[SOLVED] why did youtube-dl -x give me an mp4 instead of mp3?

newbiesforever · 12-20-2020, 06:37 PM

I used youtube-dl -x on some Youtube videos from my church to extract the audio; and unlike the last times I did, youtube-dl gave me mp4s instead of mp3s. I have no use for mp4s.

No problem, I started opening the mp4s in Audacity and saving the audio as mp3. But why am I getting mp4s this time? What would I need to do make youtube-dl extract only the audio? That's what the -x parameter is supposed to do. It's as though the parameter is being ignored.

I also tried changing the parameter to --extract-audio, although that's supposed to be the same thing. No change.

berndbausch · 12-20-2020, 06:44 PM

I would guess the tool determines the audio format based on some properties of the video file. You can control it:

Code:

--audio-format FORMAT       Specify audio format: "best", "aac",
                            "flac", "mp3", "m4a", "opus", "vorbis", or
                            "wav"; "best" by default; No effect without -x

newbiesforever · 12-20-2020, 07:16 PM

That seems to have worked: after specifying mp3 as the type, I got an MP3. I just didn't have to do it before, that I remember.