PBS Download

[thegeet]

I followed the instuctons that ChristianoA described in post 19 of this thread and was able to download a series I had been wanting. Unfortunately, two months ago I lost everything on the external hardrive it was on. (That was my own stupid mistake, I dropped the silly thing.)

But when I went back to redo the series, apparently pbs reformated thier videos because it no longer works. Every time I use the user agent switcher I can't start the video. And nothing else I've tried is working ether.

and on top of all that I have to pay at least $60.00 to be able to see all the videos for a year. I'm going to have to wait until the first for that but at least maybe I get the downloading issue resolved by then.

Help!

Name of the series?

[nancyann]

Thegeet, it's Baking with Julia. I'm hoping that firfox's "flashgot" will work once I get my subscription. (which is something I had been wanting to do anyway.)

[ezcapper]

I tried downloading it with flashgot and only got the lower quality video. If you have the same problem, try downloading with youtube-dlg which gave me the higher quality video

[nancyann]

Hot diggety dog, I did it!

(I'm doing this in Firefox btw.)

Pull up the video you want on PBS.org.

Go to Developer (tools) then Network then click on reload.

Choose the MP4 file and click "edit and resend"

Copy and paste the new url into another firefox window and go there.

Hit play and download in Flashgot!

[brettco]

Hi
Can someone please help me with a high res of the following. I get an error when I try to look for the mp4
http://video.pbssocal.org/video/2365855579

Thank you

[biezom]

Hi
Can someone please help me with a high res of the following. I get an error when I try to look for the mp4
http://video.pbssocal.org/video/2365855579

Thank you

hi

youtube-dl -g "http://video.pbssocal.org/video/2365855579"

http://d6uz0or6bt1ws.cloudfront.net/videos/building-below-zero-net-zero-plus-transformation/0ee41366-20ff-43ba-8b90-69c3aa5794f2/262772/hd-1080p-mezzanine-16x9/3d198844_building_below_zero_oct_01_cove-16x9-mp4-6500k.mp4

[brettco]

thank you biezom
i dl'd the program and now see how you got it

thanks again

[dancingman]

Hi,

Can someone please post the HD direct download link for this video:

http://player.pbs.org/portalplayer/2365889151/

It's region locked, and I can't figure out how to get the link, thanks

[jimdagys]

I used Adblock Plus Firefox addon but I can play PBS videos here: (419MB, 416x234 resolution):

http://d6uz0or6bt1ws.cloudfront.net/videos/great-performances/0b1f4502-4785-40c5-b3ab-...4-baseline.mp4

http://ga.video.cdn.pbs.org/captions/great-performances/0b1f4502-4785-40c5-b3ab-d49e8d...04_Encoded.srt

[dancingman]

Thanks

I don't think I can get the link that way, if the vid is geoblocked, unless I use a proxy or something.

[biezom]

Thanks

I don't think I can get the link that way, if the vid is geoblocked, unless I use a proxy or something.

hi

use youtube-dl and X-Forwarded-For

youtube-dl --add-header "X-Forwarded-For:13.63.255.255"  -g "http://www.pbs.org/video/2365889151/"

http://cds.y3v7e5u9.hwcdn.net/videos/great-performances/0b1f4502-4785-40c5-b3ab-d49e8d714cc3/269692/hd-1080p-mezzanine-16x9/1964c4ed_gysy0000-16x9-mp4-6500k.mp4

and when you have the video link it's not georestricted

[ChrisCosta]

Seems like there's lost of confusion and old methods obfuscating the easiest manual method. You only need Google Chrome. This works on everything that I've tried off of PBS lately. It seems like a lot of steps, but it's really not, I've just broken it down as much as I could. And once you do this, it'll get easier each time you do it. Every site is different, but this general method of using the dev tools menu to sniff out the media files, works on a lot of sites that use the stupid flash players to serve videos. Some sites use an HTML5 player that serves mp4's that you can just right click on. If you turn on the Device Toolbar (works like the Agent Spoofer) in the Dev tools menu, you can spoof different devices, and F5 refresh to get that HTML5 player. It works most of the time.

Anyway, for PBS/Frontline videos...

