ProjectAlpha Support / Support for Comcast's theplatform.com

[crazy4cs]

Make sure you are using the latest version: run youtube-dl --version and ensure your version is 2018.03.14. If it's not, read this FAQ entry and update. Issues with outdated version will be rejected.

• I've verified and I assure that I'm running youtube-dl 2018.03.14

Before submitting an issue make sure you have:

• At least skimmed through the README, most notably the FAQ and BUGS sections
• Searched the bugtracker for similar issues including closed ones
• Checked that provided video/audio/playlist URLs (if any) are alive and playable in a browser

What is the purpose of your issue?

• Bug report (encountered problems with youtube-dl)
• Site support request (request for adding support for a new site)
• Feature request (request for a new functionality)
• Question
• Other

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I've recently attempted to use youtube-dl with content hosted on Legendary Entertainment's projectalpha.com to no avail. A great deal of their content is available on VRV's premium option, but there is some Alpha-exclusive content. I was wanting to archive some older shows into Plex, but my attempts so far have failed.

When trying to run youtube-dl against the domain in the browser I get a message regarding it being an unsupported site - however the site levies a streaming platform developed by Comcast, so it's not just specific to them. For a test video I was able to snag the link to a .m3u8 file for a specific quality video using a Chrome extension, Video DownloadHelper.

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youtube-dl ran against an episode on projectalpha.com

youtube-dl.exe https://www.projectalpha.com/browse/#svod?method=video&videoId=GaR5mX94hxr57MUJ_v_zyGJ1A_U4GqwH -v
[generic] #svod?method=video: Requesting header
WARNING: Falling back on generic information extractor.
[generic] #svod?method=video: Downloading webpage
[generic] #svod?method=video: Extracting information
ERROR: Unsupported URL: https://www.projectalpha.com/browse/#svod?method=video
'videoId' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

