Greasy Fork

Shouldn't "Any" format prioritize LD WebM over LD MP4?

LD WebM is quite a bit higher quality than LD MP4 for videos that are more difficult to compress (such as the following):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-mBnpsuHgM

Not only that, but from my own measurements on two different laptops with very different hardware (8440p with i5-520m and DM1 with E-350), LD WebM is so light on the CPU when decoding that, even when using hardware decoding for the LD MP4, playing back the LD WebM literally only pulls 0.5 watts more at worst (both laptops power consumpiton measured from the wall at worst with their batteries removed).

However, on devices where h.264 hardware acceleration is missing or disabled by the browser itself (Firefox likes to do this when it claims there are "unresolved driver issues"), decoding the LD WebM actually pulls around 0.5 watts less than the LD MP4 as the actual CPU utilization is lower when decoding the LD WebM vs the LD MP4.

The only other big difference is that LD WebM takes about 33% more of bandwidth (1386Kbps vs 1044Kbps for the above video).


Therefore, would it not make the most sense that setting the format to "Any" prioritizes things in the order of HD MP4 > LD WebM > LD MP4?

Video decoding has nothing to do with the script, that is completely done by the browser respective the selected video plugin. And the discussion to prefer either mp4 or webm can be endless depending on the persons personal preferences. I just did a fork from ViewTube and kept preferences as it was at the time of the fork. I don't think this is very important as anyone can overwrite the default with his/her own preference setting.

Huh? LD WebM is quite visibly higher quality, how is that a user preference when ViewTube_GM already prioritize higher quality formats over lower quality formats?

Perhaps I was a bit wordy with my attempt to "prove" LD WebM's worth, but really I just wanted to point out a discrepancy in how the script prioritizes with regards to video quality.

Oh and about the original ViewTube, that version has to deal with the VP9 and high-res WebM formats which can cause unwanted CPU utilization, which is something you don't have to deal with.

Once you select WebM as preferred video format via the container button (instead of any) the script automatically selects WebM for the following videos on this site. How is that not a user preference? You can also select "LD" if you prefer lower video quality.

Once you select WebM as preferred video format via the container button (instead of any) the script automatically selects WebM for the following videos on this site. How is that not a user preference? You can also select "LD" if you prefer lower video quality.

But if you do that then you can't use HD MP4 for videos where that format is available.

All I'm trying to do is be able to view the highest quality non-DASH format available for a given video; on HD videos that'd be HD MP4, but on non-HD videos that'd be LD WebM, and on the rare non-HD video that lacks LD WebM it'd be LD MP4.

Again, I would like to apologize for spending too much time in my opening post on "defending" WebM's value and clouding my intentions of simply wanting to view the highest quality non-DASH available regardless of format; I suppose I'm too used to certain folks over on Doom9 that view any sort of WebM format as "backwater" when compared to any MPEG format.

o.k., I now understand what you want, but I think your request is very special. Quality wise LD MP4 and and LD WebM have identical video resolution, shouldn't be a big difference quality wise. SD MP4 is even better quality. WebM has lower CPU requirement, but many players support hardware decoding (e.g. vlc, even chromium for linux is available with hardware decoding support). I'm not planning to change this video selection code in the script.

Quality wise LD MP4 and and LD WebM have identical video resolution, shouldn't be a big difference quality wise

But it is a big difference. The resolution may be the same and the codecs may be comparable (VP8 vs AVC baseline), but the LD WebM format has a considerably larger bitrate. Here is another video demonstrating the quality difference due to bitrate:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8d3NZkQPpwA

SD MP4 is even better quality

But that's a DASH-only format, so your script can't even access that format anyway.

many players support hardware decoding (e.g. vlc, even chromium for linux is available with hardware decoding support)

That's why I mentioned my power consumption numbers - the processor utilization for decoding VP8 at 360p is so low that it's within spitting distance of AVC hardware decoding on integrated GPUs, and on systems where AVC decoding is disabled WebM is actually better.