Unable to download: Could not get information from media

[Ali]

Hi,

I have purchased the license to download this piece of Video from my university. It is unable to download. Details below:

=====================

Windows 11 22000.795
Google Chrome Version 103.0.5060.134 (Official Build) (64-bit)
Video DownloadHelper Version 7.6.0.0 + Active License
companion app: VdhCoApp 1.6.3

=====================

Error in VDH

=========

Could not get information from media 'Mediasite - Mediasite Channel' from file 'C:\Users\ShzDesktop\Desktop\Mediasite - Mediasite Channel.m2ts'. The file might be corrupted.
{
    "file": "C:\\Users\\ShzDesktop\\Desktop\\Mediasite - Mediasite Channel.m2ts",
    "stat": {
        "dev": 2183958007,
        "mode": 33206,
        "nlink": 1,
        "uid": 0,
        "gid": 0,
        "rdev": 0,
        "blksize": 4096,
        "ino": 8725724278288881,
        "size": 2271763661,
        "blocks": 4437040,
        "atimeMs": 1660119569095.7603,
        "mtimeMs": 1660119558934.0835,
        "ctimeMs": 1660119558934.0835,
        "birthtimeMs": 1660118626219.549,
        "atime": "2022-08-10T08:19:29.096Z",
        "mtime": "2022-08-10T08:19:18.934Z",
        "ctime": "2022-08-10T08:19:18.934Z",
        "birthtime": "2022-08-10T08:03:46.220Z"
    }
}
Exit code: 1
ffprobe version n4.1.5-vdhcoapp Copyright (c) 2007-2020 the FFmpeg developers
  built with gcc 9.3-win32 (GCC) 20200320
  configuration: --cross-prefix=x86_64-w64-mingw32- --sysroot=/usr/x86_64-w64-mingw32/ --extra-ldflags=-static-libgcc --target-os=mingw32 --arch=x86_64 --prefix=/home/mig/git/vdhcoapp/converter/src-build/win/64/converter-build --extra-version=vdhcoapp --extra-cflags=-I/home/mig/git/vdhcoapp/converter/src-build/win/64/deps/include --extra-ldflags='-static-libgcc -L/home/mig/git/vdhcoapp/converter/src-build/win/64/deps/lib -L/home/mig/git/vdhcoapp/converter/src-build/win/64/zlib' --extra-libs=-lpthread --pkg-config=/usr/bin/x86_64-w64-mingw32-pkg-config --enable-shared --enable-gpl --enable-pthreads --disable-w32threads --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopenjpeg --enable-libopus --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis --enable-libvpx --enable-libwebp --enable-libx265 --enable-libxvid --enable-libx264 --enable-libaom --enable-avresample --disable-doc
  libavutil      56. 22.100 / 56. 22.100
  libavcodec     58. 35.100 / 58. 35.100
  libavformat    58. 20.100 / 58. 20.100
  libavdevice    58.  5.100 / 58.  5.100
  libavfilter     7. 40.101 /  7. 40.101
  libavresample   4.  0.  0 /  4.  0.  0
  libswscale      5.  3.100 /  5.  3.100
  libswresample   3.  3.100 /  3.  3.100
  libpostproc    55.  3.100 / 55.  3.100
[mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2 @ 000001dd8ef59dc0] could not find corresponding trex
[mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2 @ 000001dd8ef59dc0] error reading header
C:\Users\ShzDesktop\Desktop\Mediasite - Mediasite Channel.m2ts: Invalid data found when processing input

==============

Link to source:

https://mymedia.leeds.ac.uk/Mediasite/Channel/5f7ac0d7b03d4523b2607fb71f6404d95f/watch/8090b14f62b9483dbbe174d76ca8141b1d

Things I tried:

