Considering similar topics I read over time, you probably need to ensure that your browser can play back h264 encoded video.

edit:
oh sorry, you already downloaded the video, or want to watch it with an external program?
How exactly are you doing this?

In any case I recommend you use youtube-dl for downloading. It should default to choosing h264.

GPGAgent · 05-09-2020, 11:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ondoho

In any case I recommend you use youtube-dl for downloading. It should default to choosing h264.

I use youtube-dl - works great and not just for Youtube, but I found I needed to use this switch

Code:

youtube-dl -f best

Here's an example:

Code:

charlie@charlie-machine:~/ModernToss/new$ youtube-dl -f best https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-d8SixazXc
[youtube] 8-d8SixazXc: Downloading webpage
[youtube] 8-d8SixazXc: Downloading video info webpage
[download] Destination: ModernToss - Drive By Abuser - Channel 4 Ident-8-d8SixazXc.mp4
[download] 100% of 7.90MiB in 00:01
charlie@charlie-machine:~/ModernToss/new$

If I don't I it error's when it tries to join then, so you end up with two files you need to join with ffmpeg - easy enough but tedious

Code:

charlie@charlie-machine:~/ModernToss/new$ youtube-dl  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-d8SixazXc
[youtube] 8-d8SixazXc: Downloading webpage
[youtube] 8-d8SixazXc: Downloading video info webpage
[download] Destination: ModernToss - Drive By Abuser - Channel 4 Ident-8-d8SixazXc.f137.mp4
[download] 100% of 13.91MiB in 00:03
[download] Destination: ModernToss - Drive By Abuser - Channel 4 Ident-8-d8SixazXc.f140.m4a
[download] 100% of 564.38KiB in 00:00
[ffmpeg] Merging formats into "ModernToss - Drive By Abuser - Channel 4 Ident-8-d8SixazXc.mp4"
ERROR: "debug"
charlie@charlie-machine:~/ModernToss/new$

ondoho · 05-11-2020, 01:37 AM

^ Yes, and that would have been even better than the other, because youtube-dl always defaults to the best quality both for video and audio

Quote:

Originally Posted by GPGAgent

Code:

[ffmpeg] Merging formats into "ModernToss - Drive By Abuser - Channel 4 Ident-8-d8SixazXc.mp4"
ERROR: "debug"

You should check that error out.

GPGAgent · 05-11-2020, 05:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ondoho

^ Yes, and that would have been even better than the other, because youtube-dl always defaults to the best quality both for video and audio

You should check that error out.

Cheers, seems that this problem was discussed ages ago and use -f best is a solution, as I said in an earlier post.

It's easy enough to merge audio and video with ffmpeg and I've done this, but now always use the -f best switch.

Works for me