(In Google Chrome 55 on Windows 10)

1) Open the page with the video, let it load, and then hit play, pause.
2) Chrome 3-dot menu, then open developer tools, type in m3u8 in the filter box - https://forum.videohelp.com/images/imgfiles/nGRDEm3.jpg
3) After the list of m3u8 files appears - https://forum.videohelp.com/images/imgfiles/nYrN6Up.png - in your dev tools, right click the quality that you want (but NOT 1080p). Copy -> Copy link address.
4) Paste URL like the example below, into a new window's address bar:

http://d6uz0or6bt1ws.cloudfront.net/videos/frontline/a3bdb496-208f-43a8-889f-18fdba0dbde1/242060/hd-1080p-mezzanine-16x9/7b59ab55_00003410-16x9-hls-4500k.m3u8

5) Then change the ending part of the url, hls to mp4, and the m3u8 extension to mp4 in the address bar. and don't change anything else. Like below.

http://d6uz0or6bt1ws.cloudfront.net/videos/frontline/a3bdb496-208f-43a8-889f-18fdba0dbde1/242060/hd-1080p-mezzanine-16x9/7b59ab55_00003410-16x9-mp4-4500k.mp4

6) Go to the URL. Right click the player after the video buffers for a bit, and click Save video as, or click the download button on the bottom right of the Chrome video player.
7) Enjoy your mp4.

Hope that helps someone, because fiddling around with ffmpeg, installing flashgot, and installing all kinds of video grabbing apps is not always possible or even necessary.

[thegeet]

Is there a way to download passport videos?

[jimdagys]

Is there a way to download passport videos?

Pbs passport videos require authentication (money), so there is no way I can test or discuss how to do it. Certainly you can screen capture
(like with free Dubut software) the video, but the the result will be inferior compared with downloading.

[dondiez]

Can someone please help me to download this video?

http://www.pbs.org/video/2365342346/

Thank you so much in advance.

[sysanin]

Can someone please help me to download this video?
http://www.pbs.org/video/2365342346/

Look at the post № 156

http://cds.y3v7e5u9.hwcdn.net/videos/lincoln-center/4ef2d3af-7690-410a-a3cf-4f5782c6871e/154096/hd-mezzanine-16x9/2c7b4174_lvlc3906_mezz16x9-16x9-mp4-2500k.mp4

[dondiez]

Can someone please help me to download this video?
http://www.pbs.org/video/2365342346/

Look at the post № 156

http://cds.y3v7e5u9.hwcdn.net/videos/lincoln-center/4ef2d3af-7690-410a-a3cf-4f5782c6871e/154096/hd-mezzanine-16x9/2c7b4174_lvlc3906_mezz16x9-16x9-mp4-2500k.mp4

Thank you so much, really!

[buzzinhornets]

I was trying to get Ask This Old House vids off PBS.org and now found this method works:

1. play video
2. in firefox, right click on page and Inspect Element
3. Click on NETWORK
4. Reload the page at the top near address bar
5. in network inspector, filter URLs m3u8
6. copy the URL of the line with "token" in it
7. paste into notepad... and delete .m3u8 from that URL.
8. copy and paste that url into new tab. Video plays. right click on page/video and choose SAVE AS.

Here's a screencast: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/40832911/Untitled.mp4

[dondiez]

Can someone please help me to download this video?
http://www.pbs.org/video/2365342346/

Look at the post № 156

http://cds.y3v7e5u9.hwcdn.net/videos/lincoln-center/4ef2d3af-7690-410a-a3cf-4f5782c6871e/154096/hd-mezzanine-16x9/2c7b4174_lvlc3906_mezz16x9-16x9-mp4-2500k.mp4

My problem is that I get the following message:

"We're sorry, but this video is not available in your region".

Then neither method works for me.

I am trying without success with the following link:

http://www.pbs.org/video/2365605647/

[dondiez]

Can someone please help me to download this video?
http://www.pbs.org/video/2365342346/

Look at the post № 156

http://cds.y3v7e5u9.hwcdn.net/videos/lincoln-center/4ef2d3af-7690-410a-a3cf-4f5782c6871e/154096/hd-mezzanine-16x9/2c7b4174_lvlc3906_mezz16x9-16x9-mp4-2500k.mp4

This is my problem:

[dondiez]

Can someone please help me to download this video?
http://www.pbs.org/video/2365342346/

Look at the post № 156

http://cds.y3v7e5u9.hwcdn.net/videos/lincoln-center/4ef2d3af-7690-410a-a3cf-4f5782c6871e/154096/hd-mezzanine-16x9/2c7b4174_lvlc3906_mezz16x9-16x9-mp4-2500k.mp4

This is my problem:


[Attachment 40511 - Click to enlarge]

I solved it using a VPN. Thanks for everything!

