Not being able to download 720p from Tubi

[Moonee]

So, nearly every movie on Tubi has 720p but for a handful of movies, it doesn't let me download in 720p
Anyone know why?

Here's an example, this movie has 720p as shown in the screenshot -

[Image]


But, when I try to download the movie, 720p doesn't appear at all -

[Image]


Also, for some weird reason.. I can't seem to download this movie in jdownloader2 (It's not letting me)

[Night457]

That looks like Video DownloadHelper extension, which for a reason unknown to me does not always allow the highest resolution available. JD2 does not work for me on Tubi either. Can you guess what I use to download Tubi videos?

Yt-dlp

[Moonee]

Yeah well

I have never used a command line tool and to be honest, I don't even know how it works

I'll probably try learning eventually

[Night457]

I knew you would not be enthused, sorry. I am not particularly fond of Command line either because I have to type accurately! But I use this one all the time. When you are ready you can check Hardware & Software to see if anyone posted help on using it. I might have because I have done several tutorials, I just don't remember. If a thread is not there and you need to you can create a thread there with questions if you can't figure it out.

[john.fidelio]

720p standard is 1280x720 resolution, meaning 1280 pixels wide and 720 pixels high.

What seems to be happening is the video you are downloading is 1280x546, so although it has the 720p standard width, it is not high enough to be classed by Video DownloadHelper as 720p, so it ranks it as the class below, 480p.

Anyways, it looks like you are downloading the best version, since they both share similar bitrate. The site says the 720p video runs at 2920kb per second, and VDH is showing its top video is 3Mb/s, which for all intents and purposes here, are equivalent.

[Night457]

You are absolutely right! I totally did not notice that the highest quality 720p version IS downloadable after all. Thanks!

[Moonee]

So, what I'm getting at here

The 480p (1280x546 3mb/s) is still HD?

[Night457]

Yes. Calling it "480p" is not accurate. It is actually 720p but the black bars at the top and bottom to make it 2.35:1 widescreen are not included in the video. It plays correctly without them. They call it 720p because that calculation includes the pixels that would be on a TV screen.

[Moonee]

Ah, thank you!

This answers my question perfectly

I was just always confused because I'm not very good with the technical computing stuff

All I know is anything under 720p is SD I think.. That's it

[Night457]

This is how I understand it -

16:9 modern TV displays:
2160p UHD Ultra High Definition (4K)
1440p QHD Quad High Definition
1080p FHD Full High Definition
720p HD High Definition

4:3 old TV displays:
576p SD Standard Definiton (PAL version)
480p SD Standard Defintion (NTSC version)

Of course the transition from boxy to wide TVs made things confusing.

The numbers calculated and shown by software don't always match the standards that were created to fit the equipment that the videos were displayed on.