---

youtube-dl ran against the .m3u8 file

youtube-dl.exe https://edge.legendary.top.comcast.net/default/Legendary/333/428/1521058040591/20180313_g_talksmachina_2009_2997_Alpha20_23971909671_m3u8_video_1920x1080_8000000_primary_audio_eng_xc22975e5765a419e85b930d3b899b6e9_8.m3u8 -v
[debug] System config: []
[debug] User config: []
[debug] Custom config: []
[debug] Command-line args: ['https://edge.legendary.top.comcast.net/default/Legendary/333/428/1521058040591/20180313_g_talksmachina_2009_2997_Alpha20_23971909671_m3u8_video_1920x1080_8000000_primary_audio_eng_xc22975e5765a419e85b930d3b899b6e9_8.m3u8', '-v']
[debug] Encodings: locale cp1252, fs mbcs, out cp437, pref cp1252
[debug] youtube-dl version 2018.03.14
[debug] Python version 3.4.4 (CPython) - Windows-10-10.0.16299
[debug] exe versions: ffmpeg N-90315-gf706cdda56, ffprobe N-90315-gf706cdda56
[debug] Proxy map: {}
[generic] 20180313_g_talksmachina_2009_2997_Alpha20_23971909671_m3u8_video_1920x1080_8000000_primary_audio_eng_xc22975e5765a419e85b930d3b899b6e9_8: Requesting header
[generic] 20180313_g_talksmachina_2009_2997_Alpha20_23971909671_m3u8_video_1920x1080_8000000_primary_audio_eng_xc22975e5765a419e85b930d3b899b6e9_8: Downloading m3u8 information
[debug] Default format spec: bestvideo+bestaudio/best
[debug] Invoking downloader on 'https://edge.legendary.top.comcast.net/default/Legendary/333/428/1521058040591/20180313_g_talksmachina_2009_2997_Alpha20_23971909671_m3u8_video_1920x1080_8000000_primary_audio_eng_xc22975e5765a419e85b930d3b899b6e9_8.m3u8'
[download] Destination: 20180313_g_talksmachina_2009_2997_Alpha20_23971909671_m3u8_video_1920x1080_8000000_primary_audio_eng_xc22975e5765a419e85b930d3b899b6e9_8-20180313_g_talksmachina_2009_2997_Alpha20_23971909671_m3u8_video_1920x1080_8000000_primary_audio_eng_xc22975e5765a419e85b930d3b899b6e9_8.mp4
[debug] ffmpeg command line: ffmpeg -y -loglevel verbose -headers "Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.7
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:59.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/59.0 (Chrome)
Accept-Language: en-us,en;q=0.5
" -i "https://edge.legendary.top.comcast.net/default/Legendary/333/428/1521058040591/20180313_g_talksmachina_2009_2997_Alpha20_23971909671_m3u8_video_1920x1080_8000000_primary_audio_eng_xc22975e5765a419e85b930d3b899b6e9_8.m3u8" -c copy -f mp4 "-bsf:a" aac_adtstoasc "file:20180313_g_talksmachina_2009_2997_Alpha20_23971909671_m3u8_video_1920x1080_8000000_primary_audio_eng_xc22975e5765a419e85b930d3b899b6e9_8-20180313_g_talksmachina_2009_2997_Alpha20_23971909671_m3u8_video_1920x1080_8000000_primary_audio_eng_xc22975e5765a419e85b930d3b899b6e9_8.mp4.part"
ffmpeg version N-90315-gf706cdda56 Copyright (c) 2000-2018 the FFmpeg developers
  built with gcc 7.3.0 (GCC)
  configuration: --enable-gpl --enable-version3 --enable-sdl2 --enable-bzlib --enable-fontconfig --enable-gnutls --enable-iconv --enable-libass --enable-libbluray --enable-libfreetype --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopencore-amrnb --enable-libopencore-amrwb --enable-libopenjpeg --enable-libopus --enable-libshine --enable-libsnappy --enable-libsoxr --enable-libtheora --enable-libtwolame --enable-libvpx --enable-libwavpack --enable-libwebp --enable-libx264 --enable-libx265 --enable-libxml2 --enable-libzimg --enable-lzma --enable-zlib --enable-gmp --enable-libvidstab --enable-libvorbis --enable-libvo-amrwbenc --enable-libmysofa --enable-libspeex --enable-libxvid --enable-libmfx --enable-amf --enable-ffnvcodec --enable-cuvid --enable-d3d11va --enable-nvenc --enable-nvdec --enable-dxva2 --enable-avisynth
  libavutil      56.  9.100 / 56.  9.100
  libavcodec     58. 14.100 / 58. 14.100
  libavformat    58. 10.100 / 58. 10.100
  libavdevice    58.  2.100 / 58.  2.100
  libavfilter     7. 13.100 /  7. 13.100
  libswscale      5.  0.102 /  5.  0.102
  libswresample   3.  0.101 /  3.  0.101
  libpostproc    55.  0.100 / 55.  0.100
[hls,applehttp @ 000001b453e7ae00] HLS request for url 'https://edge.legendary.top.comcast.net/default/Legendary/333/428/1521058040591/20180313_g_talksmachina_2009_2997_Alpha20_23971909671_m3u8_video_1920x1080_8000000_primary_audio_eng_8_xc22975e5765a419e85b930d3b899b6e9_00001.ts', offset 0, playlist 0
[hls,applehttp @ 000001b453e7ae00] Opening 'https://edge.legendary.top.comcast.net/default/Legendary/333/428/1521058040591/20180313_g_talksmachina_2009_2997_Alpha20_23971909671_m3u8_video_1920x1080_8000000_primary_audio_eng_8_xc22975e5765a419e85b930d3b899b6e9_00001.ts' for reading
[hls,applehttp @ 000001b453e7ae00] HLS request for url 'https://edge.legendary.top.comcast.net/default/Legendary/333/428/1521058040591/20180313_g_talksmachina_2009_2997_Alpha20_23971909671_m3u8_video_1920x1080_8000000_primary_audio_eng_8_xc22975e5765a419e85b930d3b899b6e9_00002.ts', offset 0, playlist 0
[hls,applehttp @ 000001b453e7ae00] Opening 'https://edge.legendary.top.comcast.net/default/Legendary/333/428/1521058040591/20180313_g_talksmachina_2009_2997_Alpha20_23971909671_m3u8_video_1920x1080_8000000_primary_audio_eng_8_xc22975e5765a419e85b930d3b899b6e9_00002.ts' for reading
[mpegts @ 000001b455ca2180] parser not found for codec timed_id3, packets or times may be invalid.
[h264 @ 000001b456124e40] Reinit context to 1920x1088, pix_fmt: yuv420p
Input #0, hls,applehttp, from 'https://edge.legendary.top.comcast.net/default/Legendary/333/428/1521058040591/20180313_g_talksmachina_2009_2997_Alpha20_23971909671_m3u8_video_1920x1080_8000000_primary_audio_eng_xc22975e5765a419e85b930d3b899b6e9_8.m3u8':
  Duration: 01:22:42.42, start: 2.059589, bitrate: 0 kb/s
  Program 0
    Metadata:
      variant_bitrate : 0
    Stream #0:0: Video: h264 (High), 1 reference frame ([27][0][0][0] / 0x001B), yuv420p(left), 1920x1080 (1920x1088) [SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], 29.97 fps, 29.97 tbr, 90k tbn, 59.94 tbc
    Metadata:
      variant_bitrate : 0
    Stream #0:1: Audio: aac (LC) ([15][0][0][0] / 0x000F), 44100 Hz, stereo, fltp
    Metadata:
      variant_bitrate : 0
    Stream #0:2: Data: timed_id3 (ID3  / 0x20334449)
    Metadata:
      variant_bitrate : 0
file:20180313_g_talksmachina_2009_2997_Alpha20_23971909671_m3u8_video_1920x1080_8000000_primary_audio_eng_xc22975e5765a419e85b930d3b899b6e9_8-20180313_g_talksmachina_2009_2997_Alpha20_23971909671_m3u8_video_1920x1080_8000000_primary_audio_eng_xc22975e5765a419e85b930d3b899b6e9_8.mp4.part: No such file or directory


