UKTV "Main Page" Video Support

[thecoreyburton]

Please follow the guide below

• You will be asked some questions and requested to provide some information, please read them carefully and answer honestly
• Put an x into all the boxes [ ] relevant to your issue (like this: [x])
• Use the Preview tab to see what your issue will actually look like

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Make sure you are using the latest version: run youtube-dl --version and ensure your version is 2018.04.25. 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 Issues with outdated version will be rejected.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 2018.04.25

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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If the purpose of this issue is a bug report, site support request or you are not completely sure provide the full verbose output as follows:

Add the -v flag to your command line you run youtube-dl with (youtube-dl -v <your command line>), copy the whole output and insert it here. It should look similar to one below (replace it with your log inserted between triple ```):

youtube-dl https://uktvplay.uktv.co.uk/shows/alan-davies-xmas-untitled/watch-online/ -v
[debug] System config: []
[debug] User config: []
[debug] Custom config: []
[debug] Command-line args: ['https://uktvplay.uktv.co.uk/shows/alan-davies-xmas-untitled/watch-online/', '-v']
[debug] Encodings: locale cp1252, fs mbcs, out cp850, pref cp1252
[debug] youtube-dl version 2018.04.25
[debug] Python version 3.4.4 (CPython) - Windows-10-10.0.16299
[debug] exe versions: ffmpeg N-90656-ga26c9fdd1b, ffprobe N-90656-ga26c9fdd1b
[debug] Proxy map: {}
[generic] watch-online: Requesting header
WARNING: Falling back on generic information extractor.
[generic] watch-online: Downloading webpage
[generic] watch-online: Extracting information
ERROR: Unsupported URL: https://uktvplay.uktv.co.uk/shows/alan-davies-xmas-untitled/watch-online/
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Users\dst\AppData\Roaming\Build archive\youtube-dl\rg3\tmpad1hmn8r\build\youtube_dl\YoutubeDL.py", line 789, in extract_info
  File "C:\Users\dst\AppData\Roaming\Build archive\youtube-dl\rg3\tmpad1hmn8r\build\youtube_dl\extractor\common.py", line 440, in extract
  File "C:\Users\dst\AppData\Roaming\Build archive\youtube-dl\rg3\tmpad1hmn8r\build\youtube_dl\extractor\generic.py", line 3182, in _real_extract
youtube_dl.utils.UnsupportedError: Unsupported URL: https://uktvplay.uktv.co.uk/shows/alan-davies-xmas-untitled/watch-online/
...
<end of log>

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If the purpose of this issue is a site support request please provide all kinds of example URLs support for which should be included (replace following example URLs by yours):

• https://uktvplay.uktv.co.uk/shows/alan-davies-xmas-untitled/watch-online/

Note that youtube-dl does not support sites dedicated to copyright infringement. In order for site support request to be accepted all provided example URLs should not violate any copyrights.

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Description of your issue, suggested solution and other information

I'd like to see support for single-episode UKTV shows. Currently youtube-dl has no problem downloading specific episode links (eg: https://uktvplay.uktv.co.uk/shows/alan-davies-as-yet-untitled/watch-online/?video=3973655453001), but for shows where only a single episode is present and only the "main page" URL is available (eg specials: https://uktvplay.uktv.co.uk/shows/alan-davies-xmas-untitled/watch-online/) youtube-dl cannot grab the episode (likely because no episode ID is specified). The video still plays correctly in web browsers when giventhe provided URL. If you would like any further information, please do not hesitate to ask,

[zang74]

Until this possibly gets added to the UKTV downloader plugin, there's a manual fix.

It would appear the video code for single videos is appended as "videoId=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx" to the end of the poster image URL in the video-content < div > of the HTML. "Inspecting" the element within your browser, you can get that "empty" url and just add "?video=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx" to the end of that "main page URL".

[zang74]

Just wanted to add that I have officially confirmed that manually grabbing that code and adding it to the URL does download the correct video in youtube-dl.

If one were so inclined, it'd be easy to create a quick & dirty python script to scrape the page, grab that code, append it to the URL and download it with Youtube-dl.

[thecoreyburton]

I greatly appreciate knowing there is a workaround until this is fixed. Thank you for looking in to this for me @zang74