Bypassing YouTube video download throttling
On a sidenote am I imagining things or do videos actually look a tiny bit better in YouTube?This really has puzzled me. I downloaded a few favourites and watch them on VLC or Infuse on my AppleTV. In the YouTube app I can use the "nerd stats" to confirm I am viewing the exact same video/audio streams...... it could be my imagination but it seems like YouTube does a really subtle kind of filter that makes the "blocky" compression artifacts smoother. It doesnt ehance edges or anything - my guess is it looks for areas WITHOUT edges where there are sublte shfts of colour, and it makes the blocky artifacts less prominent.... it's really subtle and I still cant tell if its just my imagination, like my OCD thinking that my downloaded video doesnt look as good and yet, I noticed on YouTube the video feels more vibrant and solid. When I watch my downloaded vid there are these really sublte, but noticable artifacts often in the background , in the shadows and these constant tiny little jitters even on a 1440p video - make the final picture look not as good.Am I making this up?Audio wise there is definitely a change as well. YouTube audio is always more or less level for me, while a downloaded video always needs to crank up the volume which is annoying.I wish players like VLC or Infuse did whatever YouTube does to make videos just more pleasant to look at. I dont think YoUTube changes the colours or does any kind of vibrancy filter though  I may be wrong, but it does things to "level" audio so that you have a more consistent experience going from one video/channel to another.