Freevine - A downloader for free streaming services (discontinued)

[pooksahib]

You will need install Requirements

Thank you, iamghost, that's got me over that hurdle.

"Create `/utils/wvd/` folder and place either .wvd file or private_key and client_id blob inside" Does that mean creating a new folder (named wvd) inside the EXISTING utils folder? I can easily copy my client/blob into it but I'm still curious about the .wvd file (mentioned in the github Requirements list but not hyperlinked). What is it and where does one get it? Continued thanks.

[deccavox]

You will need install Requirements

"Create `/utils/wvd/` folder and place either .wvd file or private_key and client_id blob inside" Does that mean creating a new folder (named wvd) inside the EXISTING utils folder?

Yes, exactly that. Then put your private_key and client_id blob inside that. Then download something. That will auto create a wvd file within that wvd folder. Then job's a good'n.
Unless told to do otherwise, whenever a new version of freevine comes along, I simply copy that \wvd folder to the new \utils folder. So, you only need to to it the once.

[pooksahib]

Hi deccavox, nice to see you again and thanks for the assist. I was able to download from itv but with channel4 I got an error "required credentials were not found". That led me to the 'profile' command which I hope was accepted OK (the cmd screen just went straight to a new prompt). The password for channel4 is your email address. I then attempted a download from channel4 but nothing happened except an immediate jump to a new prompt.

Pic attached. Can anyone suggest what my issue is? Many thanks.

[LastResort]

you need to be registered with channel4 (4od)... once registered with an email address and username these will be your own personal credentials.
These are required for your profile.

https://www.channel4.com/sign-in-or-register

[deccavox]

I know this has nothing to do with freevine in particular, but I'd like to share a little trick I've been using for a few months now. When you're using venv's, especially when you've got lots of them all with different names, I always find it's a PITA to remember the activation script of 'name_of_venv\scripts\activate' and it also takes time to type it.

So, I created a little batch script to do it (I am Windows). My venv name for freevine is 'fvine_venv':
Open Notepad, copy into it:

cmd /k ".\fvine_venv\scripts\activate"

save it as a bat file (mine's called 'activate_venv.bat') in the folder that your working version of freevine is in.


Now, to both open a cmd box and activate the venv, simply double click that bat file. Simples

[stabbedbybrick]

All right, the sync issues for Pluto have been mostly fixed. I say mostly, because while I haven't found any issues when testing, it wouldn't be Pluto if something wasn't broken so I assume it's not perfect. But for the episodes mentioned here, like "Three's Company" and "Gunsmoke", they all seem perfectly fine.

One note: The parsing of the streams is a bit slower because N_m3u8DL-RE is fetching the keys for each segment before download starts. But I assume the few extra seconds is worth it to get synced videos.

[Spectrumhsm]

you need to be registered with channel4 (4od)... once registered with an email address and username these will be your own personal credentials.
These are required for your profile.

https://www.channel4.com/sign-in-or-register

It looks like two posts above followed the rule except --service "All4"

Usage: freevine.py profile [OPTIONS]

Create a profile with user credentials for a service

This will create a profile.yaml in service folder, which stores credentials
and cache data.

Options:
-u, --username TEXT Add profile username for a service [required]
-p, --password TEXT Add profile password for a service [required]
-s, --service TEXT Set service to be used with credentials [required]
--help Show this message and exit.


freevine.py profile --username "USERNAME" --password "PASSWORD" --service "All4"

It should create profile.yaml file.

Thanks.

[littleslayer15]

I was able to use this without a private_key and client_id blob. Do either of those do anything important, or are they just necessary for some websites?

[Tom Saurus]

All right, the sync issues for Pluto have been mostly fixed. I say mostly, because while I haven't found any issues when testing, it wouldn't be Pluto if something wasn't broken so I assume it's not perfect. But for the episodes mentioned here, like "Three's Company" and "Gunsmoke", they all seem perfectly fine.

One note: The parsing of the streams is a bit slower because N_m3u8DL-RE is fetching the keys for each segment before download starts. But I assume the few extra seconds is worth it to get synced videos.

Thank you very much and a few extra seconds is well worth it to have much less of a chance of sync issues. I look forward to testing it out on "Gunsmoke" episodes. The "Gunsmoke" episodes are all the correct length so have not been edited for time. The snyc issues I noticed were quite a frustration.

