[gruez]

>This is of note, I think, because the TV client is a way to get high-quality video from the YouTube API without having to pass it a valid YouTube login token

Are you talking about the "1080p premium" quality tier that you normally have to pay to get?

[brigade]

No, anything above 720p which is the best you can get for low-trust clients

[gruez]

define "low trust". Firefox with resistfingerprinting, DRM disabled, a VPN connection can view 4K videos just fine.

[brigade]

Low trust as in intended to be used by 3rd parties without Javascript or any form of attestation. Like the Wii U client or I think the iframe embeds at one point.

(maybe they've all been killed by now, I haven't been paying too much attention...)

[philistine]

All of what you're describing jumps to trustworthy if you're signed in. yt-dlp tries to work without any login.

[hoseja]

The "1080p premium" is such a joke. Unlike videos where it isn't present, the "normal 1080p" on such videos has noticeably decreased bitrate.

[russelg]

No, that is still very much locked behind a valid user token.

[gruez]

Then what's the "high quality" video? Anyone can use the web interface of youtube and watch it without any DRM (for now). Why are they so jellously guarding one specific API when the others are wide open?

[orangecolajuice]

It's the VP9 high bitrate codec, to get it you need the cookie from a premium subscribed account or yt-dlp can get it by default by emulating an iPhone header if I recall correctly. --extractor-args "youtube:player_client=default,ios" But this is done by default.

As somewhat related know that there's also a higher bitrate OPUS codec that's only available to premium cookies, it would then be the default YouTube music codec.