Wrongly downloaded video

[Johnny]

Hi,

I've noticed not long ago that the downloaded videos were laggy and become muted after a while.

Now I experienced similar issue on another site, the downloaded video is crap, I can't see anything in it.

It is the first video from this page: https://www.agencyscalingsecrets.com/bts

I have premium license and tried to use both the browser and the companion app, downloading smaller size, same results.

Haven't tried to change any other settings as I don't know what they mean.

Browser: Brave 1.61.100, Chromium 120.0.6099.62

Os: Sonoma 14.2 on Mac M2

Thanks for your help.

[Wild Willy]

Just to be complete, I am running Windows 11 Pro 23H2 64-bit, Firefox 120.0.1 64-bit, VDH
8.1.0.0a9 beta, CoApp 2.0.10 64-bit for non-Windows 7.

I went to your web page & got VDH to download the 1280x720 variant that appeared on the
VDH menu after I clicked play on the video then paused it after a couple of seconds.
This was a regular download, not a Side Download. VDH did not recognize any content that
it could download via Side Download. The download completed without incident. But
despite the file claiming to be an mp4 with both video & audio, it actually had only
audio. I also noted that the VDH menu identified the content as being DASH. This is a
clue that VDH is going to fail on this content. Not a guaranteed clue, but very often a
warning that you are not going to get VDH to work on the site. In this case, the warning
applied.

So then I applied the ideas explained in great detail over here:

https://groups.google.com/g/video-downloadhelper-q-and-a/c/sNfTCMYfiTU

After letting the video play in the web page for a couple of seconds, the Network Monitor
did not display any HLS master manifest (m3u8) nor any DASH master manifest (mpd). So it
was time to drop back 5 & throw a screen pass. There was a json listed with the name
master. I grabbed the URL for that json & pasted it into my text editor. Twice. On the
first paste, I changed the file name from .json to .m3u8. On the second paste, I changed
the file name from .json to .mpd. I then ran those 2 modified URLs through ffprobe. You
can see the results in the attached file ffprobe.txt. There was HLS information but no
DASH information. OK. That's what we're working with.

Using that HLS information, I downloaded this video with ffmpeg. You can see the results
of that in the attached file Agency BTS mp4 Log.txt. The downloaded video played fine in
VLC with both video & audio. The video wasn't very interesting. It wasn't the usual
sort of video. It was more like a slide show presentation consisting of the subtitles of
what the guy was saying. I didn't sit & watch the thing, just sampled it at intervals to
make sure it was complete.

This web site is presenting its content in a non-standard way. At least, it doesn't
conform to the standard that VDH uses. That means you are not going to successfully
download this content with VDH. Will you ever be able to? I don't know. I don't work
for VDH. I'm just another user. I was able to get this content using the improvisatory
approach explained in the thread whose URL I cite above.

So you have a choice. You can shrug your shoulders & give up because VDH does not
correctly download this content & there is no predicting when or even if VDH will ever
successfully download this content. Alternatively, you can go back to school & read that
thread whose URL I cite above. Learn how to use ffmpeg & you will be able to get this
content & other similar content from this site & many others. The choice is yours.

[Paul]

Thanks.

These are Vimeo embedded media.

We are doing some work on that front at the moment, in the hope of getting better result soon.

I hope to get that fixed with the version 8.2 of VideoDownload Helper.

[Johnny]

Awesome!

Thank you for your detailed answer, I highly appreciate it! 🙏