[SB47x]

I was able to use this without a private_key and client_id blob. Do either of those do anything important, or are they just necessary for some websites?

Not all sites use DRM, and not all videos on a site that does use DRM are necessarily using it.

If it downloads and plays properly from the site without having the key and client id set up, you're fine.

[pooksahib]

It looks like two posts above followed the rule except --service "All4" [as opposed to "Channel4"]

This was weird... I re-entered the 'profile' command using "All4" and then tried downloading a Channel4 show. Both times the cmd screen just went straight to awaiting a new command. I then tried to d/l an itv show (which I'd successfully done earlier in the day). Same thing! Suddenly, I can't d/l anything.

I don't know what made me do it but I opened the freevine.py file with Notepad (which I'd done at the outset and was surprised at how little text it contained!). This time the file was completely blank. How the contents got deleted, I have no idea but after downloading a fresh copy of freevine.py my Channel4 credentials have been acknowledged and I've successfully downloaded a programme from both itv and C4. Happy days. This 'all-in-one' script is very good - well done, stabbedbybrick.

Out of curiosity, I see from the profile.yaml file: "expiry: 2024-01-10 00:08:29.528000" Does that mean you've to enter credentials every day? Even though you're always logged in at Channel4?

Thanks, Spectrumhsm, for your assist.

[stabbedbybrick]

Out of curiosity, I see from the profile.yaml file: "expiry: 2024-01-10 00:08:29.528000" Does that mean you've to enter credentials every day? Even though you're always logged in at Channel4?

No, it's only needed once. The token gets refreshed automatically.

[eday_2010]

It looks like a lot of stuff on CTV.ca and CBC Gem require you to sign in to watch. Is this considered premium content? It does not cost anything to create an account and am wondering if it's possible to download shows that I can watch for free once I am signed in.

[pauli3]

It looks like a lot of stuff on CTV.ca and CBC Gem require you to sign in to watch. Is this considered premium content? It does not cost anything to create an account and am wondering if it's possible to download shows that I can watch for free once I am signed in.

Both free to make accounts isnt premium. Exception with CTV that some content is 'locked' without an account, and to download it with a free account you need a bearer token, which isnt implemented in freevine sadly.

[eday_2010]

It looks like a lot of stuff on CTV.ca and CBC Gem require you to sign in to watch. Is this considered premium content? It does not cost anything to create an account and am wondering if it's possible to download shows that I can watch for free once I am signed in.

Both free to make accounts isnt premium. Exception with CTV that some content is 'locked' without an account, and to download it with a free account you need a bearer token, which isnt implemented in freevine sadly.

I understand the that locked content requiring a bearer token or sign-in through your TV provider is beyond the scope of freevine. I wasn't expecting CBC Gem to work because you have to sign in to watch anything but it just works. I don't know if it's because I am signed in to the site through my browser or not, but I am very pleased with this.

[stabbedbybrick]

As far as I can tell, a standard free CTV account makes no difference at all in what shows you can access compared to no account. Its only function is to be able to keep track of your watch list and stuff. Anything that is locked requires an account with a TV subscription, which I assume would break the rules of this forum? I honestly don't know.

CBC Gem works because I've added a burner account to the settings, which is used to sign in. This will change soon to let users set their own credentials similar to Channel4.

[Grimbarian]

I know this has nothing to do with freevine in particular, but I'd like to share a little trick I've been using for a few months now. When you're using venv's, especially when you've got lots of them all with different names, I always find it's a PITA to remember the activation script of 'name_of_venv\scripts\activate' and it also takes time to type it.

So, I created a little batch script to do it (I am Windows). My venv name for freevine is 'fvine_venv':
Open Notepad, copy into it:

cmd /k ".\fvine_venv\scripts\activate"

save it as a bat file (mine's called 'activate_venv.bat') in the folder that your working version of freevine is in.