ERROR: ffmpeg exited with code 1
  File "__main__.py", line 19, in <module>
  File "C:\Users\dst\AppData\Roaming\Build archive\youtube-dl\rg3\tmph71axfm2\build\youtube_dl\__init__.py", line 471, in main
  File "C:\Users\dst\AppData\Roaming\Build archive\youtube-dl\rg3\tmph71axfm2\build\youtube_dl\__init__.py", line 461, in _real_main
  File "C:\Users\dst\AppData\Roaming\Build archive\youtube-dl\rg3\tmph71axfm2\build\youtube_dl\YoutubeDL.py", line 1989, in download
  File "C:\Users\dst\AppData\Roaming\Build archive\youtube-dl\rg3\tmph71axfm2\build\youtube_dl\YoutubeDL.py", line 796, in extract_info
  File "C:\Users\dst\AppData\Roaming\Build archive\youtube-dl\rg3\tmph71axfm2\build\youtube_dl\YoutubeDL.py", line 850, in process_ie_result
  File "C:\Users\dst\AppData\Roaming\Build archive\youtube-dl\rg3\tmph71axfm2\build\youtube_dl\YoutubeDL.py", line 1623, in process_video_result
  File "C:\Users\dst\AppData\Roaming\Build archive\youtube-dl\rg3\tmph71axfm2\build\youtube_dl\YoutubeDL.py", line 1896, in process_info
  File "C:\Users\dst\AppData\Roaming\Build archive\youtube-dl\rg3\tmph71axfm2\build\youtube_dl\YoutubeDL.py", line 1835, in dl
  File "C:\Users\dst\AppData\Roaming\Build archive\youtube-dl\rg3\tmph71axfm2\build\youtube_dl\downloader\common.py", line 364, in download
  File "C:\Users\dst\AppData\Roaming\Build archive\youtube-dl\rg3\tmph71axfm2\build\youtube_dl\downloader\external.py", line 57, in real_download
  File "C:\Users\dst\AppData\Roaming\Build archive\youtube-dl\rg3\tmph71axfm2\build\youtube_dl\downloader\common.py", line 166, in report_error
  File "C:\Users\dst\AppData\Roaming\Build archive\youtube-dl\rg3\tmph71axfm2\build\youtube_dl\YoutubeDL.py", line 613, in report_error
  File "C:\Users\dst\AppData\Roaming\Build archive\youtube-dl\rg3\tmph71axfm2\build\youtube_dl\YoutubeDL.py", line 575, in trouble

---

Account required

An account is required to access content on Alpha - I can provide one if necessary. There's also a 60 day free promo code right now (QUESTION).
https://twitter.com/Marisha_Ray/status/971820448596951040

[54656452]

Who can I provide an account to in the hopes of getting support for this platform added?

[stephenwade]

This issue can be closed. Project Alpha is shutting down effective March 31st.