zdf extractor does not work

[lightonflux]

Hi there.

yt-dl works perfectly with the most important sites. But now i tried the ZDF mediathek and it does not work because the links seems unvalid.

Here my log:

moritz@k9:~$ youtube-dl -ct http://www.zdf.de/ZDFmediathek#/beitrag/video/1948922/Borgia---Folge-12-der-ersten-Staffel --verbose
[debug] System config: []
[debug] User config: []
[debug] Command-line args: ['-ct', 'http://www.zdf.de/ZDFmediathek#/beitrag/video/1948922/Borgia---Folge-12-der-ersten-Staffel', '--verbose']
[debug] youtube-dl version 2013.08.29
[debug] Python version 2.7.3 - Linux-3.8.0-31-generic-i686-with-elementary_OS-0.2-luna
[debug] Proxy map: {}
WARNING: Falling back on generic information extractor.
[generic] Borgia---Folge-12-der-ersten-Staffel: Downloading webpage
[generic] Borgia---Folge-12-der-ersten-Staffel: Extracting information
ERROR: Invalid URL: http://www.zdf.de/ZDFmediathek#/beitrag/video/1948922/Borgia---Folge-12-der-ersten-Staffel; please report this issue on https://yt-dl.org/bug . Be sure to call youtube-dl with the --verbose flag and include its complete output.     Make sure you are using the latest version; type  youtube-dl -U  to update.

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py", line 324, in extract_info
ie_result = ie.extract(url)
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/youtube_dl/extractor/common.py", line 103, in extract
return self._real_extract(url)
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/youtube_dl/extractor/generic.py", line 158, in _real_extract
raise ExtractorError(u'Invalid URL: %s' % url)
ExtractorError: Invalid URL: http://www.zdf.de/ZDFmediathek#/beitrag/video/1948922/Borgia---Folge-12-der-ersten-Staffel; please report this issue on https://yt-dl.org/bug . Be sure to call youtube-dl with the --verbose flag and include its complete output. Make sure you are using the latest version; type youtube-dl -U to update.

[phihag]

Should work now with 2013.10.04. Can you retest?

[lightonflux]

It does not work. It just creates an empty file:

 /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl -t "http://www.zdf.de/ZDFmediathek#/beitrag/video/1948842/Borgia---Folge-1-der-ersten-Staffel?flash=off"
[debug] System config: []
[debug] User config: []
[debug] Command-line args: ['-tvvv', 'http://www.zdf.de/ZDFmediathek#/beitrag/video/1948842/Borgia---Folge-1-der-ersten-Staffel?flash=off']
[debug] youtube-dl version 2013.10.04
[debug] Python version 2.7.3 - Linux-3.8.0-31-generic-i686-with-elementary_OS-0.2-luna
[debug] Proxy map: {} 
[ZDF] 1948842: Downloading webpage
[ZDF] 1948842: Get stream URL
[download] Destination: Borgia - Folge 1 der ersten Staffel-1948842.mp4
mplayer: could not connect to socket
mplayer: No such file or directory
[mplayer] 0 bytes


/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl --version
2013.10.04

mplayer -v
Warning unknown option skin at line 101
MPlayer svn r34540 (Ubuntu), built with gcc-4.6 (C) 2000-2012 MPlayer Team
CPU vendor name: GenuineIntel  max cpuid level: 10
CPU: Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU N270   @ 1.60GHz (Family: 6, Model: 28, Stepping: 2)

Is it a dependency problem on my side?

[phihag]

No, it's probably a bug in mplayer. The stream URL is fine for me too, but my old mplayer can't play it (I used vlc to test). I'll investigate further.

[lightonflux]

Thanks. You haven't download it via the yt-dl (zdf) extracter but tested the stream (without downloading)? Or is there a way to specify the application that is used to write the stream to disk?

I'll investigate further.

Thanks a lot.

[ringprince]

I am having the same question: If mplayer can't do these streams, how can I specify another application (vlc)?

Thanks

[lightonflux]

You could link the executable file to /usr/local/bin it is first in your PATH (or should be), so when the script looks for mplayer it will use the link in /usr/local/bin/mplayer which leads to /usr/bin/vlc or what ever you use.

Not a good method, because then you need to alias mplayer (alias mplayer="/usr/bin/mplayer") or so, but that would brake other programs.

I will try that with mpv (more modern mplayer fork) when i am back at my debian machine.

I think you could alter yt-dls environment so only yt-dl would use "the other mplayer" and not other programs. But i don't know enough about env to do that. :)

[ringprince]

Thanks for the suggestion. I just tried that with mpv and with vlc. None of them work.

mpv does not output any error:

ERROR: mplayer exited with code 1

But vlc does:

VLC media player 2.1.0 Rincewind (revision 2.1.0-0-gedd8835)
vlc: unknown option or missing mandatory argument `-r'
Try `vlc --help' for more information.

