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Downloading video/audio streams from (unsupported) websites
JDownloader has a lot of plugins - many of which are for streaming websites.
These plugins are the reason why it is often easy to download from a particular website.
However, sometimes an "easy" download is not possible because a JD plugin for the website you want to download from:
- does not exist
- exists but is broken
- provides livestreams only
This guide shows how to download a video/audio stream from a website if one of the above cases applies.
This will work for most of all websites.
- Install the browser addon Video DownloadHelper (Firefox/Chrome).
- Open your streaming content and click on play.
The "DownloadHelper" Icon in the top right corner of your browser should become active.
If there are multiple resolutions available you might have to chose the highest streaming quality/video-resolution (if wanted) so that it is selectable in the overview:
As you can see, in some cases the same quality might get displayed multiple times which is not a big deal.
- Now pick your desired quality and click on the arrow to the right --> Copy URL
- Now add the copied URL to JDownloader and wait until it appears in the LinkGrabber.
Please keep in mind that such URLs often only last for several minutes/hours so better start downloading them right away as they might expire if you e.g. collect a lot of them and want to download them the next day.
Expired download-URLs will usually be displayed as offline ("File not found") in JD.
In case you're using the addon itself instead of JD to download, it will sometimes save the downloaded files to the following location:
~/dwhelper/
or
C:\Users\YourUsername\dwhelper
More about the "Video DownloadHelper" addon: Get started instructions, FAQ
Similar browser-addons: The Stream Detector (Firefox), HLS Downloader (Chrome, open source)
Downloading livestreams
Downloading livestreams is only partially supported.
You can add HLS livestream URLs to JD (URLs containing ".m3u8") but JDownloader will only download them until a certain point and not until the livestream ends (if it ever ends).
Downloading livestreams presents multiple challenges compared to downloading normal files:
- Filesize cannot be calculated in beforehand
- Livestreams cannot be resumed -> What to do when resuming a livestream?
- Livestreams may never end
At this moment it is recommended to use external tools such as the open source commandline tool FFmpeg and/or the above mentioned methods.
Related internal tickets:
https://svn.jdownloader.org/issues/80785
Help! I'm unable to download a certain video / it is getting displayed as offline in the LinkGrabber
In some cases, even the above described method may not work e.g. if the content you want to download:
- is DRM protected (= digital copy protection)
- is delivered via a streaming protocol which JD does not support
- The content you want to download is only accessible via account and needs special headers to be downloaded (rare case)
If none of the above cases applies and you're still having trouble downloading particular content, contact our support and we will try to help.
Help! JD only downloads the video or audio or downloads both but separately!
Seems like you've tried to download a HLS stream with split video/audio.
JD cannot yet auto-handle those (see related internal ticket).
Here are your options:
a. Download such streams completely without JDownloader: Use the above instructions but use the linked browser addon for downloading and do not pass the found streaming URLs to JDownloader.
b. In case both, video- and audio was downloaded by JD but separately and not as one file, you can merge both using a third party convert tool of your choice such as FFmpeg.
Tags: VideoDownloadHelper, Video DownloadHelper, Streaming. Unsupported website, Video, Audio, Livestream
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