HowTo: Download Video Content from ANY website

Getting started

To do this properly, you need to understand how those websites work.

For the shake of simplicity fellow "pirates", they utilize m3u wiki link

  • m3u8 99% of the time.

You will also need yt-dlp install it if you don't have already

Example on utilizing this knowledge
  • Go to your favorite streaming site
  • Simple press F12
  • Go to Network
  • Select XHR (XMLHttpRequest)
  • Filter URLs for m3u8
    • If you find more than one, just test them out, you will soon find the trick on your own :)
  • Copy the URL
  • Open a terminal and type yt-dlp <your-copied-link>

Do it Ethically

Some may call us pirates, which I find really cool

But the true evil Pirates/criminals are the ones that keep the power to themselves and don't share it with others

Information is the only true power, and it should be free(free as in free speech) for all.

Share your own tips & tricks in the comments if you want!

IIOrochiII,

Thanks for tutorial

Prollol,

@The person who said one can use VLC to download m3u8 links, I tried this multiple times already, but sadly the resulting files were never complete. Either the video was cut off or the audio missing or the like. I used VLC on Windows.

lukas,
@lukas@lemmy.haigner.me avatar

This works only for websites that don’t use DRM, such as Widevine. But there’re guides to decrypt the videos anyways. Tough luck with Widevine L1 tho.

anonynorbi,
@anonynorbi@lemmy.fmhy.ml avatar

Thank you for this awesome information! I agree with the statement about sharing the power and that information should be free (as in speech) for all. Let’s make internet a better place!

pineapplelover,

Spotdl for downloading Spotify music. It's amazing also

roxy,

My fellow crewmen, yt-dlp is great but you don’t need it if you have vlc installed on your pc, you could just open Convert / Save function (Ctrl + R for shortcut), click the “Network” tab", paste the hls (m3u8) or dash (mpd) link and save it as you normally would.

tab

Soltros,

This doesn’t have to do with the topic at hand, but it’s just so cool being able to directly reference sites and ways to download on Lemmy, rather than dancing around the topic on Reddit.

SeanTheLawn,
@SeanTheLawn@kbin.social avatar

This is what Reddit was like in the golden era, ~2010-2014ish

Captain_Wtv,

It changed after they banned r/megalinks. I remember the day. The piracy sub purged content around that time. Then 2-3 years later the sports streaming subs went down.

dustojnikhummer,

Until copyright owners start banging on providers of those who host these instances sadly. Give it a few years and we will be back there

dark,

deleted_by_author

    •
    Holzkohlen,
    @Holzkohlen@feddit.de avatar

    It is, I've been using it for years now.

    Captain_Shoe,

    Any website? Including all the streaming services like Netflix, Disney+, etc?

    samwise,
    @samwise@kbin.social avatar

    https://cdm-project.com/

    They have a lot of good tools and guides for getting setup to pull drm encrypted streams. You’ll need access to an android device that has root to be able to pull drm keys from. It took me a bit to figure out how to get it setup. They had to remove the all in one setup page so the software is outdated but I followed this (https://web.archive.org/web/20230315101847/https://cdm-project.com/cdm-tools/how-to) and just searched for the latest versions of the software they reference and got it working to download off disney+ and wowpresentsplus

    dbemol,

    A r/piracy post that is actually useful? A sign of the times

    Astaroth,

    Edit: It seems yt-dlp was at some point moved from AUR to Extra. I was half expecting it to happen eventually since youtube-dl stopped working about a year ago, but I never noticed it happening.

    Either way, as it’s a package on extra instead of AUR there’s a lot less of a security concern for anyone worried about that.

    Original comment:

    I have yt-dlp from the AUR (Arch User Repository). youtube-dl package also exists, and it’s on extra, but it stopped working about half a year ago

    mrestof,
    @mrestof@fosstodon.org avatar

    @Astaroth, why do you use yt-dlp from aur if it is also in extra repository?

    Astaroth,

    like I said only the original youtube-dl package is in extra but it stopped working a while back.

    since then I’ve been using the youtube-dl fork yt-dlp that OP mentioned, but it’s in aur atm since it hasn’t gotten as recognized as it’s a fork (I assume)

    Basically yt-dlp is a fork of youtube-dl, and unlike youtube-dl it’s in aur instead of extra.

    At least last I checked all youtube-dl forks are in aur, but you have to use yt-dlp (or maybe one of the other forks) since youtube-dl doesn’t work anymore.

    Holzkohlen,
    @Holzkohlen@feddit.de avatar

    You are wrong. archlinux.org/packages/extra/any/yt-dlp/yt-dlp is in the extra repository (has been for a long time now) as they said. No need to install it from the AUR

    Astaroth,

    Interesting. I’m pretty sure it was on AUR when I installed quite a while back, but looks like it’s in Extra now yeah.

    It does make sense though since youtube-dl hasn’t been working for about a year.

    I should’ve checked before commenting

    Holzkohlen,
    @Holzkohlen@feddit.de avatar

    Don’t sweat it bro

    QuestioningEspecialy,
    @QuestioningEspecialy@kbin.social avatar

    Xtreme Download Manager lets you do this with ease (and more) and can check for the latest yt-dlp version before downloading on its own.

    MPC-HC lets you play and download YouTube videos using yt-dlp.

    PCChipsM922U,
    @PCChipsM922U@sh.itjust.works avatar

    There is also yt-dlg, one of the frontends for youtube-dl or yt-dlp.

    github.com/yt-dlg/yt-dlg

    deepfake,

    Is there any way to save this post for later?

    NOOBMASTER,

    I have VideoDownloadHelper addon for Firefox, and most of the time it works. There are some exceptions of course, where it cannot download the video. But I love finding out new ways to do it, in case the old ways fail one day. Good post, man!

    equalszero,

    Thanks!

    It’s a must have add on, but it’s still just an add on, we should know the basics of what’s happening behind the scenes to sail the 7 seas.

    The reason I posted that is to inspire some of you in creating fancy scripts that can easily do more than just downloading one video.

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