[phoebemw]

hello, ive been reading this thread trying to download a video from my local pbs channel, thirteen.org. and it just is not working no matter what method i use. im trying to download the video "buyer and cellar" from this link: http://www.thirteen.org/topic/programs/theater-close-up/

if anyone can send me the high res, i would sincerely appreciate it, as its been quite challenging

[usually_quiet]

hello, ive been reading this thread trying to download a video from my local pbs channel, thirteen.org. and it just is not working no matter what method i use. im trying to download the video "buyer and cellar" from this link: http://www.thirteen.org/topic/programs/theater-close-up/

if anyone can send me the high res, i would sincerely appreciate it, as its been quite challenging

Sharing media files tends to be frowned upon here.

Did you try DLNow-Video-Downloader? Start playing the video. Wait until the program itself starts to play, cut and paste the URL displayed into the DLNow-Video-Downloader window and click the download button.

[ponens]

...it just is not working no matter what method i use. i'm trying to download the video "buyer and cellar".

Nearly any downloader extension should detect the video link. The highest quality is quite large, 5.12GB.

[operaking]

Is there any chance somebody could please help me download this video?

http://www.pbs.org/video/2365132185/

[TexTech]

I was trying to get Ask This Old House vids off PBS.org and now found this method works:

1. play video
2. in firefox, right click on page and Inspect Element
3. Click on NETWORK
4. Reload the page at the top near address bar
5. in network inspector, filter URLs m3u8
6. copy the URL of the line with "token" in it
7. paste into notepad... and delete .m3u8 from that URL.
8. copy and paste that url into new tab. Video plays. right click on page/video and choose SAVE AS.

Here's a screencast: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/40832911/Untitled.mp4

This helped me. Using Jdownloader. I used the firefox, tools/Web Developer/Toggle Tools, NETWORK tab, bottom tab "OTHER", then m3u8 filter to find video link with 16x9-720p-720p-3000k m3u8. Right click, copied the link which automatically went to JDownloader to be downloaded as MP4 613MB file.
Final link (https://ga.video.cdn.pbs.org/videos/woodwrights-shop/c75bc242-fd74-4375-8214-f717acf48...20p-3000k.m3u8)
Thanks.
Note: there will be several links in the "NETWORK" box that look like
720p-720p-3000k.m3u8
720p-234p-145k.m3u8
720p-540p-2000k.m3u8
720p-432p-1100k.m3u8
720p-360p-730k.m3u8
720p-270p-365k.m3u8
these are the different qualities/sized videos that have different download sizes. I assume ONLY the ones with green dots besides them work. I got the largest because I can always reprocess it to the size and quality later before archiving it.

Update: I've had the best luck for a show like Woodwrite's Shop with using firefox on my Android tablet. Bring up the video and long touch the screen and a list of options come up, share, save media etc. selecting save media I downloaded the video in a small size mp4, (79.5MB).

[TobiasFunke]

Hey all,

New here. Can anyone please recommend the most effective way to circumvent the region / country issues with playing the content on the PBS website? -- once I have this resolved, I hope to able to "backup" the videos as per the suggestions in this forum.

(Particularly interested in http://www.pbs.org/video/noel-cowards-present-laughter-shezqb/)

Thank you in advance !

P.S.
Is there also any way to bypass videos that seem to be expired? (or that are marked as soon to be such?)

[TexTech]

Hey all,

New here. Can anyone please recommend the most effective way to circumvent the region / country issues with playing the content on the PBS website? -- once I have this resolved, I hope to able to "backup" the videos as per the suggestions in this forum.

(Particularly interested in http://www.pbs.org/video/noel-cowards-present-laughter-shezqb/)

Thank you in advance !

P.S.
Is there also any way to bypass videos that seem to be expired? (or that are marked as soon to be such?)

Use a VPN to bypass regional restrictions. Many are free. Read up on VPN use. Some are predatory. I use ZPN.

[TobiasFunke]

Use a VPN to bypass regional restrictions. Many are free. Read up on VPN use. Some are predatory. I use ZPN.

Thanks! Will do. Hope I'll figure it out. Cheers !