Now, to both open a cmd box and activate the venv, simply double click that bat file. Simples

I tend to keep my venvs inside the folder of each app/script/whatnot, but for Freevine I have a little powershell command which automatically runs the venv and also has "python freevine.py get --episode" typed into the prompt for me so all I need to do is paste the URL of a new episode as that's my general usage, each morning grabbing the previous night's episodes of various things, if you want to try it the batch file I use is:

@echo off
cd D:\Videos\freevine\Scripts
call activate.bat
cd D:\Videos\freevine\
start powershell -NoExit -Command "$host.UI.RawUI.FlushInputBuffer(); $shell = New-Object -ComObject 'WScript.Shell'; $shell.SendKeys('python freevine.py get --episode ');"

Obviously you'd need to change the path to wherever you have Freevine and your venv scripts

For me it's saved as Run_Freevine.bat and when I double click that it shows:


[Attachment 76141 - Click to enlarge]

(the other advantage of this method is for whatever reason it remembers every command you have typed in previously so you can just use the up arrow key to scroll back through previous commands)

[stabbedbybrick]

Yup, Powershell is what I'd recommend to Windows users. Specifically, Powershell 7 with Windows Terminal. It's got better character support, command history, improved scripting language, and my favorite: the ability to easily set up aliases with chained commands just like on Linux.

By typing "freevine", I can cd into that folder and activate the environment.
By typing "backup folder_name", I can backup a given folder to an external HDD.
By typing "venv 3.10", I can create a new .venv using python 3.10.
By typing "all4 episode", you could run the entire list of set arguments and access whatever is in your clipboard to initiate a download.

And so on... Super useful time savers.

[Grimbarian]

Yup, Powershell is what I'd recommend to Windows users. Specifically, Powershell 7 with Windows Terminal. It's got better character support, command history, improved scripting language, and my favorite: the ability to easily set up aliases with chained commands just like on Linux.

By typing "freevine", I can cd into that folder and activate the environment.
By typing "backup folder_name", I can backup a given folder to an external HDD.
By typing "venv 3.10", I can create a new .venv using python 3.10.
By typing "all4 episode", you could run the entire list of set arguments and access whatever is in your clipboard to initiate a download.

And so on... Super useful time savers.

Oh wow I didn't know any of that stuff! Definitely need to explore more with it, thanks for the tips!

[sipho]

Continuing with this batch file part of the thread, I have a batch file that activates the venv. To make this more useful I created a shortcut to it and then pinned that shortcut to my Taskbar. All I need to do is click on the Taskbar icon and the command window is opened & venv activated waiting for my command.

Typing out the first part of the freevine command isn't actually that tedious.

In the venv, just type 'f' then press tab and then -e or -m or -t or whatever. This works for 1.0.6 of course.

I like the idea from @Grimbarian so it should be dead easy to create Taskbar icons for each different type of download.

freevine.py get -e
freevine.py get -m
freevine.py get -s

etc, etc.

The one nice thing about having a Taskbar icon is that it's super convenient to open up multiple windows of freevine, then either queue them up with various downloads or perform parallel downloads. Stabby's recent addition of using a file populated with various command does make this a bit redundant but I still use multiple windows when I'm searching for movies to download. Saves me first getting all the URLs then adding them all to a file. Whilst the first download is busy muxing I can start downloading in the next open session.

[stabbedbybrick]

Oh wow I didn't know any of that stuff! Definitely need to explore more with it, thanks for the tips!

Yeah, it's extremely useful for all system functions. For example, if you're using a VPN that comes with CLI functionality, I'd highly recommend setting it up so you can connect wherever you want with an alias. Like if I type in "uk", it will automatically connect to a server in my "UK" server list that I know works for a particular streaming service. Or by using "ffx" it'll split the tunnel and open up a fresh Firefox instance outside of the active tunnel.

With the improved terminal, WSL, and package managers like winget, chocolatey and scoop, the transition from Linux to Windows 11 hasn't been bad at all in terms of programming.

[LastResort]

Hi Chaps,....
Seeking some wisdom..
I've been trying a few vpn's that allow free trials,... first is with cyberghost, and in particular ABC iview,....
(even tried changing my time to allow for any problems)...
but this is all i keep getting:

16:46:20.959 ←[4m←[32mINFO←[0m : ←[1mABC iView←[0m
16:46:22.639 ←[4m←[32mINFO←[0m : The Search For The Palace Letters

⠙ Getting media info...16:46:24.481 ←[4m←[31mERROR←[0m : Unable to parse manifest. Possible VPN/proxy detection

cyberghost has 3 AU locations and i tried all of them and all had the same response. Advice would be very much appreciated.
Seems this would work,... but is it due to ABC iview having very good detection.

p.s. decided to create an account,... with an oz post code,.... registered fine,.... can log in via chrome, tried to view a programme and a large pic popped up saying unable to view from outsize of oz due to restrictions. Oddly, i was able to grab the vtt subs with stream detector. tried all different settings within cyberghost but none of them would allow viewing.

