✅ Introduction
Want to download YouTube videos in ultra-HD (up to 8K) quality using Python? You’re in the right place! In this guide, I’ll walk you through a simple yet powerful script using the open-source library yt-dlp, a powerful fork of youtube-dl.
We’ll also make sure that FFmpeg is integrated correctly to merge high-quality audio and video into a single .mp4 file.
import yt_dlp
import os
# Make sure ffmpeg path is correctly set for merging video and audio
FFMPEG_PATH = os.path.join("C:", os.sep, "ffmpeg", "bin", "ffmpeg.exe")
# yt-dlp configuration options
ydl_opts = {
'format': 'bestvideo+bestaudio/best', # Select best video and best audio
'merge_output_format': 'mp4', # Output format after merging
'ffmpeg_location': FFMPEG_PATH, # Path to ffmpeg executable
'outtmpl': '%(title)s.%(ext)s', # Output file naming template
'quiet': False, # Show download progress
'noplaylist': True # Download only one video if playlist
}
# Example URL — Replace with your desired video link
video_url = 'YOUR_VIDEO_URL_HERE'
# Start downloading
with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
ydl.download([video_url])
How It Works :-
1. Install yt-dlp:
pip install yt-dlp
2. Install FFmpeg:
Download from ffmpeg.org and extract it. Set the path as shown in the script.
3. Replace the video URL.
in video_url.
4. Run the script.
It will download and merge the best available video + audio — even 8K if the source supports it.