UbiCast Downloader

UbiCast is a commercial mediaserver/videostreaming software that "creates a unique learning experiences for students" and is especially popular in universities in France and Germany. This addons displays direct URLs to video and audio files you are watching via a UbiCast server. There are several servers with publicly available content:

• mediaserver.univ-nantes.fr
• webtv.univ-rouen.fr
• ubicast.visio.univ-rennes2.fr
• mediaserver.htwk-leipzig.de
• mediaserver.uni-bonn.de
• mediaserver.dhbw-loerrach.de

⚠ Important: Please note that the videos may be subject to a copyright of the respective institution or speaker!

Installation

Download this repository as zip archive and extract it. The installation process then depends on your browser:

• Mozilla Firefox: Open about:debugging, switch to "This Firefox" and click on "Load Temporary Add-on". Select the file manifest.json from the folder you've just extracted.
• Google Chrome: Open chrome://extensions and enable the switch "Developer mode" in the upper right corner. Now you can click on "Load unpacked" and select the folder you've just extracted.
• Microsoft Edge: Open edge://extensions and enable the switch "Developer mode" in the lower left corner. Now you can click on "Load unpacked" and select the folder you've just extracted.
• Internet Explorer: Ain't gonna happen lol :D

How does it work?

If you click on a video on a UbiCast server, your browser loads the URL to the corresponding HLS playlist by querying the following API endpoint: https://ubicast-server.tld/api/v2/medias/modes/?oid=<oid>&html5=<format-list>.

This addon listens to requests to this API endpoint by matching URLs against this regex: *://*/api/v2/medias/modes/*. The parameter html5 specifies a list of formats, separated by underscores, in which you want to receive the video e.g.: html5=webm_ogg_ogv_oga_mp4_m4a_mp3_m3u8. Normally this list contains the format m3u8 (HLS playlist) to stream the video with the webplayer. If you want a direct link to the video or audio file, you can just remove the media type m3u8 from the query. That's what this addon does (Thanks to my friend Lambert for discovering this!).

Every video has a unique ID which is called oid. With this oid you are also able to query meta information from the api endpoint https://ubicast-server.tld/api/v2/medias/get/?oid=<oid>. These meta information are queried to display the correct video title and, if available, the speakers name and licensing information.

About this project

This addon is my first open source project and also the first WebExtension I've developed. So please be patient with me 😄 I've mainly developed for Firefox but principally it should run in any browser with support for WebExtensions.

My goals were to keep the addon as lightweight and simple as possible. That's why I avoided using large javascript libraries like React or CSS frameworks like Bootstrap. Also I thought it would be nice to support an automatic darkmode with CSS media queries.

The logo/icon is made from this arrow (CC0 1.0) in UbiCast's blue background color #274BB1 and the font Public Sans UltraBold (SIL Open Font License). All other icons are from Google's Material Design Icons under the Apache License Version 2.0.

ToDos

• more testing 😅
• design improvements, especially for Chromium based browsers
• add button to remove a single video or all videos from the list
• add option to only show video from the current tab
• buttons to copy command lines for wget, curl and ffmpeg
• display number of found videos next to the icon
• process playlists/channels
• internationalization