N_m3u8DL-RE Tutorial

[Subtitles]

This forum has several members who are real experts in video streaming and downloading.
I find it strange that till now there is no easy tutorial for someone who wants to have a basic knowledge about how downloading works.
This tutorial should have no more than few pages and closed to keep it clean from comments, but updated occasionally when there are any changes.

A good tutorial should include the definition of some basic terminolgies such as:
mpd
urn
uuid
cenc
pssh
kid
key
licence (which seems to be the most difficult parameter to find)
dash
and many other terms that any expert knows by heart what they mean.

Also the different types of streaming encoding used by the different websites.

And the different types of sotware used and their download links. Give an example of how to download a video using each software, from start to finish.

The stikies we have today are nice to have, but don't expect a newbie to go through tens of pages and have a really clear picture in his head. They just add to the confusion. Too much information there.

It would be nice if our experts can take the time to discuss between themselves what is really relevant to include in such tutorial.

I can understand it if you are too busy to write such a tutorial, and just tell the requester "read the stikies and come back" or give the key without explaining how you got it, then this also very helpful on your part and greatly appreciated naturally.
Thank you for your time.

[Subtitles]

I found this excellent site for the terminologies
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/playready/
and a pdf file of ONLY 313 pages at the bottom. Need to click on it to download it.
I suppose knowing how encoding works is the first step in knowing how to decrypt.
Still, a tutorial (in the stikies) of few pages can be much appreciated

[Karoolus]

Just no

If you want to learn, all good, the information is on here. And if you want it bad enough, you will put in the effort. Do you think that the experts you mention, just woke up one day with all the knowledge? No, they did the work and put in the time. Why would they expect any less of you or anyone else who comes here asking questions?

If you try and fail, show your progress and ask for help. I'm sure they will gladly help you push on, but at least you tried something! Most people here have no idea how this all works yet expect a "one-size-fits-all" solution which is simply not possible.
You mention that the license server is the hardest to find, I strongly disagree. I recognize it quite easily but that is due to experience. Nobody can tell you beforehand what to look for on a certain website. You just have to try and find it. It's easy enough, but once again, you need to do it to learn. No amount of written tutorials will make sure you know how to swim when you are thrown in the deep end.


Tldr:
Read the stickies, no matter how many pages, the answers are out there.
Ask questions when you hit a wall.
Don't expect to be spoonfed, it won't work that way. You still wouldn't understand.

[Subtitles]

Wow such a strong reaction.
I hope you won't mind if I write the tutorial myself, once I figure out few things.

[A_n_g_e_l_a]

Wow such a strong reaction.
I hope you won't mind if I write the tutorial myself, once I figure out few things.

That's exactly what I did. Good luck. You might start your reading for your tutorial here from the heading 'Decryption' and here Suggest you read it all.

I look forward to your exposition.

[Subtitles]

Wow such a strong reaction.
I hope you won't mind if I write the tutorial myself, once I figure out few things.

That's exactly what I did. Good luck. You might start your reading for your tutorial here from the heading 'Decryption' and here Suggest you read it all.

I look forward to your exposition.

Thanks a lot A_n_g_e_l_a, especially for your contributions to this forum.
What I have in mind is to put myself in the shoes of newbies and write a simple tutorial which includes basic knowledge, so that they can understand things in the simplest possible way.
If that means spoonfeeding, then I am happy to contribute a little to this world hunger for knowledge.

[Karoolus]

Wow such a strong reaction.
I hope you won't mind if I write the tutorial myself, once I figure out few things.

I didn't mean it in a bad way. It's just: the information you seek is already here. There is no one size fits all, as I said.
Angela posted a couple threads that contain most of the knowledge you need, you should start there.

[Subtitles]

Wow such a strong reaction.
I hope you won't mind if I write the tutorial myself, once I figure out few things.

I didn't mean it in a bad way. It's just: the information you seek is already here. There is no one size fits all, as I said.
Angela posted a couple threads that contain most of the knowledge you need, you should start there.

No worries mate. I appreciate your contributions as well.
Yes you are right the information is there, but I wanted to see something that is kind of basics.
That link I posted above is really a mine of knowledge, especially with regards to encryption.

[Karoolus]

Wow such a strong reaction.
I hope you won't mind if I write the tutorial myself, once I figure out few things.

I didn't mean it in a bad way. It's just: the information you seek is already here. There is no one size fits all, as I said.
Angela posted a couple threads that contain most of the knowledge you need, you should start there.

No worries mate. I appreciate your contributions as well.
Yes you are right the information is there, but I wanted to see something that is kind of basics.
That link I posted above is really a mine of knowledge, especially with regards to encryption.

I haven't checked the page, but from the URL it seems to be PlayReady. I don't think there is a public way to get PR keys.

[stabbedbybrick]

The intention is nice, but it's kind of a wasted effort in my opinion. The stickies are already pretty beginner friendly and act as a solid springboard into further research. Simplifying it will only benefit the ones who are unwilling to do any work on their own. And in my experience, you will never satisfy these people. You could spend days writing the most simple guide with big, bold letters and even video tutorials, and it'll never be simple enough. You have to set the baseline somewhere and let some of the work fall on the reader. If they read through the stickies and posts in the forum and come back with questions, I think many of us are more than willing to help. But it's very clear that many don't even try before demanding answers. And if there's one trait in people I can't stand, it's laziness. If they're also acting entitled, I'd rather stab them with the spoon than feeding them anything.

