Stream and Download YouTube videos?

[g725s]

I used to be able to copy a YouTube URL and paste it into...

Open Network Stream > Network

But am now immediately getting an Error popup that will not go away. In fact, even when I close the Network Error Popup it keeps popping up again and again. The only way to stop it is to completely close VLC.

Here is a YouTube showing the process I used to use, that I cannot now get past the first step of inputting the network stream...
https://youtu.be/keqSrdtWt0k

[Lotesdelere]

https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=160641

[skrontle]

I think you're SOL. I now have problems downloading anything from YT whereas before December I could download most (not all, though) of the stuff without problems using YoutubeVideoDownloader. So now I need to obtain a different YT download program but I can't decide which one to download, considering that most, if not all, have problems, or malware, or watermarks, or cost too much. Oh well... life goes on.

[ExtincT]

Hello there !
For me, download videos from youtube works great (VLC 3.0.18), but my problem is, that I want to download it, as the same quality of youtube video.
I think that VLC downgrades it, to save memory, but is there something else that I can do about it ? Thanks.

[Lotesdelere]

I want to download it, as the same quality of youtube video.
I think that VLC downgrades it, to save memory, but is there something else that I can do about it ?

Menu Tools -> Preferences (Show Settings = ALL) -> Input/Codecs
The option is on the right panel: Preferred Video Resolution.
Set it to the resolution you want then save, exit and restart VLC.

[sokrakes]

I used to need to download more videos, so I tried 4K Video Downloader.
It always worked, now I tried it just in case and it downloads just fine. It also works with VLC, but this is more convenient.