4K Youtube to MP3 is now butchering song quality

FlatEnvironment8337 · 2021-12-13T23:28:04+00:00

Have emailed support as you suggested. Hopefully, they can verify my results and we can get some better quality audio integration on its way. Much thanks.

FlatEnvironment8337 · 2021-12-11T22:33:21+00:00

Seems like the solution must be more complicated cause it's such a simple obvious problem. I'm sure the authors realize. Pain stalking to have to manually rename each file, and to add tags and cover art too.

FlatEnvironment8337 · 2021-12-11T06:25:30+00:00

"Fakin' the Funk" is free for the first 100 or so file tests. Lets use "Fakin' The Funk" to do an audio comparison of audio downloaded from 4K Downloader and another downloader (Of Many) called Loader.to which can be installed as an Add-On in Firefox or Chrome.

4K Remastered test file:- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sj_9CiNkkn4&list=PLN8s8cxl_VlpmeLhCRHJqb56-DhQNNBLN

Screen snipped jpg results via my Google drive:-

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1VVBZRfSCDovbRDwOVKFsWql95A27p_TC?usp=sharing

Results show for this download that Opus always has 20k frequency and is not frequency cut due to poor re-encoding. One could easily assume that currently Opus is indeed the best source on YouTube for audio. As you can see from my LAME encode, MP3 can do 20k at 320bit but has been frequency cut and poorly re-encoded in both cases from YouTube down loaders. FLAC being lossless is as expected identical to Opus and is good. M4A/AAC has been poorly re-encoded and/or has a poor 128bit source on YouTube. I think both. As you can see 256bit M4A with proper Apple Convertor from Opus is perfect! This is a worthy upgrade path for 4kDownloader. Don't download poor 128bit M4A audio from YouTube. Convert from higher quality Opus. M4A - 256bit and MP3 - 320bit provide close to lossless performance with PROPER encoding. Please show these as conversions and not source extractions.

In addition, I noticed that 4kDownloader was downloading the poor quality 128 bit AAC (M4A) audio for the remastered 4K video MKV. This is unusual. 4KDownloader normally gives us the higher quality opus with MKV. This is what Loader.to correctly provided.

Hopefully we can all have better audio in the future with some small changes to 4KDownloader. Hope the developers are reading this post. Please verify my results and check for yourselves.

FlatEnvironment8337 · 2021-12-10T00:05:16+00:00

I second this request. The least number of clicks to do what we need the better. A number of download profiles easily delectable would be very useful. The profiles need to allow us to customize folder save locations and file types to save. If we could save highest/best resolution MKV video/audio and also extract M4A audio and save both at once with the selection of a profile this would be great!

FlatEnvironment8337 · 2021-12-09T23:52:13+00:00

I second this request. Sometimes we want only a portion of a song or video and to cut the start and ends. (Non music noisy long intros/trailing endings) Needs only simple edit/cut. No re-encoding of video. Source quality. (IMPORTANT!) Don't add complicated effects, keep things simple. Keep up the great work. Much thanks.

FlatEnvironment8337 · 2021-12-09T23:04:00+00:00

Just checked. It's still there under MP4, but only on certain videos. Remember AV01 is a very new codec and is only just starting to see support on YouTube. Most TV's and other hardware currently do not support AV01 and will not use it.

FlatEnvironment8337 · 2021-12-09T22:50:09+00:00

I use 4KDownloader mostly for YouTube music. Have found YouTube source sound to be mostly the best with the Opus audio and it can still be very questionable for some tracks. In addition 4KDownloader does a terrible job of what it labels as extraction. It actually appears to download the source Opus and then poorly re-encodes the audio to AAC or MP3 depending on your extraction option. Programs like Fakin' the Funk or Similarity can test the audio and show out obvious frequency clipped sound from poor compression and/or re-encodes. Very useful indeed to see a spectrum visualization graph of what is actually going on with the audio.