ERROR: mplayer exited with code 1

[phihag]

In youtube-dl 2013.11.25, I rewrote the ZDF extractor to support many more formats, and use HTTP downloads by default. You can see all of the supported formats with -F, and it looks like there's no reason to use rtsp anymore:

$ youtube-dl http://www.zdf.de/ZDFmediathek/beitrag/video/2034598/KloppHaben-5-Minuten-fuer-Depressionen -F
[ZDF] 2034598: Downloading video info
[info] Available formats for 2034598:
format code                             extension resolution  note 
h264_aac_f4f_http_f4m_http-med          f4f       480x272     (unsupported) h264 @ 380k, aac  @ 56k, 14.88MiB (worst)
h264_aac_f4f_http_f4m_http-high         f4f       1024x576    (unsupported) h264 @2200k, aac  @ 56k, 73.87MiB
h264_aac_3gp_rtsp_na_na-low             3gp       240x136     h264 @  68k, aac  @ 56k, 5.25MiB
h264_aac_mp4_rtsp_mov_http-low          mp4       320x176     h264 @ 133k, aac  @ 56k, 6.88MiB
h264_aac_3gp_rtsp_na_na-med             3gp       320x176     h264 @ 133k, aac  @ 56k, 7.19MiB
h264_aac_3gp_rtsp_na_na-high            3gp       320x176     h264 @ 186k, aac  @ 56k, 8.85MiB
h264_aac_mp4_rtsp_mov_http-high         mp4       480x272     h264 @ 380k, aac  @ 56k, 14.88MiB
h264_aac_3gp_rtsp_na_na-veryhigh        3gp       480x272     h264 @ 380k, aac  @ 56k, 15.18MiB
h264_aac_mp4_rtsp_mov_http-veryhigh     mp4       852x480     h264 @1400k, aac  @ 56k, 47.96MiB
h264_aac_mp4_rtmp_smil_http-low         mp4       320x176     h264 @ 133k, aac  @ 56k, 6.88MiB
h264_aac_mp4_rtmp_zdfmeta_http-low      mp4       320x176     h264 @ 133k, aac  @ 56k, 6.88MiB
h264_aac_mp4_rtmp_smil_http-high        mp4       320x176     h264 @ 133k, aac  @ 56k, 6.88MiB
h264_aac_mp4_rtmp_zdfmeta_http-high     mp4       480x272     h264 @ 380k, aac  @ 56k, 14.88MiB
h264_aac_mp4_rtmp_smil_http-veryhigh    mp4       320x176     h264 @ 133k, aac  @ 56k, 6.88MiB
h264_aac_mp4_rtmp_zdfmeta_http-veryhigh mp4       852x480     h264 @1400k, aac  @ 56k, 47.96MiB
h264_aac_3gp_http_na_na-low             3gp       240x136     h264 @  68k, aac  @ 56k, 5.25MiB
h264_aac_mp4_http_na_na-low             mp4       320x176     h264 @ 133k, aac  @ 56k, 6.88MiB
vp8_vorbis_webm_http_na_na-low          webm      320x176     vp8  @ 186k, vorbis@ 96k, 6.37MiB
h264_aac_ts_http_m3u8_http-med          ts        240x136     h264 @  68k, aac  @ 56k, 5.25MiB
h264_aac_3gp_http_na_na-med             3gp       320x176     h264 @ 133k, aac  @ 56k, 7.19MiB
h264_aac_ts_http_m3u8_http-high         ts        240x136     h264 @  68k, aac  @ 56k, 4.95MiB
h264_aac_3gp_http_na_na-high            3gp       320x176     h264 @ 186k, aac  @ 56k, 8.85MiB
h264_aac_mp4_http_na_na-high            mp4       480x272     h264 @ 380k, aac  @ 56k, 14.88MiB
h264_aac_mp4_http_na_na-high            mp4       480x272     h264 @ 380k, aac  @ 56k, 14.88MiB
vp8_vorbis_webm_http_na_na-high         webm      640x360     vp8  @ 680k, vorbis@ 96k, 16.96MiB
h264_aac_3gp_http_na_na-veryhigh        3gp       480x272     h264 @ 380k, aac  @ 56k, 15.18MiB
h264_aac_mp4_http_na_na-veryhigh        mp4       852x480     h264 @1400k, aac  @ 56k, 47.96MiB
h264_aac_mp4_http_na_na-veryhigh        mp4       852x480     h264 @1400k, aac  @ 56k, 47.96MiB
vp8_vorbis_webm_http_na_na-veryhigh     webm      852x480     vp8  @1400k, vorbis@ 96k, 32.00MiB (best)

As usual, you can use -f mp4 to get the best mp4 video if you don't want webm. Type youtube-dl -U to update to youtube-dl 2013.11.25.

[lightonflux]

Thanks @phihag