DL: Gaga's Music Videos, Highest Quality from VEVO.com

[dy2light 28]

They are actually from different sources, the YoutubeVEVO and the VEVO.com version. You can see it on Telephone and specially You & I, the aspect ratio is not the same. You & I is almost 16:9 where as the Youtube version has a lot more frame area, being almost 2.35:1 - but I agree, most VEVO.com videos have better quality than the H264 version on Youtube, but they're on par with the WebM versions.

Here's the thing: I've downloaded the 1080p versions from both sites (for example, for Applause), and I can tell very easily that the version on YouTube is a converted version of the one on VEVO. How? First, I run it through a program to give me a spectrogram, such as Spek. I see that the VEVO version has a much cleaner, and higher frequency cutoff than the YouTube one. Therefore, I can quickly conclude that VEVO's version is better quality in terms of audio.

 

Next: I check the video resolution. I see that all the YouTube 1080p videos have a resolution of strictly 1920x1080. However, with the VEVO videos, I see that the video itself has resolution of, say, 1920x1008 (that's Applause), or even 1920x784 (that's The Edge of Glory). Now how do the videos on YouTube have a strictly 1920x1080 resolution? Black bars are added to the top and bottom of the video. Now tell me: why would the original uploaded video be a letterboxed 1920x1080 as opposed to the original resolution itself? It wouldn't. Professional music video producers wouldn't do such a thing, as far as I know. Black bars are added by YouTube to make the video compliant with YouTube standards.

 

ALSO, see here: http://www.vevo.com/about/FAQ . Vevo is the place where the artists upload the videos, but the videos are then shared via syndication partners such as YouTube. Quote: "Additionally, through a special partnership with YouTube, VEVO is accessible in over 200 countries, expanding the platform’s reach around the globe."

 

From all this I conclude that VEVO's videos are closer to the original quality than YouTube's.

[hughdancy 282]

From all this I conclude that VEVO's videos are closer to the original quality than YouTube's.

They are better quality - still fairly compressed though, unfortunately. I was hoping I&V would upload Applause to vimeo or something :P Casper Balslev uploaded his work with Marina on vimeo and enabled the download option, so I got the original quality copy of Primadonna. It's around 1GB but the quality is unbeatable.

[Kim Kardashian 2,708]

The Lady is a Tramp PLEASE!!! How could I forget about that?

[dy2light 28]

The Lady is a Tramp PLEASE!!! How could I forget about that?

RIGHT! I'll have it up later today :)

[Kim Kardashian 2,708]

RIGHT! I'll have it up later today :)

 

You are amazing! THANK YOUUUU!

[dy2light 28]

The Lady is a Tramp PLEASE!!! How could I forget about that?

It's up!! Check the folder :)

 

Thanks for asking me to do this one in particular, btw: it slipped my mind, and I consider it quite a great song (and video) 

[MEDONER 1,668]

is not BDR full video in good quality anywhere! :(

this is the best quality of the full BDR video I could find http://www6.zippyshare.com/v/80907283/file.html

[Kim Kardashian 2,708]

Applause Lyric Video?

[dy2light 28]

Applause Lyric Video?

Done! check the folder titled OTHER 

 

if you ask me, though, the lyric video is a fabulous mess 

[clefable 296]

havent you guys ever heard of keepvid 

[dy2light 28]

havent you guys ever heard of keepvid 

That works for YouTube, but not for VEVO.com. VEVO.com's videos are a better quality than the YouTube versions.

[Kim Kardashian 2,708]

Done! check the folder titled OTHER 

 

if you ask me, though, the lyric video is a fabulous mess 

 

I know and I agree, but since I collect stuff in Higher Quality possible...

 

Thanks youu!

[dy2light 28]

UPDATE (March 13 2014):

 

THERE IS A MUCH EASIER METHOD THAN WHAT IS DETAILED BELOW. As of recently, a program called youtube-dl can also download VEVO videos! (NOTE: youtube-dl is also a command line program.)

 

Check out youtube-dl here: http://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/

 

If you need help, let me know!

 

The older tutorial (which, with newer videos starting with ARTPOP on the Tonight Show, might actually be outdated (or maybe not, idk tbh):

 

 

The video I used for this example was the Applause music video. The same procedure applies to any actual video from VEVO.com, though.

 

Programs required:
1. Wireshark (to capture the necessary components of the request URL)
2. FFmpeg (to download the video)

 

Step 0: Open a new text document! This way you can copy/paste things from here. TextEdit (Mac) or Notepad (Windows) or any text program will work just fine. (Pages and Microsoft Word also work, but they will take longer to load. Just use TextEdit or Notepad (or whatever you can).)

 

Step 0a (Only for those with Mac OS X 10.7 Lion or 10.8 Mountain Lion):

If on a Mac with Mac OS X 10.7 Lion or later, then you'll need to download XQuartz to act as X11, which is necessary only for the Mac version. You'll want to open Wireshark from XQuartz the first time. Once Wireshark has been successfully opened, it can be opened in the future simply by clicking / double-clicking the Wireshark application icon.

 

Step 1: Capture the correct URL requests with Wireshark!

