Software » Video Downloaders » dash-mpd-cli 0.2.23

The following features are supported:

Multi-period content. The media in the different streams will be saved in a single media container if the formats are compatible (same resolution, codecs, bitrate and so on) and the --no-period-concatenation commandline option is not provided, and otherwise in separate media containers.

The application can download content available over HTTP, HTTPS and HTTP/2. Network bandwidth can be throttled (see the --limit-rate commandline argument).

Support for SOCKS and HTTP proxies, via the --proxy commandline argument. The following environment variables can also be used to specify the proxy at a system level: HTTP_PROXY or http_proxy for HTTP connections, HTTPS_PROXY or https_proxy for HTTPS connections, and ALL_PROXY or all_proxy for all connection types. The system proxy can be disabled using the --no-proxy commandline argument.

Support for HTTP Basic authentication (see the --auth-username and --auth-password commandline arguments) and for Bearer authentation (see the --auth-bearer commandline argument). This authentication information is sent both to the server which hosts the DASH manifest, and to the server that hosts the media segments (the latter often being a CDN).

Subtitles: download support for WebVTT, TTML, SRT, tx3g and SMIL streams, as well as some support for the wvtt format. We support both subtitles published as a complete file and segmented subtitles made available in media fragments.

The application can read cookies from the Firefox, Chromium, Chrome, ChromeBeta, Safari and Edge browsers on Linux, Windows and MacOS, thanks to the bench_scraper crate. See the --cookies-from-browser commandline argument. Browsers that support multiple profiles will have all their profiles scraped for cookies.

XLink elements (only with actuate=onLoad semantics), including resolve-to-zero.

All forms of segment index info: SegmentBase@indexRange, SegmentTimeline, SegmentTemplate@duration, SegmentTemplate@index, SegmentList.

Media containers of types supported by mkvmerge, ffmpeg, VLC or MP4Box (this includes ISO-BMFF / CMAF / MP4, Matroska, WebM, MPEG-2 TS, AVI), and all the codecs supported by these applications.

Support for decrypting media streams that use ContentProtection (DRM). This requires either the mp4decrypt or shaka-packager commandline application to be installed. mp4decrypt is available from the Bento4 suite (binaries are available for common platforms), and shaka-packager binaries are available from Google for common platforms (see the Releases section on their GitHub page). See the --key commandline argument to specify a decryption key (can be used several times if different keys are used for different media streams). See the --decryption-application commandline argument to specify which decryption application to use. Shaka packager is able to decrypt more types of media streams (including in particular WebM containers and more encryption formats), whereas mp4decrypt mostly works with MPEG Common Encryption.

In practice, all features used by real streaming services and on-demand TV. Our test suite includes test streams published by industry groups such as HbbTV and the DASH Industry Forum, and comprises a wide variety of DASH streams using different publishing software, including GPAC (used by Netflix and other services), Amazon MediaTailor, Google’s Shaka packager, Microsoft’s Azure Media Services, and Unified Streaming. Test content is served by different CDNs including Akamai and various telecom providers.

The following are not supported:

Live streams (dynamic MPD manifests), that are used for live streaming/OTT TV are not really supported. This is because we don’t implement the clock-related throttling that is needed to only download media segments when they become available. However, some media sources publish “pseudo-live” streams where all media segments are in fact available; they simply don’t update the manifest once the live is complete. We are able to download these streams using the --enable-live-streams commandline argument. You might also have some success with a live stream in combination with the --sleep-requests commandline argument. The VLC application is a better choice for watching live streams.

XLink elements with actuate=onRequest semantics.