Instead of rewriting what's already been written, I feel like it'd more beneficial to expand on some topics. Like Pywidevine, for example. Most tools utilize Python with the pywidevine module, but how does it work? Many people seem to think that WKS-keys is the tool, when in reality it's nothing but an extremely basic framework. The actual tool is pywidevine, whether it's the portable version in WKS, or the pip version in TPD, VT, or whatever. They all share the same backbone. If you ever want to create or adapt scripts, or you're having issues with license requests, this is where you need to look. What the hell is a challenge? How do you parse a license response? How do you interpret error messages? These are the things I would've found incredibly useful when I first started out. Mostly everything else is easily researched on here or Google, but information on how to "talk" to the license server is not as easy to find.

Either way, go ahead and write a guide if you want to. It might just be me who's overly pessimistic.

[Axel Slingerland]

Yes you are right the information is there, but I wanted to see something that is kind of basics.

This is just my uneducated opinion on the subject. Instead of writing a "manual" that essentially already exists, how about writing a "Dictionary of Technical Lingo for Beginners of Downloading"? I read those tutorials and with my coma scrambled brain, I might as well be reading a foreign language. It may seem simple to the people who wrote all that, but it like reading a book on how to speak Italian that's written in Italian. If you knew how to speak Italian you wouldn't need such a book.

Examples: What is Widevine? What is an mpd? What is muxing? What is xstreamdl? There are countless words that you could explain. IF you know what they mean...

What does it all mean, Mr. Natural? It don't mean sheeit without a translation.

[phased]

Examples: What is Widevine? What is an mpd? What is muxing? What is xstreamdl? There are countless words that you could explain. IF you know what they mean...

What does it all mean, Mr. Natural? It don't mean sheeit without a translation.

[Attachment 86835 - Click to enlarge]

Look Pal, everyone here has a busy life. You are expected to do the spadework on your own. Everyone with a computer has heard of chatGPT - right? It's free and it answers questions.

[dronem]

As someone who wrote a mini tutorial as part of my own journey, I'm quite sympathetic to the idea of sharing and writing down insights gathered. But as mentioned multiple times, the effort needed to write that kind of extensive compendium which explains everything would be enormous. And also wouldn't be the fix for what you have in mind.

One reason is the complexity. Not in the sense that you have to know that there are a lot of parts involved (which is the case), that you have a lot of relationships between those parts (which is also the case) but mostly that you have emergent properties. Meaning that complex systems often display behaviors or properties which can't be predicted by simply looking at individual components of the system. Therefore in every case which is not totally basic there is the need to have some understanding of all the moving parts.
In my experience a lot of people are really just interested in getting some video. Which is fine, I totally get it that not everyone finds joy in learning how this stuff works and finding the missing parts to achieve a solution. But you really have to understand, that most people here who are "experts" (in quotation marks, because based on PMs I get regarding my HLS post even I would be an expert, which I'm clearly not in this area) have this motivation. And as also mentioned, when you are someone who is perceived as an "expert" you encounter often very demanding behavior from people who clearly did not do the most basic research or really lack the most basic technical skills to manage the tasks at hand.

And besides the fact, that it's just practically impossible to meet the expectancy to be the problem solver for everybody, there is a certain kind of rudeness to it. It's just impossible because you could easily spend your whole time in supporting, explaining and solving the problems of other people. And in my own experience, which is not only a personal one, people are not able to anticipate what they are demanding: Someone else should be obligated to solve their problem (in their leisure time), just based on the fact that they once did the research, learning and acquired the knowledge to solve the problem, what they clearly want to avoid. And as mentioned before, I totally can understand that people are just not interested in this. I'm also not interested in a lot of non-technical stuff, where I'm dependent on the skills and knowledge of people who did the hard work to acquire those. But for whatever reasons it seems way more obvious in non-technical areas, that someone else's skill isn't an entitlement that they solve your problems.
Therefore people are sometimes annoyed when they encounter those expectations, which can seem rude to someone who "just asked". But keep in mind that the annoyed person probably experienced this situation hundreds of times.

Everything said here has been explained in more detail elsewhere. But I wanted to make a point about the more fundamental social factor in this topic and to also take the forum as what it is: A place where you already can find a lot of high quality information, a place to share your own insights and a place where you can encounter people who find joy in supporting you with a well formed problem.

In the sense of defending a forum culture which is in decline since over a decade, read the classic guide How To Ask Questions The Smart Way

All that shouldn't be a case to say "don't write" that tutorial. But I really think you will encounter a lot of the things other people or I mentioned. Like you will have to settle for some kind of baseline about what knowledge to expect from the person reading the tutorial. People seeing this as reason to demand you to solve their problems. Follow-up questions where you will ask yourself "why do you ask this here and not the LLM of your choice" etc.

I would be curious about the tutorial itself and also about what kind of experience you have writing it. I think a post about the shift in perspective - which I would expect - could be interesting and also helpful for people unfamiliar with this kind of forum culture!