[billybanana]

Hi Chaps,....
Seeking some wisdom..
and in particular ABC iview,....

I'm in Oz. I use Privado VPN (comes as part of DNSfor4me) to access stuff that gives me issues. Experiment 1, so I connected to the US to deliberately break iView and got the "We apologise, due to rights restrictions this show is currently unavailable outside Australia." as expected.

Next configured the Hola proxy that stabby included as an option from v1.1.0+ and was successfully able to download an episode using the AU proxy with this command

freevine.py get --episode  s01e01 https://iview.abc.net.au/show/grand-designs-transformations --proxy AU

Are you using the latest version and have you tried the proxy ?

[billybanana]

BTW @stabbedbybrick I see you have added some more services since 1.1.1. Are you wrapping these into a new version soon ? I've been fiddling around with TV4Play - nice addition, they have some good stuff - took me a while to figure out how to use the cookies file but now it's working nicely.

[Grimbarian]

Next configured the Hola proxy that stabby included as an option from v1.1.0+ and was successfully able to download an episode using the AU proxy with this command

freevine.py get --episode  s01e01 https://iview.abc.net.au/show/grand-designs-transformations --proxy AU

Are you using the latest version and have you tried the proxy ?

I tried pulling the Hola git into the Freevine directory and I tried downloading hola-proxy.windows-amd64.exe but wasn't really sure where to put it so I ended up with:


[Attachment 76176 - Click to enlarge]

If there was any instruction how to properly setup and/or use Hola I must have missed it sorry!

[billybanana]

I tried pulling the Hola git into the Freevine directory and I tried downloading hola-proxy.windows-amd64.exe but wasn't really sure where to put it so I ended up with:

Rename the file to "hola-proxy.exe" and keep that in your main Freevine directory as you have said. That part of it wasn't crystal clear to me, so I just played around until it recognized the file. You only need that single file BTW not all the GitHub stuff.

[Grimbarian]

I tried pulling the Hola git into the Freevine directory and I tried downloading hola-proxy.windows-amd64.exe but wasn't really sure where to put it so I ended up with:

Rename the file to "hola-proxy.exe" and keep that in your main Freevine directory as you have said. That part of it wasn't crystal clear to me, so I just played around until it recognized the file.

You're a star thank you! Between my three SmartDNS I can usually get everything I need but having the proxy option working is a good backup!

[stabbedbybrick]

BTW @stabbedbybrick I see you have added some more services since 1.1.1. Are you wrapping these into a new version soon ? I've been fiddling around with TV4Play - nice addition, they have some good stuff - took me a while to figure out how to use the cookies file but now it's working nicely.

Yeah, they'll be a part of the next release. Which should be released pretty soon, I think. I still have some improved functionality to add before pushing a new version.

Nice to hear the cookies are working for you. They can be a great alternative to having to reverse engineer the entire login process.

[LastResort]

Hi Chaps,....
Seeking some wisdom..
and in particular ABC iview,....

I'm in Oz. I use Privado VPN (comes as part of DNSfor4me) to access stuff that gives me issues. Experiment 1, so I connected to the US to deliberately break iView and got the "We apologise, due to rights restrictions this show is currently unavailable outside Australia." as expected.

Next configured the Hola proxy that stabby included as an option from v1.1.0+ and was successfully able to download an episode using the AU proxy with this command

freevine.py get --episode  s01e01 https://iview.abc.net.au/show/grand-designs-transformations --proxy AU

Are you using the latest version and have you tried the proxy ?

I'm still using 1.1.0.... and I have not tried --proxy
I thought maybe ExpressVPN might be a good vpn to try, but they want money up front and one can trial it for 30 days. That's not really a trial, that's them taking money, for a product that is heavily advertised. Almost every website that I looked at that i thought was nothing to do with ExpressVPN was just another website designed to advertise their product. I asked their "Bot" how I could get my money back if the product did not work, the reply was "easy, just email us". My reply was, "No human, no cash". the 2 that I am tempted to trial are proton or windscribe. but I will try that --proxy first and see what happens.

[iamghost]

--proxy US work with the roku channel without VPN.
but --proxy dont work with search, hope it add to search so we can find video from therokuchannel.com