[France.tv]Anyone familiar with .mp4 link extraction from AKAMAIHD.NET?

[NiesmialyGosc]

Hi All,

You know that many videos are geo-blocked on France.tv..

Could anyone tell me how to extract the direct .mp4 link URLs from AKAMAIHD.NET so I can download the video directly from my Chrome with my browser plugin geo-VPN without having to constantly search for a new valid proxy to pass to my youtube-dl command lines (since I need to download videos of extremely long TV series with 1000+ episodes & I can't stand having to look for proxies all the day)

Let's take this video as an example: https://www.france.tv/france-3/plus-belle-la-vie/plus-belle-la-vie-saison-9/749269-plu...le-la-vie.html

In my Chrome network stream monitor I find the following:
_jsonp_loader_callback_request_0({"url": "https://replayftv-vh.akamaihd.net/i/streaming-adaptatif_france-dom-tom/2018/S42/J4/190569207-5bc88ebe39185-,standard1,standard2,standard3,standard4,standard5 ,.mp4.csmil/master.m3u8?caption=%2F2018%2F10%2F18%2F%2F1905692 07-5bc88ebe39185-1539870926.m3u8%3Afra%3AFrancais&audiotrack=0%3Afr a%3AFrancais&hdnea=exp=1539946853~acl=%2fi%2fstrea ming-adaptatif_france-dom-tom%2f2018%2fS42%2fJ4%2f190569207-5bc88ebe39185-,standard1,standard2,standard3,standard4,standard5 ,.mp4.csmil*~hmac=b818baa417afe3e8a94bdb161ad68ead d89abe93cbd036c638c9926b14cff4cb"})

In "master.m3u8" I find the following:
https://replayftv-vh.akamaihd.net/i/streaming-adaptatif_france-dom-tom/2018/S42/J4/190...av.m3u8?null=0

But from here it looks like I have to replace the i in the URL with z, to form the new URL like this:
https://replayftv-vh.akamaihd.net/z/streaming-adaptatif_france-dom-tom/2018/S42/J4/190...-standard5.mp4

However, when I enter the link above in my browser, it yields the following error:

Access Denied
You don't have permission to access "http://replayftv-vh.akamaihd.net/z/streaming-adaptatif_france-dom-tom/2018/S42/J4/190569207-5bc88ebe39185-standard5.mp4" on this server.
Reference #18.cf161602.1539946672.4a33efb

Anyone knows how to fix this..?

FYI, I'm pretty sure such .mp4 links exist, like the following one you can find from https://www.francetvinfo.fr/sitemap/video/2018-10.xml:
https://ftvingest-a.akamaihd.net/ingest/streaming-adaptatif/2015/S33/J1/DMC_pivideo_54...4-web-934k.mp4

But that only applies to Francetvinfo.fr and NOT for France.TV..!! So how to find the direct .mp4 link for videos on France.TV??

Many thanks in advance!
Jacob

[LZAA]

Use Chrome + Hide ALL IP.

[NiesmialyGosc]

Use Chrome + Hide ALL IP.

Hide ALL IP? Is it free of charge? Is it a tool for video download??

Plus you know I'm NOT talking about anonymous online SURFING, rather I'm talking about DOWNLOADING mp4 videos from a specific site, and that site is named France.tv.

[jagabo]

Get the URL with a browsers Devoloper Tools, then use youtube-dl:

youtube-dl "https://replayftv-vh.akamaihd.net/i/streaming-adaptatif_france-dom-tom/2018/S42/J4/190569206-5bc887980884f-,standard1,standard2,standard3,standard4,standard5,.mp4.csmil/index_0_av.m3u8?null=0"

[NiesmialyGosc]

If anyone could provide *details* of how to get the mp4 video link directly from France.tv without using youtube-dl (and thereby having to search for valid proxies from time to time), that'll be much appreciated.

[NiesmialyGosc]

Get the URL with a browsers Devoloper Tools, then use youtube-dl:

youtube-dl "https://replayftv-vh.akamaihd.net/i/streaming-adaptatif_france-dom-tom/2018/S42/J4/190569206-5bc887980884f-,standard1,standard2,standard3,standard4,standard5,.mp4.csmil/index_0_av.m3u8?null=0"

Are you sure you can download this video with this command line outside France without having to add the "--proxy" parameter? If not, you still need to struggle for a valid proxy to use (which is a very, very time consuming job) to bypass the geoblocking. If you spent 1 hour a day simply searching for a new valid proxy, how many hours would you waste per year?

