Fetch YouTube at up to 1080p instead of 360p

YouTube's only muxed mp4 is format 18 (360p), so the muxed-first selector was posting 360p even when 1080p was available. Split streams are now preferred for YouTube and merged locally; every other host keeps the muxed-first chain unchanged (verified identical selection for Instagram, X and Reddit). Three things the obvious version got wrong: - A height<=1080 cap excludes portrait video: a 1080p Short or reel is 1080x1920. Resolution is capped with -S res:1080 instead, which keys off the smaller dimension. - h264 is a hard first preference, not an -S sort key. At equal resolution YouTube's VP9/AV1 renditions are smaller and win on size, but neither reliably plays in an mp4 container on older Signal clients. Dropping a resolution rung to stay on h264 is the better trade, and is usually smaller too: a 10-min video takes 480p h264 (37 MB) over 720p AV1 (78 MB). - The audio cap matters. YouTube's 388k track is 29 MB by itself on a 10-min video, enough to push an otherwise-fine merge past the 100 MB Signal limit; abr<=160 takes the 129k track instead. The 88 MB video cap makes yt-dlp step down automatically on long videos, so a 3-min video lands at 1080p (80 MB) and a 10-min one at 480p. Clips get the same treatment — they're YouTube-only, and 60s at 1080p is only ~29 MB. /force is deliberately left muxed-first: it exists for the biggest, slowest videos, where 1080p would risk the rsync timeout. Measured, old -> new: 3-min 360p/11 MB -> 1080p/80 MB; 10-min 360p/27 MB -> 480p/37 MB; portrait Short 360x640/6 MB -> 1080x1920/23 MB. Verified end to end: real downloads decode as h264+aac, clip lands at exactly 60.000s.
2026-08-14 14:30:11 -04:00
parent 3e3aba4157
commit 1523bdd48d
2 changed files with 66 additions and 19 deletions
@@ -8,7 +8,10 @@ couple of toys for messing with the last video.

 - **Auto-download** — watches every group message for a supported link and
  replies with the video. Powered by [yt-dlp](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp).
-  Videos over 100 MB are auto re-encoded with ffmpeg to fit.
+  Videos over 100 MB are auto re-encoded with ffmpeg to fit. YouTube is fetched
+  as h264 up to 1080p, stepping down a resolution rung on longer videos so the
+  merge lands under the Signal size limit without a re-encode; other hosts take
+  their muxed rendition as-is.
 - **`/speed [n]`** — re-posts the last video sped up `n`× (default 2×), pitch-shifted
  like tape. e.g. `/speed 4`, `/speed 0.5`.
 - **`/rev`** — re-posts the last video reversed (audio too).
@@ -68,15 +68,68 @@ JS_RUNTIME = f"node:{_NODE22}" if os.path.exists(_NODE22) else "node"
 # Instagram/TikTok/X, so we withhold them per-URL rather than dropping the file.
 _YOUTUBE_HOST_RE = re.compile(r"(?:^|\.)(?:youtube\.com|youtu\.be|youtube-nocookie\.com)$", re.I)

+def _is_youtube(url: str) -> bool:
+    return bool(_YOUTUBE_HOST_RE.search((urlsplit(url).hostname or "").lower()))
+
+
 def _cookie_args(url: str) -> list[str]:
    """yt-dlp --cookies args for this URL, withheld for YouTube (see note above)."""
    if not os.path.exists(COOKIES):
        return []
-    host = (urlsplit(url).hostname or "").lower()
-    if _YOUTUBE_HOST_RE.search(host):
+    if _is_youtube(url):
        return []
    return ["--cookies", COOKIES]

