Downloading videos can be a pain, especially when the website you're using doesn’t want to make it easy. To prevent people from downloading their videos, some websites even use a

For some reason I got my back up about not being able to download a streaming video from a site.

I didn’t need the video, but this guide was useful for grabbing via VLC

  • kevincox
    8·
    2 years ago

    This is sort of a confused article. blob: URLs (not blob in the url) are references to local data. They can’t really be downloaded (well if they are still live you probably can) and typically only contain a small slice of the video (timewise).

    What this is doing is finding the playlist file that describes this video and playing this (or using a player like VLC to stitch these chunks together).

    Then it has other instructions to use different tools for specific sites.

    So really the only reason blob: is relevant at all is because it is what you might see if you try the “simple” solution of right-click save. The actual article doesn’t deal with the blob: URL at all.

    So guess the more accurate title is “Are you trying to download a video but it has a blob: URL? There is a decent chance that this is using DASH or HLS under the hood. You can try to find the playlist like this: $find_m3u8 and then stitch that into a single video like $vlc”.

    • _ed@sopuli.xyzOP
      3·
      2 years ago

      Not sure if this warrants a reply, but with the detailed followup it seems rude not to. Good detail on all points.

    • syzizeky
      1·
      1 year ago

      Thanks!

      I don’t seem to be able to find the m3u8 in network tab with Firefox, so not sure if thats my fault or if youtube changed something. I’ll think to search for the m3u8 in the network tab next time I encounter a blob elsewhere, though.

      I often have trouble trying to get VLC to work with videos on youtube directly, and it didn’t seem to like the blob link from youtube as described by this article, I assume youtube changed something and VLC hasn’t been updated to keep pace.

      (Article is from 2021)

      So strictly speaking, blobs themselves still cannot be downloaded but it is often possible to find the stream link which will work when a blob is being used.