But WHAT I NEED IS a direct mp4 link that I can use to download the video directly in my chrome browser so that I can make use of the SetupVPN (which is a geo-VPN) and leave the proxy searching job to SetupVPN. **PLUS you might not be aware that CHROME itself is a much faster downloader than normal video tools like youtube-dl and livestreamer or whatsoever..! If you go to this site: https://www.zdf.de/serien/the-team/the-team-1-100.html, and download the video via this link https://rodlzdf-a.akamaihd.net/de/zdf/18/10/181009_s01e01_de_ttm/4/181009_s01e01_de_tt...96k_p13v14.mp4 directly from Chrome instead of typing "youtube-dl https://www.zdf.de/serien/the-team/the-team-1-100.html" in your command window, you'll find the download speed is much much higher than youtube-dl!!**

For example: one of the TV series I download from France.tv is as follows: https://www.france.tv/france-3/plus-belle-la-vie/plus-belle-la-vie-saison-9, and it has more than 1000+ episodes and I have to download videos constantly on a daily basis; however, these are time-limited videos (e.g. "3j" means "3 days left", where j = jour in French) which means if you don't download the new episode immediately after its release, it will soon expire so you need to be quick enough to find a valid proxy to bypass the geo-blocking before the video expiration. But the free proxies listed online are normally unstable and it's quite normal that a valid proxy yesterday no longer works today. So do I really need to struggle with spending several hrs a day to find a new valid proxy every day??

That is why I'm asking for a way to find the direct mp4 links (e.g. https://ftvingest-a.akamaihd.net/ingest/streaming-adaptatif/2015/S33/J1/DMC_pivideo_54...4-web-934k.mp4, which I've mentioned at the top of my thread) hidden behind m3u8 files. I'm pretty sure such links (which should start with "https://replayftv-vh.akamaihd.net/xx") do exist for France.tv videos, but I don't the expertise to find it out. So any help will be much appreciated!

Let's get rid of the dumb video downloading tools and do some research on the video streaming technology!! I swear CHROME itself is much more powerful than any video downloaders as long as we have the direct video link!

Plus, to whom it might concern: one-word meaningless replies are not welcomed in this thread, if nobody really knows the solution then I'm glad to leave it unanswered. Thank you!

[jagabo]

Sorry, I didn't read your post closely enough. I used a VPN in France. If you're going to download thousands of episodes you might as well spend a few dollars a month and sign up for a VPN.

[NiesmialyGosc]

Sorry, I didn't read your post closely enough. I used a VPN in France. If you're going to download thousands of episodes you might as well spend a few dollars a month and sign up for a VPN.

Sorry. The SetupVPN I mentioned above is free and much more powerful than many paid VPNs, why do we need to buy an extra one? If we can figure out the direct mp4 links we can use Chrome + SetupVPN to download those geoblocked videos directly, and the speed is much faster than those video downloaders.

And if you have read my post closely, you'll see the core of my thread is about finding out the mp4 link, NOT about which proxy or tool to use. SetupVPN does everything for us already, as long as the video link is known & we download the video directly from Chrome.

Actually I think a webstreaming expert who is familiar with parsing m3u8 files, rather than general end users, could be in a better position to give some advice on my questions in this thread (no offense).. And you know the youtube-dl DEV team wouldn't welcome me if I post the thread there: https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/issues, even if the Admins of that site are genuine experts.

[LZAA]

Without proxy will not work.

[ponens]

It is not a given that every content provider using akamai will have a progressive http (direct mp4) server.

In many cases, a progressive http (mp4) server will not exist, and only hls, hds, or dash (or some combination of these) will be available.

If your vpn is broswer based, consider using a chrome extention that will download hls to mp4 within chrome, such as

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stream-recorder-download/iogidnfllpdhagebkblkgbfijkbkjdmm

[codehound]

@NiesmialyGosc

Please do not be so angry with people who are trying their best to assist you. Plus you cannot assume that any mp4 files are resident on the server without prior evidence. It may be the case that there are separate audio and video constituents.

Plus you will not have enough allowance from a free shared proxy service - like Setupvpn (lets not pretend its anything like a proper paid-for vpn) - to download 1000 episodes in a year; never mind a month's allowance.