Once you've opened

Wireshark successfully, go to VEVO.com. Make sure you're not viewing any other pages with any kind of video (or audio) stream, just to be organized (and sure that you get the right URL). Before you search for and click the link to your desired video, in Wireshark, under Interfaces, select Wi-Fi or Airport or whatever is your internet connection interface that you use (if unsure which one, just select all interfaces). Then start a new live capture. Now go to your desired video on vevo.com. Wait for any pre-video ads to finish. Once the video itself actually starts playing, let it play for a couple of seconds, pause, resume, let play a couple of seconds, pause, resume. For best results, do this in FULL SCREEN. And do this until you're certain that you're streaming the highest-quality stream you can get. (The stream quality will vary based on your bandwidth.) Once this is done, go into Wireshark and stop the capture. At this point, do whatever you want with your internet browser. Close it, go to other pages, whatever. It is no longer necessary.

 

Now, in Wireshark, you'll want to type in the filter box (top left of the window) "rtmpt" (without quotes). This will filter the long list of captures to a not-as-long list over the RTMP protocol. At the very beginning of the list, find the first result with "Handshake C0+C1" or something like that (keyword: HANDSHAKE). It will most likely be the very first result (assuming you followed my directions). Right click it, and select Follow TCP stream.

After a few seconds, a new window will pop up on top of the existing window with a boatload of random-looking text. The text should be highlighted red or blue. In the bottom-left of this window will be a "Find" button. Click the Find button, and type in "mp4". Cycle through the results (by pressing enter/return or clicking Find). We're interested in the results within RED-highlighted text. You'll see that the lines you're looking for will have a common format: they'll read something like "mp4:/Video/V2/SMIL/USUV71301730/usuv71301730_1328k_768x432_x264_1200_quicktime_128.mp4" or "mp4:/Video/V2/SMIL/USUV71301730/usuv71301730_5392k_1920x1080_x264_5200_quicktime_192.mp4". In my case, the former was the initial stream, but then after a couple of pauses and resumes, with enough bandwidth available, I got the 1080p stream, which is the latter result. Let's look at the format of this URL, shall we?
total bitrate of the stream. The 768x432 or 1920x1080 or whatever indicates the approximate resolution of the video. The "1200" or "5200" is the bitrate of just the raw video (i.e. visual) itself. The "quicktime_128" or "quicktime_192" indicates the type of audio and audio bitrate within the stream (quicktime means AAC, which is Quicktime/iTunes format). You want the highest quality stream? Go with the one that has the largest numbers in these spots. And no, you cannot just arbitrarily change these numbers to your liking. These are specific presets that VEVO has its video streams organized in.

I'll go straight to the important parts of this. See the "1328k" or "5392k" in the URL? That's the

For the extra curious ones out there:

Notice the "

USUV71301730" or whatever is in that place in the url? If you look in the original URL for the video page itself (i.e. the VEVO page with the video), you should see that same thing. This is essentially the video I.D. Take note, because the formats of the request URLs are pretty much the same.

Highlight and copy the URL for the stream you want (for Applause 1080p, I went with "mp4:/Video/V2/SMIL/USUV71301730/usuv71301730_5392k_1920x1080_x264_5200_quicktime_192.mp4"). Now paste this URL into your text document.

With RTMP streams, you'd normally also have to find "rtmp" within this giant text box, in order to find the right domain, i.e. where the video is even hosted. But lucky for us, VEVO has just one host name, which I will provide for you: "" (without quotes). Copy that URL in those quotes, and paste THIS into your text document on another line.

 

Step 2: Assemble the correct URL for download!

So in our text document, we have

two different things: one that starts with "", and one that starts with "mp4:/". On a new line, paste the "rtmp" thing. Then, select everything in the "mp4:" part EXCEPT for "mp4:" in the very beginning (example: I would copy /Video/V2/SMIL/USUV71301730/usuv71301730_5392k_1920x1080_x264_5200_quicktime_192.mp4). It should read like one URL. Congrats! We have the URL necessary!

 

Step 3: Download the video with FFmpeg!

Open your computer's command line program (

Terminal for Mac, or Command Prompt for Windows). Find the ffmpeg program file that you downloaded, and drag and drop into the command line window (this works for Terminal. Not exactly sure about Command Prompt, though). Type the following: "-i "" -c copy [name.mp4]" (in place of , paste in the assembled URL from the text document, and in place of [name.mp4], type in the desired filename (WITH .mp4 extension!)). It will take a minute or two or five or whatever to fully download. Once it actually stops generating lines of text, it's done. Go to your home folder (on Mac, it's the folder titled with your username). You'll find the video file there. Move it wherever you'd like. DONE!

 

You have the video direct from VEVO now!! Play it or do whatever you want with it :)

[Kim Kardashian 2,708]

Thanks for that tutorial, however VEVO.COM is not available for Greece.

Can I rely on you until I can do it on my own?

[dy2light 28]

Thanks for that tutorial, however VEVO.COM is not available for Greece.

Can I rely on you until I can do it on my own?

Oh, sure! no problem :) (I can't guarantee I'll always be able to do it right away, though haha)