Video Downloader Advanced Instructions
- John Dachik
1. Open Firefox (Chrome may work for some, but not all)
2. Navigate to the page of the video you want to download, but don’t start playing it yet.
3. Click on the “three line” menu, and go to Web Developer-Network or More Tools-Web Developer-Network:
4. Follow remaining Generic Instructions, or skip to specific instructions for:
- PBS
GENERIC INSTRUCTIONS
A. Play Video (use highest quality version available; switch to 1080p, etc.)
B. Once the video you want is playing, pause it.
Filter results by entering “m3u8” (no quotes). Find the “master.m3u8” or “index.m3u8”, or if only one m3u8 file is listed, select it; Right-click and “Copy URL”:
If results look like this, choose the one that does not specify “video” or “audio” (because those contain only video or audio, not both):
If no m3u8 file is available, filter by “.ts” (no quotes), select a numbered .ts file (in the example below, there’s a “-2” at the end of the file name), and “Copy URL”:
Use the copied link/URL to paste in a request here: https://pbsbus.wisc.edu/VideoDownloader/
DO NOT ENTER ANYTHING IN THE PASSWORD FIELD
BBC STUDIOS (REQUIRES FIREFOX)
A. Play Video
B. Once the video you want is playing, pause it.
Filter by “.ts” (no quotes), select a numbered segment.ts file and “Copy as cURL (Windows)”:
Use the copied link/URL to paste in a request here: https://pbsbus.wisc.edu/VideoDownloader/
DO NOT ENTER ANYTHING IN THE PASSWORD FIELD
PBS (ANNUAL MEETING, ETC.) – REQUIRES FIREFOX
PBS works hard to prevent you from downloading… including storing video and audio separately.
A. Play video, then pause.
B. Click the Trash can to clear the log, and disable the disable the cache with the checkbox:
C. Change the video quality by switching to HD, or if that choice is not offered, go full screen (the larger you can make the video window, the better quality file you are likely to download):
D. Play the video for about 10 seconds, then pause again.
E. You should see a number of segments listed, and most, if not all, should be listed twice (one is for video, the other for audio). Select a segment that appears twice, though you probably want to choose one of the last listed. In the screenshot below, I’ve selected segment 5 – right-click and Copy as cURL (Windows):
Make note which of the two “segment5” (for example) listings you selected, as you will have to come back and get the second one.
F. Copy/paste the first URL on this page: https://pbsbus.wisc.edu/VideoDownloader/PBS.html
G. Repeat step E for the second of the two versions of the segment you selected.
H. Copy/paste the second URL on this page: https://pbsbus.wisc.edu/VideoDownloader/PBS.html