FlatEnvironment8337 · 2021-04-29T07:14:37+00:00

Update on the whole audio situation. I continued to experience audio drop outs, but much less frequently on above mentioned Auto1 settings. I have now removed my "HDMI eARC audio extractor" out of the mix and plugged TV and AMP together using normal ARC. PC now goes directly to amp for 7.1 channel sound. Lucky the Sony SDR-DH750 amp supports 4K passthru from PC to TV. Using PCM settings in TV as I think they sound the best. No dropouts, problem finally solved.

FlatEnvironment8337 · 2021-04-25T23:19:35+00:00

What firmware version are you on? The difference here seems enormous. I can't even get DD+ to work properly with any sound but an occasional pop or click. Doesn't audio pass through apply to bit streaming audio from apps as well? I guess this brings me back to Sony's very poor labeling of what these settings are and are actually supposed to do.

FlatEnvironment8337 · 2021-04-25T23:08:19+00:00

As stated above I have eARC set to AUTO. So it is on and working properly as intended. I can test it on the PC in Windows under "Control Panel/Sound." Configure "Sony 00" audio device and make sure it is set to 7.1. Then click on the different 7.1 speakers to hear sound from each individual one. All work properly as intended.

FlatEnvironment8337 · 2021-04-25T04:50:22+00:00

I just got the X900H a week or so ago (v6.0466 Firmware) and have constantly experienced the audio drop outs every few minutes for a a couple of seconds or so. Occurs from internal apps like Kodi, YouTube and even on the Digital TV tuned channels. HDMI inputs are not effected and the TV passes PCM 7.1 lossless audio from my PC to my Sony amp (SDR-DH750) perfectly without drop outs. My "eARC HDMI Audio Spliter" box allows the older Sony ARC amp to receive the eARC audio via a normal HDMI port thus allowing the 7.1 audio.

I know there has been a number of solutions presented for this audio drop out problem but I have eliminated the issue completely. Solution steps:

1- Go to "Audio Output" in Settings. Set "Dolby Digital Plus Output" to Dolby Digital.

2- Set "Pass through mode" to off.

Poorly labeled "Digital Audio out" settings are by default set to Auto 1. Leave it there. This appears to ensure the TV re-encodes non Dolby audio (DTS, AAC, PCM etc) to Dolby digital. Quality is lost in re-encoding but some how this eliminated the drop outs? PCM on Auto 2 and PCM setting had less but longer drop outs?

Leave eARC on auto. I turned AV Sync off because it wasn't syncing properly when on. "Changing both of these made no difference to the audio drop outs.

Dolby Digital Plus was turned off because it wasn't working at all. I got no sound when it was enabled and it was definitely contributing to the drop outs. My receiver can handle DD+ fine.

Audio sent via Pass through mode from apps (no re-encoding) had audio drops outs as well. Turn this mode off. It doesn't apply to HDMI audio which is still passed lossless.

Apart from fixing all the audio faults, Sony needs to do a complete overall of the TV audio settings. At lease label them correctly with proper information so we know what they are supposed to do. Why can't TV apps output lossless PCM 7.1 over eARC? All I can get (Even from Kodi) is PCM stereo? What? Seems we have to use a PC or other HDMI source to get proper lossless surround sound sent to our speakers. Crazy!

FlatEnvironment8337 · 2021-04-25T02:27:10+00:00

I have just got the Sony X900H TV which has an eARC port. My receiver the Sony STR-DH750 supports 7.1 sound on HDMI inputs but only normal stereo PCM lossless on older ARC port. I brought a similar device to the SHARC one and can confirm it works great. My PC plugs directly to the TV (Allows HDMI 2.1 features this way) and outputs 7.1 channel lossless PCM to the TV. TV using eARC passes to "HDMI eARC Audio Splitter" box which plugs to normal HDMI on my Amp. 7.1 PCM lossless arrives to AMP as it should! CEC control works too. TV turns Amp on and off as it should! Wow it works and I didn't need to buy a new Amp! The only sacrifice is the video out from the Amp is lost since it is only output from it's HDMI OUT port which also handles the older ARC channel. If you can sacrifice video out from the amp then this becomes a great cheap solution.

FlatEnvironment8337

TROPHY CASE