Choose YouTube videos quality in IINA?

Question

IINA is a good player. You can even play videos from YouTube (via youtube-dl) But how to choose videos quality?

By default youtube-dl uses best possible quality. If video is 4K – you'll get 4K. Sometimes it is overkill for notebooks.

Krugersdorp

Answer 1

You can configure youtube-dl inside of IINA.

To set up max qulity of youtube videos:

1. Go to Settings / Network / Youtube-dl

2. Write in Raw options section

   format="bestvideo[height<=?1440]+bestaudio/best[height<=?1440]"

   Where 1440 is maximum height that you want (it equals to 1440p).

   This parameter tells player:

   • bestvideo[height<=?1440] — to pick best video up to width=1440px

   • +bestaudio — mix it with best audio available in source.

   • /best[height<=?1440] — if something goes wrong - take just best video&audio pair (under 1440px of height)

3. Restart IINA

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You can view more details about format selction in youtube-dldocumentation

Also you can read documentation for IINA & youtube-dl

Krugersdorp

This format spec will break whenever you play a video on a service that does not split videos (which is actually most of them). Better stick a /best[height<=?1440] at the end. – Remanence

@Remanence OK! fixed answer – Krugersdorp

Hint: If you don't want to use bandwith for video when listening music in the background, (radio, mixes, playlists) use format=bestaudio (or whatever you prefer :). – Parkerparkhurst