SkillsAdd

heygen-com/skills-legacy · Archived

video-download

Download video and audio from YouTube and 1000+ sites using yt-dlp. No API keys needed. Use when: (1) Downloading a video from YouTube or other sites, (2) Extracting audio from a video URL, (3) Downloading subtitles/captions from a video, (4) Getting video metadata without downloading.

First seen Jun 9, 2026

Installation

$ npx skills add heygen-com/skills-legacy --skill video-download
View on skills.sh ↗ GitHub repository ↗

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Also in this package

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npx skills add heygen-com/skills-legacy
video-understand 14 video-edit 11 visual-style 10 ai-video-gen 6 text-to-speech 5 video-translate 5 heygen 5 faceswap 5 create-video 5 avatar-video 5

Browse all from heygen-com/skills-legacy

More details

Agent compatibility

Declared targets from SKILL.md / docs. Unmarked agents are not listed — the skill may still install via the CLI.

Claude Code Not declared
Cursor Not declared
Codex Not declared
GitHub Copilot Not declared
Windsurf Not declared
Gemini CLI Not declared
Cline Not declared
OpenCode Not declared

Repository health

License MIT
Default branch master
Status Archived

Package contents

Files included with this skill beyond the listing page.

  • skill md SKILL.md 3,537 B
  • docs SUMMARY.md 308 B

History

  1. First seen on skills.sh
  2. First recorded snapshot · 6 installs

SKILL.md

video-download

Download video and audio from URLs using yt-dlp directly. No wrapper scripts needed.

Prerequisites

  • yt-dlp: brew install yt-dlp or pip install yt-dlp
  • ffmpeg: brew install ffmpeg or apt install ffmpeg (required for merging video+audio streams)

Update yt-dlp periodically to keep up with site changes: yt-dlp -U or pip install -U yt-dlp.

Commands

Download best quality

yt-dlp "URL" -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" --merge-output-format mp4

Download specific resolution

# 720p
yt-dlp "URL" -f "bestvideo[height<=720]+bestaudio/best[height<=720]" --merge-output-format mp4

# 1080p
yt-dlp "URL" -f "bestvideo[height<=1080]+bestaudio/best[height<=1080]" --merge-output-format mp4

Audio only

yt-dlp "URL" -x --audio-format mp3 --audio-quality 0

Download subtitles

# Download video with English subtitles
yt-dlp "URL" --write-subs --sub-langs en --merge-output-format mp4

# Download video with multiple subtitle languages
yt-dlp "URL" --write-subs --sub-langs "en,es,fr" --merge-output-format mp4

# Download only subtitles (no video)
yt-dlp "URL" --write-subs --sub-langs en --skip-download

Get metadata (no download)

yt-dlp "URL" --dump-json --no-download

List available formats

yt-dlp "URL" -F

Specify output directory

yt-dlp "URL" -o "./downloads/%(title)s.%(ext)s" --merge-output-format mp4

Quality Presets

Quality Format flag
Best -f "bestvideo+bestaudio/best" (default)
1080p -f "bestvideo[height<=1080]+bestaudio/best[height<=1080]"
720p -f "bestvideo[height<=720]+bestaudio/best[height<=720]"
480p -f "bestvideo[height<=480]+bestaudio/best[height<=480]"
Worst -f "worstvideo+worstaudio/worst"

Output Template Variables

Common variables for -o templates:

Variable Description
%(title)s Video title
%(ext)s File extension
%(id)s Video ID
%(uploader)s Channel/uploader name
%(upload_date)s Upload date (YYYYMMDD)
%(duration)s Duration in seconds
%(resolution)s Video resolution

Tips

  • Always use --merge-output-format mp4 to avoid ending up with .webm or .mkv files.
  • Use --no-download with --dump-json for metadata-only queries -- no files written to disk.
  • If a download fails with HTTP errors, update yt-dlp first (yt-dlp -U).
  • Use -f "bestvideo[height<=720]+bestaudio" to save bandwidth when full resolution is not needed.
  • yt-dlp automatically handles rate limiting and retries.
  • The --dump-json output includes title, duration, uploader, view_count, description, formats, subtitles, and much more.

Troubleshooting

  • "yt-dlp: command not found": Install it (pip install yt-dlp) and ensure your PATH includes pip's bin directory.
  • "ffmpeg: command not found": Install ffmpeg. Without it, downloads fail when video and audio are separate streams (common on YouTube for HD).
  • Downloads fail or return errors: Run yt-dlp -U to update. Sites change frequently and yt-dlp ships fixes regularly.