Hacker News Reader

Comment by KomoD | Hacker News Reader

Yeah but YouTube premium doesn't work the same way, sure you can download but it doesn't give you an mp4 or anything?

The YouTube frontend downloads the video file (the .mp4) from googlevideo.com/videoplayback and adds it to a locally playable playlist.

However, the implementation is really wacky.

If you are online and you go to watch a video that you have previously downloaded, then instead of serving you the locally cached version through the service worker, instead the frontend redownloads the whole video.

Again, and again, every time you watch it.

So if your goal is to save mobile data, or if your goal is to save a video that might possibly be deleted in the future, it is not working.

Does the YouTube app really download the video again each time you play it? I have noticed that downloaded videos always play in full quality. (In fact, that's the main reason I use downloads: play a short, stop it, go to history, download the short, then play it again. Because shorts have no quality control option, and also no download option except from the watch history. Shorts have a very weird and annoying UI. It's also impossible to add them to a playlist.)

its more like download in netflix/spotify where the downloaded content is on your device but not directly accessible, only via the application (or website).

on the other hand, if you have yt premium, you have yt music

Reply on news.ycombinator.com