Executed:

ffprobe.exe -protocol_whitelist file,crypto,data,http,https,tls,tcp "https://man-hsta-ims-ond-source.mediasite.com/MediasiteDeliver/man-mediasite01/leeds/MP4Video/15a501ef-b06b-404a-b925-37eb55e2e340.mp4/manifest(audio_eng=189000,format=m3u8-aapl-isoff,segmentFormat=isoff)?playbackTicket=7974c24ef3a54951b96f28d5f047238b&site=mymedia.leeds.ac.uk"

then

ffmpeg.exe -protocol_whitelist file,crypto,data,http,https,tls,tcp -hwaccel auto -i "https://man-hsta-ims-ond-source.mediasite.com/MediasiteDeliver/man-mediasite01/leeds/MP4Video/15a501ef-b06b-404a-b925-37eb55e2e340.mp4/manifest(audio_eng=189000,format=m3u8-aapl-isoff,segmentFormat=isoff)?playbackTicket=7974c24ef3a54951b96f28d5f047238b&site=mymedia.leeds.ac.uk" -codec: copy -map 0:0 -map 0:0 "Grad.mp4"

Result:

I could only download audio. I want a video with an audio stream in 1 file.

Can you help achieve this?

I followed https://groups.google.com/g/video-downloadhelper-q-and-a/c/XKE0kvBKVDI, I think I am missing something.

Thanks

[mjs]

You used the manifest for the audio only. I saw two other manifests in the developer tools / network , one is video and the other must be

the master manifest. Try the first manifest and see how it goes.

--

A vdh user

[Ali]

I have just downloaded the video manifest. It downloaded 4.37GB of video with no audio. Now I am merging video and audio files using FFmpeg.

There should've been a single command to download both stream and merge. Why couldn't VDH be able to do this?

[Ali]

OK I have merged and got the final result as expected. 

But still, help me with a better downloading these kinds of videos. I have around 12 to download.

[mjs]

> There should've been a single command to download both stream and merge. Why couldn't VDH be able to do this?

Did try the the first manifest, you're making it harder on yourself by using just video & audio manifest separately. The first one in the list will give you video+audio and merge it

together. As good as VDH is unfortunately is doesn't work everywhere on the internet. There will be videos it can't get.

[Ali]

Thanks for the explanation.

Can you give me a sample URL or point me out to the 1st manifest file where video+audio is there? I will try with another video.

Thanks.

[mjs]

If you filter network for manifest there will be three links, the first one I assume is the master manifest while the two below is what you used

which were audio & video only. See how you go on it.

[Ali]

OK! Shall try.

Thanks!

[Wild Willy]

Clearly, you know more than the average user.  You've given a complete problem description & you apparently know all about ffmpeg.  Such a welcome deviation from the norm around here.

I went to your site & found the separate audio & video to download with VDH.  They were way down at the bottom of the VDH menu, which I had to scroll down several screenloads to find.  This shows the 2 VDH downloads in progress.  It also shows the HLS manifest.  It turns out the manifest is the only manifest.  It consists of just a single Program consisting of one video Stream & one audio Stream.  There aren't multiple resolutions on offer here.  The Network Monitor shows the manifest, which I suppose is by default the master manifest, and the 2 stream manifests, one for video, one for audio, which is easy to guess from their naming convention.  This is rather an unusual site.  Normally, I filter on .m3u8 with the leading period.  But I had to remove the leading period to get these manifests to appear.  It turns out they don't name their files with .m3u8 as a file extension.  At least they included m3u8 somewhere within their file names.  I would have hated to have had to trawl through the entire Network Monitor listing to dig these needles out of the haystack.

Sadly, the VDH downloads failed after several minutes.

No worries.  You just have to turn on this setting.

Reloading the page & trying again did work.  Here's those downloads in progress.  Note they are now M2TS files instead of MP4s.

The audio download completed in about 3 minutes.  The video took 13 minutes.  Sadly, these also both failed.

