WWE Network Download

This is a proof of concept to understand how to download videos from a video streaming platform.

The code was originally written by @freyta and I was granted permission to refactor his code and to host it here.

Note: I do not endorse piracy. This is for educational purposes only. I hold no responsibility.

Requirements

• Python3: brew install python3
• FFMPEG: brew install ffmpeg

Optional

This command-line application offers a -s, --speak flag which uses a 'Text-to-Speech' program. You don't have to use this flag to run the command-line application and so the required speech program is not required.

By default we use the say command which is available by default on macOS. If you're on Linux then you could modify this code to utilize something like espeak instead.

Usage

usage: main.py [-h] [-u USER] [-p PASSWORD] [-l LINK] [-f FILES]

Download videos from the WWE Network

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -u USER, --user USER  WWE Network user account.
  -p PASSWORD, --password PASSWORD
                        WWE Network account password.
  -l LINK, --link LINK  Video link to download.
  -f FILES, --files FILES
                        File with list of links
  -d DEBUG, --debug DEBUG
                        Dry-run displays ffmpeg commands.
  -v VERBOSE, --verbose VERBOSE
                        Verbose prints ffmpeg output.
  -i INDEX, --index INDEX
                        Index adds indices to filenames.
  -s SPEAK, --speak SPEAK
                        Use `say` binary for alerts.
  -o OUTPUT, --output OUTPUT
                        Directory to place files into.

Examples

• Login credentials provided by environment variables
• Login credentials provided by CLI flags
• Multiple videos downloaded in parallel
• Change output directory
• Insert numeric index in filenames
• Debug Mode
• Verbose Mode
• Speak Mode

Login credentials provided by environment variables:

export WWE_USER=foo WWE_PASS=bar && python3 main.py -l <url>

In the above example, <url> is either:

• https://watch.wwe.com/episode/Prime-Time-Wrestling-9702
• /episode/Prime-Time-Wrestling-9702
• episode/Prime-Time-Wrestling-9702

Login credentials provided by CLI flags

python3 main.py -u foo -p bar -l <url> 

Multiple videos downloaded in parallel

python3 main.py -u foo -p bar -f files.txt

In the above example, files.txt is a file consisting of multiple video URLs (one per line).

Note: we use a process 'pool' to prevent creating more subprocesses than we have cores.

Change output directory

If you wish to not have the files downloaded to the same directory as where you are running the CLI command from, then use the -o, --output flag to inform the binary of where to download the files to.

python3 main.py -u foo -p bar -f files.txt -o /Volumes/MyExternalDrive/...

Insert numeric index in filenames

If you're using the -f, --files flag to download multiple videos at once, then those videos could be part of a show (e.g. The Monday Night Wars) where the episodes are in a sequential order.

If you include the -i, --index flag with your command, then we'll presume the order in the -f, --files file will be in order, and we'll simply insert a numerical index to the output filename.

For example, if you provided --files videos.txt and your videos.txt contained the following...

https://watch.wwe.com/episode/The-War-Begins-9762
https://watch.wwe.com/episode/The-Rise-of-the-nWo-9779
https://watch.wwe.com/episode/Embracing-a-New-Attitude-9078

Then we would download the videos and output the filenames as:

1. The_War_Begins.mp4
2. The_Rise_of_the_nwo.mp4
3. Embracing_a_New_Attitude.mp4

Debug Mode

Debug mode will print the ffmpeg command that the application generates for accessing a specified video.

No downloading of the stream URL will occur.

python3 main.py -u foo -p bar -f files.txt -d true

Note: omit the -d, --debug flag if you don't require debug mode.

Verbose Mode

Verbose mode will print the output from the generated ffmpeg command which streams the provided video(s).

python3 main.py -u foo -p bar -f files.txt -v true

Note: omit the -v, --verbose flag if you don't require verbose mode.

Speak Mode

Speak mode will use the say command (available by default on macOS) to notify you of important things happening.

For example, rather than having to keep an eye on your terminal to see when a new batch of subprocesses is opened (e.g. when providing a list of videos using the -f, --files flag), you can now use the -s, --speak flag and the terminal will speak out loud that this is happening.

python3 main.py -u foo -p bar -f files.txt -s true

TODO

Add stdout printing of the download file size so people can see how the progress is going.

A temporary solution is to brew install watch and to run:

watch -n 1 ls -lah '*.mp4'