Can't download videos reliably.

[Andy Roberts]

In the last couple of weeks, I've had trouble with a vimeo site. The strange thing is that I have several machines, Mac, Win10 & 11 and linux and they're all acting the same, so it's not my systems. The videos all seemed scrambled, the audio usually is okay but the video stops and start, completely out of sync with the audio. I thought that the site engineers had done something, but I a tried HitPaw trial, (Aaaaahhh!!) and it worked perfectly. Unfortunately the Vimeo site is a payed art site, so it can't be tested by anybody without a sub. I'd be grateful for any suggestions.  

[mjs]

Are the videos on Vimeo website itself or are they embedded on another site. And are you referring to the video playing too fast like it is on fast forward and the audio plays at normal speed. I usually suggest to try every video resolution that vdh lists but maybe this doesn't help either.

[John Taylor]

Videos on Vimeo are stored onsite there. I upload videos to Vimeo for an organization I do part time work with.

Vimeo keeps the original resolution as much as possible.  This group does pay for sharing videos there as they are secured by an access code for paying members.  If the resolution is extremely high Vimeo may lower the resolution a little. Otherwise they play back in the original resolution uploaded on Vimeo.

JT

[Wild Willy]

But the question is, John, how does VDH do with those videos?

[John Taylor]

Not sure I understand what you asking Wild Willy. On the paid accounts they hold them till you run out of space.

The playback is excellent in my opinion. The group I work with run a film festival where people pay good money to see these videos. Now the normal download function on Vimeo is turned off for this group to preserve copyright and distribution rights. They are set to a private mode.

I have watched things on Vimeo where you could just click the download button and save them but if it is not set to allow downloads then VDH may not see them. I don't know how they lock the download function.

JT

[Wild Willy]

I was wondering if VDH could download the stuff you put on Vimeo, Even if the usual
download button Vimeo sometimes offers isn't there, what does VDH do when you try to
download the content? Is it protected by DRM? To determine that, turn off DRM support
in the browser & see if the content still plays on the web page. If it does play, it's
not protected by DRM & VDH should download it. We've had several threads lately dealing
with Vimeo content that VDH can't download. Just search the group for those threads.
There's also possibly issues if you're on some second site that contains an embedded
video that is sourced from Vimeo. That may or may not cause an additional layer of
problems. I have successfully downloaded content from Vimeo with VDH. I have also been
unsuccessful downloading other content from Vimeo with VDH. When there have been
problems, I'm usually able to circumvent those by mining what I see in the Network
Monitor of the browser. Sometimes I can just open the video by double clicking its entry
in the Network Monitor. It goes in a new browser tab. Then I use the browser function
for downloading the content. Sometimes I can find a manifest & download the video with
ffmpeg. But I haven't come across any DRM-protected content. I'm not saying there isn't
any, I just haven't hit any of it. It sounds like there's a good chance your content is
protected by DRM, in which case no tool is going to download it. But it might instead be
the case that for one of your logged in users, VDH will have no problem with the content.
I'm assuming that you, as the provider of the content, are able to log in like one of
your users & try this. It's not really important whether Vimeo offers the download
button. Can VDH download it even when the button isn't there?

[Andy Roberts]

Thanks for your comments. Unfortunately, I'm not very tech minded, so a lot of comments went over my head. I don't think the videos are DRMed because I downloaded one using HitPad, which was perfect. Also, I've downloaded 10s of videos from this site in the past. Something must have changed.

[Wild Willy]

It's possible something has changed. I don't use Vimeo often enough to have observed
that myself. It's also possible they are simply inconsistent. YouTube is certainly
inconsistent &, if I'm not mistaken, Vimeo is owned by either YouTube or Google, which
also owns YouTube. So similarities to YouTube would not be surprising. If it ever comes
down to a situation in which you absolutely have to have something on Vimeo & the only
way to get it is one of the alternatives we've posted about recently, you'll get as
tech-minded as you need to in order to get your content. It's not all that complicated.
You just haven't tried it yet. You'll discover you're not giving yourself enough credit
when it comes to being tech-minded. You might do well to search this forum for recent
threads dealing with Vimeo. Read what's been posted. You'll probably learn some things
that will come in handy.

As for DRM, I would expect very little of what's on Vimeo is protected by DRM. It just
seemed that since the content John puts up there is accessible only to people with
certain login credentials, that content might be protected by DRM, hence my question to
him about that.

[Andy Roberts]

Thanks, I'll plough through this site for a clue.

[Grzegorz Toma]

Hello

For a few days I have also had a problem with downloading videos from Vimeo, all downloaded videos are not smooth (the picture does not match the sound)

[mjs]

Andy you didn't answer my questions, do want to be stuck with the problem or do want to fix it. I'm asking are downloaded videos playing too

Fast , and are you on Vimeo.com  or are the videos embedded on another website.

Same questions for you Grzegorz , can you answer them.

[Wild Willy]

Look.  Guys.  You need to offer proper problem reports.  I know you have all visited this page:

But you have been careless.  Sloppy.  Inattentive.  Here, let me draw your attention to what you should have noticed without my rubbing your noses in it:

There is no possibility that you can't understand that.  Read it & do what it says.

Here's what a proper problem report looks like:

I'm on Windows 7 64-bit, Firefox 104.0.2 64-bit, licensed VDH 7.6.3a6 beta, CoApp 1.6.3.

I'm having a problem with this video: https://vimeo.com/something/something/something.

Two lines.  That's all it takes.  I would have thought it wouldn't be necessary to even say that little bit that's on the home page of this forum.  But so few people posting here pay any attention.  They figure they will describe their problem the way they see it & they dance around telling us what we need to know.  Those 2 lines are what we need to know.  Once you have given us that, then you can offer further details of what you are observing & how it differs from what you think you should be observing.  But we need a proper problem report before we can offer any meaningful help.

While I'm here, let me make you pay attention to this thread:

https://groups.google.com/g/video-downloadhelper-q-and-a/c/39_tUWjISN8

Click that.  Read it.  Do what it says.