Repository: youtube-dl
Issue: Variable line-break spacing in Vimeo descriptions not being detected
Labels: request

As seen in the description of https://vimeo.com/38644453, Vimeo appears to allow different amounts of spacing between paragraphs and line-breaks. (Some sentences have a larger vertical gap between the lines.) Looking at the source, a combination of `<p>` and `<br>` HTML tags are used to achieve this effect. These are not detected by youtube-dl’s --write-description setting and are rendered only as regular line breaks. The .info.json file uses `/n` at the end of each line. Could there be a way to detect presentation and formatting elements of the description and an option to preserve them in the .description file? If necessary, descriptions with formatting could be saved in an HTML, XML or RTF format depending on which one is felt to be most suited.

What follows is the output of `youtube-dl https://vimeo.com/38644453 -v`. I’m using the latest Homebrew build.

[debug] System config: []
[debug] User config: ['-o', '~/Downloads/[%(upload_date)s]%(title)s[%(uploader_id)s][%(id)s]/[%(upload_date)s]%(title)s[%(uploader_id)s][%(id)s][%(format)s].%(ext)s', '--write-description', '--write-info-json', '--write-annotations', '--write-thumbnail', '--no-playlist', '--all-subs', '--add-metadata']
[debug] Command-line args: [u'https://vimeo.com/38644453', u'-v']
WARNING: Parameter outtmpl is bytes, but should be a unicode string. Put  from **future** import unicode_literals  at the top of your code file or consider switching to Python 3.x.
[debug] Encodings: locale UTF-8, fs utf-8, out UTF-8, pref UTF-8
[debug] youtube-dl version 2015.04.09
[debug] Python version 2.7.6 - Darwin-14.3.0-x86_64-i386-64bit
[debug] exe versions: ffmpeg 2.6.1, ffprobe 2.6.1
[debug] Proxy map: {}
[vimeo] 38644453: Downloading webpage
[vimeo] 38644453: Extracting information
[vimeo] 38644453: Downloading webpage
[info] Writing video description to: /Users/username/Downloads/[20120316]Drive Too[benjaminbarfoot][38644453]/[20120316]Drive Too[benjaminbarfoot][38644453][h264-sd - 640x360].mp4.description
[info] Writing video annotations to: /Users/username/Downloads/[20120316]Drive Too[benjaminbarfoot][38644453]/[20120316]Drive Too[benjaminbarfoot][38644453][h264-sd - 640x360].mp4.annotations.xml
WARNING: There are no annotations to write.
[info] Writing video description metadata as JSON to: /Users/username/Downloads/[20120316]Drive Too[benjaminbarfoot][38644453]/[20120316]Drive Too[benjaminbarfoot][38644453][h264-sd - 640x360].info.json
[vimeo] 38644453: Downloading thumbnail ...
[vimeo] 38644453: Writing thumbnail to: /Users/username/Downloads/[20120316]Drive Too[benjaminbarfoot][38644453]/[20120316]Drive Too[benjaminbarfoot][38644453][h264-sd - 640x360].jpg
[debug] Invoking downloader on u'https://avvimeo-a.akamaihd.net/37523/607/89062448.mp4?token2=1428876495_d659290c6f9b3b1227b3fd6005433ce9&aksessionid=af840de64915851f&ns=4'
[download] Destination: /Users/username/Downloads/[20120316]Drive Too[benjaminbarfoot][38644453]/[20120316]Drive Too[benjaminbarfoot][38644453][h264-sd - 640x360].mp4
[download] 100% of 23.22MiB in 00:10
[ffmpeg] Adding metadata to '/Users/username/Downloads/[20120316]Drive Too[benjaminbarfoot][38644453]/[20120316]Drive Too[benjaminbarfoot][38644453][h264-sd - 640x360].mp4'
[debug] ffmpeg command line: ffmpeg -y -i '/Users/username/Downloads/[20120316]Drive Too[benjaminbarfoot][38644453]/[20120316]Drive Too[benjaminbarfoot][38644453][h264-sd - 640x360].mp4' -c copy -metadata 'comment=The mission was simple, but for this driver, nothing is ever easy.
Driver
Danny Morgan
Voice of Mum
Benjamin Barfoot
Written by
Danny Morgan
Filmed, Directed & Edited by
Benjamin Barfoot
Produced by
2entertain' -metadata 'description=The mission was simple, but for this driver, nothing is ever easy.
Driver
Danny Morgan
Voice of Mum
Benjamin Barfoot
Written by
Danny Morgan
Filmed, Directed & Edited by
Benjamin Barfoot
Produced by
2entertain' -metadata 'artist=Benjamin Barfoot' -metadata 'title=Drive Too' -metadata date=20120316 -metadata purl=https://vimeo.com/38644453 '/Users/username/Downloads/[20120316]Drive Too[benjaminbarfoot][38644453]/[20120316]Drive Too[benjaminbarfoot][38644453][h264-sd - 640x360].temp.mp4'