i only recommend stuff that is reletavely easy to learn and setup and gives insane benefits for us who work with a lot of audio and video files.
| yt-dlp | yt-dlp has dug me out of so many holes. yt-dlp https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ -x gives you just the audio stream of anything online with a "play" button. remove the -x for the full video. most issues can be fixed by updating yt-dlp or checking the filename for unsafe characters. age-restrictions and member-only content can be alieviated by passing cookies. works great with playlists and albums! | https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp |
| ffmpeg | need to convert that youtube video or random .opus file to something you're used to, like .mp3 or .wav? just download ffmpeg. ffmpeg -i local_file.wav local_file.mp3 is all you need to convert between file types. more options exist if you want to tweak the encoder quality. it works just as well for video, and can even do some fancy stuff like crop off the start and end of files. with some additional powershell work you can make it run in batch. (or, just download an ffmpeg gui and let that do it for you). | https://github.com/BtbN/FFmpeg-Builds |
| handbrake | like a batch ffmpeg but it can re-encode videos with useful effects like compression, cropping, and framerate conversion. i don't use this as often but it's handy when i have a big video file that i need to compress for social media or discord. this is the kinda shit that can shrink the entirety of shrek 1 into 8mb. | https://handbrake.fr/ |
| seal | for android, seal has helped me out of a jam when i needed yt-dlp and ffmpeg on my phone. it just works, it's so nice. it even auto-updates and actually is more convenient for me to use than my computer, as convenient as my obscured filesystem allows anyway. | https://github.com/JunkFood02/Seal |
| grayjay | i already use ublock origin on firefox, this is an android youtube client that just has ublock origin working all the time, includes a video downloader, and regularly updates to outsmart youtube's attempts to stop it from working. i really hope this app doesn't die because it's the one thing making youtube watchable these days. searching for the video you actually wanted is still messed up unfortunately, but that's out of their hands. also works for other platforms like twitch, nebula, and others (with login credentials). | https://grayjay.app/ |
| jellyfin | really nice looking UI for what is essentially a media server. if you're the type to have 2+ computers and wish you could watch videos from one on the other, this is it. it even auto-downloads covers and episode previews for tv shows and movies if that's your perogative. wasn't too hard to get setup, has been great to watch my fresh prince dvd collection from my phone in bed. | https://jellyfin.org/ |
tools i use
- FL Studio 21
- foobar2000 (proofing)
- hUGEtracker
- bgb emulator
- REAPER
- Audacity (in a pinch)
- ffmpeg
- yt-dlp
website décor 