+
+# --- format selection ---
+# Muxed-first. Right for every host that publishes a complete rendition (X,
+# Instagram, TikTok): their muxed stream is the best quality on offer, and taking
+# it avoids a merge. The bv*+ba tail catches split-only hosts (Reddit), and the
+# bare bv* catches silent videos.
+FORMAT_MUXED_FIRST = (
+    "best[ext=mp4][filesize<95M]/best[ext=mp4][filesize_approx<95M]/best[ext=mp4]/best"
+    "/bv*[filesize<95M]+ba/bv*[filesize_approx<95M]+ba/bv*+ba/bv*"
+)
+
+# YouTube is the one host whose muxed renditions stop at 360p (format 18 is the
+# only mp4 carrying both streams), so the chain above posts 360p even when 1080p
+# is sitting right there. Take split streams first and merge them instead.
+#
+# avc1 (h264) is taken as a hard first preference rather than left to the -S sort
+# below: at equal resolution YouTube's VP9/AV1 renditions are smaller and would
+# win on size, but they are the two codecs that don't reliably play in an mp4
+# container on older Signal clients. Falling back a resolution rung to stay on
+# h264 is the better trade for a chat bot — a 10-min video takes 480p h264
+# (~27 MB) over 720p AV1 (~74 MB), which is both more compatible and smaller.
+#
+# The 88 MB video cap keeps the merge under MAX_FILE_SIZE without paying for a
+# re-encode, and makes yt-dlp step down a rung on long videos automatically: it
+# picks the best rendition that fits, so a 3-min video lands at 1080p h264
+# (~81 MB) while a 10-min one (1080p ≈ 245 MB) drops to 480p. Anything past ~1 hr
+# never reaches here — _process_one short-circuits it to a /force offer.
+#
+# abr<=160 rules out YouTube's 388k audio track, which is 29 MB by itself on a
+# 10-min video — enough to push an otherwise-fine merge over the limit. The bare
+# +ba term after it covers videos where yt-dlp reports no bitrate.
+FORMAT_YOUTUBE = (
+    "bv*[vcodec^=avc1][filesize<88M]+ba[abr<=160]"
+    "/bv*[vcodec^=avc1][filesize_approx<88M]+ba[abr<=160]"
+    "/bv*[filesize<88M]+ba[abr<=160]/bv*[filesize_approx<88M]+ba[abr<=160]"
+    "/bv*+ba[abr<=160]/bv*+ba/" + FORMAT_MUXED_FIRST
+)
+# Deliberately a sort, not a `height<=1080` filter: `res` keys off the *smaller*
+# dimension, so it caps portrait Shorts (1080x1920) at 1080p instead of excluding
+# them outright the way a height filter would. h264/AAC play on every Signal
+# client; VP9/AV1 in an mp4 container do not reliably.
+FORMAT_SORT_YOUTUBE = "res:1080,vcodec:h264,acodec:aac"
+
+
+def _format_args(url: str) -> list[str]:
+    """yt-dlp format-selection args for this URL."""
+    if _is_youtube(url):
+        return ["-f", FORMAT_YOUTUBE, "-S", FORMAT_SORT_YOUTUBE]
+    return ["-f", FORMAT_MUXED_FIRST]
+
 # --- /force: host an oversized video as a temporary download link ---
 FORCE_DURATION_THRESHOLD = 3600   # offer /force for videos longer than this (1 hr)
 FORCE_OFFER_TTL = 600             # a /force offer stays valid for 10 min
@@ -544,27 +597,18 @@ def _run_ytdlp(url: str, outpath: str, tmpdir: str,
        # Download only the requested window instead of the whole video —
        # essential for hour-long uploads shared with a ?t= timestamp.
        # force-keyframes-at-cuts makes the start boundary accurate.
-        # The filesize filters below key off the *whole* video's size, which
-        # is irrelevant to a 60s slice, so drop them and just take best mp4.
+        # A whole-video filesize cap is meaningless for a 60s slice, so take the
+        # best rendition outright. Clips only ever come from YouTube (the caller
+        # gates timestamps on YOUTUBE_URL_PATTERN), where that means split
+        # streams — 1080p for a clip is only ~20 MB.
        cmd += [
            "--download-sections", f"*{start}-{end}",
            "--force-keyframes-at-cuts",
-            "-f", "best[ext=mp4]/best",
+            "-f", "bv*+ba/b",
+            "-S", FORMAT_SORT_YOUTUBE,
        ]
    else:
-        # Prefer the largest mp4 that already fits under 95 MB, so we avoid
-        # re-encoding when a smaller variant exists (e.g. a 4K rendition
-        # >100 MB alongside a 1080p ~50 MB).
-        # The bv*+ba tail is required for hosts that never publish a muxed
-        # rendition — Reddit serves video and audio as separate DASH/HLS
-        # streams, so every `best...` term above fails and yt-dlp aborts with
-        # "Requested format is not available" unless we merge them ourselves.
-        # The bare bv* last resort covers silent videos (no audio to merge).
-        cmd += [
-            "-f",
-            "best[ext=mp4][filesize<95M]/best[ext=mp4][filesize_approx<95M]/best[ext=mp4]/best"
-            "/bv*[filesize<95M]+ba/bv*[filesize_approx<95M]+ba/bv*+ba/bv*",
-        ]
+        cmd += _format_args(url)
    cmd += [
        "--merge-output-format", "mp4",
        *_cookie_args(url),