OT Question on audio downloads from youtube

[budge]

On 22/09/2020 16:12, Roger Bell_West wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 22, 2020 at 01:03:45PM +0100, Budge wrote:
>> I have in the past had issues with .m4a but can try again as it has been a while.
>> I am always suspicious of using terms such as "best" because it is not a defined term but a subjective one.
>> If I go to mp3 then my concern is that I may be further compromising the quality.
>> I believe the sound is encoded as AAC in the Youtube.  If I am correct then which format sticks most faithfully to AAC and will work with my systems.   I shall do a few tests following your reply and see how I get on.
> Use youtube-dl -x and it will automatically get the version with the
> least-lossy available audio, strip off the extraneous video, and leave
> you with a file that is just the audio stream. (Not always m4a;
> sometimes it's opus.) That's the version you keep in your archives.
>
> Then if you need to play it on something that doesn't understand that
> format you transcode it as needed.
>
> Or of course feed it to something like mpd, which is what I use round
> the house. (You'll want to tag it first.)

Many thanks Roger, I had reached the same conclusion and downloaded a 
few files.  All but one went to .opus whcih went to .m4a however...

I have now found that minimserver, which runs in the NAS and serves the 
music data to my LAN and thence to my renderers, is not supported by 
.opus.  I can use AAC files so will download them to .aac or  should 
that be .m4a.  No hardship and glad I found out now.

Regards,

Budge.