videos not detected

[samuel beaulieu]

Website is

https://video.telequebec.tv/player/28704/stream?assetType=episodes

Windows, firefox with VdhCoApp 1.6.3

[Wild Willy]

You are correct. VDH detects nothing on this site even after you launch playback. I
can't explain why. I landed on this one:

https://video.telequebec.tv/player/39736/stream?assetType=episodes&playlist_id=190

It seems to be the first episode of a series. I used the usual technique of opening the
Network Monitor & looking for a master manifest. I found one quickly enough & ran it
through ffprobe. I saw there were several choices for video resolution, the highest
being 1280x720. The format of this content is MP4. I used ffmpeg to download the
1280x720 MP4. I also noticed that ffprobe found a stream manifest for subtitles. As
usual, ffprobe gave an error but ffmpeg downloaded the .vtt just fine. I played the
video in VLC & it detected the subtitles, which happened to be in French, which is good
because most of the dialog was spoken rather indistinctly. I'm used to Martin McGuire &
Dany Dubé. The folks in this video weren't speaking at all like Martin & Dany but I
understood the captions just fine. Weird clip. Not my sort of thing but it's always
good to exercise my French.

Anyway, if you are determined to download the content from this site, you can do it with
ffmpeg. I explain how in a tutorial in this discussion group. To find it, start by
clicking this:

https://groups.google.com/g/video-downloadhelper-q-and-a/c/BzPLK2YyL-s

Among the many useful references in there, search for the one that contains "cannot
download" within the text. That will give you the link to the ffmpeg tutorial.

About the master manifest here. It shows 5 Programs. The first 3 Programs consist of a
unique audio Stream & a unique video Stream. The last 2 Programs show unique video
Streams but a common Audio stream. Usually, VDH shows content like this as separate
video & audio that you have to download as 2 separate operations. But VDH shows nothing
at all here. The master manifest doesn't show up until after you launch playback on the
video. Even then, VDH still doesn't recognize anything. I'm using the latest, VDH
7.6.5a3 beta, which is the same as the public release 7.6.6.

I note that the content here is served by site boltdns. This is the same site used by
the Metropolitan Opera. Speaking of whom, I do hope they recover from their recent
cyberattack. They've been down all week. Why would anyone attack an opera company? The
world is full of sickos.

Whoa. Stop the presses. After reloading the telequebec page a couple of times, VDH
finally displayed something. It does look like the separate video & audio deal. So
maybe you just need to load the page, launch playback, reload the page, launch playback
again, & keep doing that until VDH shows you something. It is weird that I didn't see
anything in the VDH menu until after I had given up looking for anything there. But it
seems like a little persistence will get you there. Still, if you want the captions,
you'll have to resort to ffmpeg.

[Wild Willy]

On later retries, I was unable to get VDH to detect anything even after about a dozen
attempts. I don't know how I got VDH to display anything earlier. It seems to have been
just stupid luck because I haven't been able to replicate that result. You're better off
just using ffmpeg here.

[samuel beaulieu]

Thanks for the detailed 'workaround' I have been able to check one. However today trying the same command it seems like the URI isn't working, I wonder if they use dynamic ones that change over time?

I had one question I was able to follow the manifest with 3 audio URI and a few video URI on different resolutions. So I have to download them separately if I understand correctly. Do you have a ffmpeg command handy to then merge the two together?

I was also following your step by step tutorial and I did not see how to use ffprobe (maybe I didn't read all the way through or it is in another tutorial?)

thank you

[Wild Willy]

Ffprobe is really simple:

ffprobe URLofManifest

It gives you the Stream IDs, like 0:0, 0:1, 0:2, etc. They are given in the ffprobe
report. You just take the Stream ID of your desired video track, the Stream ID of your
desired audio track, & put them into -map parameters of the ffmpeg command. Let's say
your desired video track is identified by ffprobe as Stream 0:8 & your desired audio
track as Stream 0:6. Then your command will look like this:

ffmpeg ffmpegparms -i URLofManifest -codec: copy -map 0:8 -map 0:6 filenameonyoursystem

That will give you an output file that includes both a video track & an audio track. One
download, no merging needed afterward, If you want the captions, that is a separate
download, typically using a different manifest. The captions manifest URL will appear in
your ffprobe report for the master manifest. That is, IF there are captions. There may
not be. Each video could be different. But you don't code -codec: copy to download
captions. There are people who would say you can include the captions in the same file
with the video & audio. I recommend against that. VLC can play captions from a separate
file. Plus, if the captions are in their own file, you can edit the captions to correct
them if you notice any errors. Captions files are just plain text. You can edit them
with Notepad. If you're going to edit captions frequently, there are caption editors out
there, including free ones. Just Google them.

You need to look at the ffprobe report to determine whether the video is mp4, mkv, webm,
whatever. I give some examples in the ffmpeg tutorial of how to determine the type of
video being described in the manifest. Once you determine the type of input, you must
name the output file with the right extension. Calling it .mp4 is not always correct.
On the one video I looked at on this site, it was mp4. But that doesn't mean everything
on the site is mp4. You have to make the decision about the output file type in each
case.

On the subject of URLs, it is common for the URLs of manifests to include information
that connects the video to your session. It allows the server to send the content to
you. Typically, these URLs expire, and the expiration information is often carried in
the URLs as well. This information is held cryptically in the long strings of gibberish
characters that you'll see in the manifest URLs. You have to get a new manifest URL on
each video you want to download. It is not too unusual to find that you did the ffprobe
to get your information. But by the time you run your ffmpeg command, the information
has expired. In that case, just reload the page & go through the process again.
Reloading the page gets the server to generate a new URL for the manifest. Just do
everything faster. The more you do this, the better you'll get at it & you'll easily do
things fast enough.

[samuel beaulieu]

Super. Again great explanation Willy. I do usually like subtitles however I normally use my Plex and it has an easy way to download the text file for what I am watching. That being said those french shows are harder to get a hit when searching for the subs in Plex so I might download them. The particular link I sent you is the Quebec pre-schooler equivalent of Sesame Street so I most likely won't need them.

thanks again

[Wild Willy]

Sesame Street, you say? When I click the link you gave, I get what you can see in the
attached image. When I click the OK button, it lands me on the page for Entrelacés, so
that's how I got to the page whose URL I included in my first response. In any case, I'm
glad you read my ffmpeg tutorial & understood it. I have not had a lot of feedback from
people who have tried to learn ffmpeg so I appreciate your efforts here.

[Wild Willy]

Also, you should search this forum for a thread with "stealth quoting" as its title.
There's something worth learning in there.