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====== Ripping a video from a website ======

:!: If your browser indicates that any kind of DRM is in use, such as WideVine or FairPlay, these instructions will not be sufficient, as those videos are encrypted.

If a website has a video you'd like to download, try the obvious methods first:

  * If it's a regular full video file, in most browsers you can simply download it via right-clicking on the video and saving it. Firefox has a useful ''Page Info'' tool, which you can open via ''Tools'' -> ''Page Info'' that also shows all media on the site (in the ''Media'' tab).
  * Attempt to download the video via ''[[https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp|yt-dlp]]'' (previously ''yt-dl''.

If both options fail, my manual method is to open the page in Firefox, and open the ''Network'' tool (from the web developer tools).

When you load the video, you will see that a bunch of files are downloaded. First, a playlist file should be downloaded, followed by short video files (which are parts of the video you want to download). The playlist file often has the extensions ''.m3u'' or ''.m3u8''. Sometimes ''.mpd'' is also used.

When you think you have identified the playlist, you can try to play it directly with ''ffplay'' (from the ''ffmpeg'' suite):

<code>
ffplay https://server.com/playlist.m3u8
</code>

The video should then play.The ''Open Network'' option in VLC can also play such playlists.

If this is indeed the video you want, you can now download it with ''ffmpeg'':

<code>
ffmpeg -i "https://server.com/playlist.m3u8" -c copy output.mp4
</code>

The video should now be saved into ''output.mp4''. You can adjust the ''ffmpeg'' command to use specific codecs or other options if needed. Alternatively, you can use VLC's ''stream output'' option to save the video.

{{tag>m3u mpd ffmpeg vlc yt-dlp multimedia}}