I have said before that I believe that HLS as M2TS setting should not even exist.  VDH should figure out when it's necessary & simply do the download.  This is rather an unusual case in that even that setting didn't make this work.  Neither file I downloaded would play in VLC.  You should note that VLC plays M2TS files.  There is no need to convert them to some other format.  In addition, had these 2 downloads worked, you could have played the 2 files synchronously in VLC without merging them.  If you wanted to merge them, you could have used the VDH tool for that purpose:

But like I say, VLC is perfectly happy playing 2 files synchronously, one with only a video track, the other with only an audio track.  You can also merge them with ffmpeg, but you seem to know quite well how to do that.

Meanwhile, I downloaded the same video using ffmpeg.  I used the URL of the first manifest as the -i for ffmpeg  It just found the video & audio tracks in the manifest & downloaded a unified MP4.  There was no need to run ffmpeg twice, once for the video & once for the audio.  There was also no need to use -map parameters on the ffmpeg invocation since there was no ambiguity in the manifest.  For some reason, my ffmpeg download ran at only about 1 million bytes per second.  My VDH downloads ran at 3-4 million bytes per second.  I can't explain the difference.  Web sites are just picky sometimes, I guess.  The ffmpeg log showed it was downloading at a speed factor of only about 1.3, meaning about one third faster than regular speed playback.  That means our 55 minute video would download in about 37 minutes, disappointingly slow, and not much better than sitting & watching it.  Due to the usual fluctuations in download speed, the ffmpeg download actually completed in a little over 41 minutes.  It played fine in VLC with audio:

I have to say you would have to be a committed viewer to sit & watch this all the way through.  Either you were one of those graduates or you're a member of the Leeds alumni or you're the proud parent of one of those graduates.  I am none of those so I just sampled it at 1-minute intervals & it seemed to be playing just fine with audio right to the end.  The file was about 2.18G & it had these properties:

That is actually decent quality video at about 5500kbps for the video bit rates, & decent quality audio at 48kHz audio sampling rate & 189kbps audio bit rate.  Considerably better that what you typically get from YouTube & the various porn sites other users like to post about here.

The fact that ffmpeg had no problem with this says to me that VDH should have handled this one without a hitch, and especially without resorting to HLS as M2TS, which didn't work anyway.  I don't even see why VDH recognized this as separate video & audio.  There aren't even multiple resolutions to sift through.  This one is quite baffling.  At least we have ffmpeg as our fallback.

[Wild Willy]

Before you post a response to my post, I need to give you a warning.  You see that my post includes 8 images.  Now take a look at other posts in this thread.  Some of them have ... at the bottom.  Click the ... & look what happens.  There's all this unnecessary quoted material.  I'll bet you didn't even know you were doing that.  It's because Google stealth quotes whatever you are replying to.  You need to learn to delete this stealth quoted material, especially since I've got a bunch of images in my post.  It is possible if you don't delete the stealth quote with all my images, your post will be automatically censored by the Google bots.  So you need to learn to discipline yourself to always delete the stealth quotes.  That applies to ALL your posts in ANY thread here, not just this discussion.

Here's how to do it.  When you open the Reply all text entry window, it looks like it's empty.  It's not.  Scroll it down.  You'll see another ... in the text entry box you thought was empty.  Click that ... to see what has been stealth quoted without your knowledge & without your requesting it.  Now highlight all that junk & delete it.  Problem solved.

[Wild Willy]

Also, I've been negligent.  I should have mentioned this sooner.

I'm running Windows 7 64-bit, Firefox 103.0.2 64-bit, licensed VDH 7.6.3a1 beta, CoApp 1.6.3.

[Ali]

Thanks for the welcome deviation.

I got success download using ffmpeg. As you explained M2TS failed for me too after enabling HLS to M2TS too. Your other post really helped me understand how to use ffprob.exe and understand the channels/streams of the URL.

Until next time, thanks.

[Wild Willy]

You got lucky.  You didn't remove the stealth quote of my post.  It's got all the images repeated.  You need to learn to delete quoted material.  Sooner or later, it's going to get you in trouble.  It's too late now to do anything about it here  In future, please delete all of that junk.

In any case, I'm glad to have helped.  Here's hoping it's smooth sailing from now on.