MotorTrend On Demand

[Veritas413]

Checklist

• I'm reporting a new site support request
• I've verified that I'm running youtube-dl version 2020.06.06
• I've checked that all provided URLs are alive and playable in a browser
• I've checked that none of provided URLs violate any copyrights
• I've searched the bugtracker for similar site support requests including closed ones

Example URLs

• Single video: https://www.motortrendondemand.com/detail/the-650hp-clevo-commando-returns/153906/
• Site: https://www.motortrendondemand.com/

Description

Used to be able to download just fine from https://www.motortrendondemand.com/ - looks like they changed something to break it, or changed their backend hosting.
Tried with login and cookies, which used to work, but now it doesn't.
Found a closed request from last year (#23317) but the solution doesn't seem to work anymore, and the video IDs from the URL changed format.
In addition, it looks like they're now requiring logins. I can provide to someone working on the issue, if they don't want to sign up for a free trial that requires a CC.

[ualnwe]

Seems they've switched from a Kaltura backend to Discovery's own backend: disco/dplay?

Should be able to adapt an existing disco/dplay extractor to work, and it seems the auth/token flow is similar too.

[cjwil]

I'm not sure how helpful this is to devs but hopefully it will be a helpful workaround until its fixed.

In Firefox if you open the inspect element on a video and switch to the network tab, you may have to refresh the page but sort the information by type and find the one that says dash in the type column. Then copy that file's url and paste that into youtube-dl and it should work. I've tested it a few times and a couple videos and it seems to be working like the old way did.

[Veritas413]

I'm not sure how helpful this is to devs but hopefully it will be a helpful workaround until its fixed.

In Firefox if you open the inspect element on a video and switch to the network tab, you may have to refresh the page but sort the information by type and find the one that says dash in the type column. Then copy that file's url and paste that into youtube-dl and it should work. I've tested it a few times and a couple videos and it seems to be working like the old way did.

Nice! That appears to be a sufficient workaround! It's a pain, but it's better than nothing.

[cjwil]

Adding to this again because it seems they've made more changes. If when searching for the URL in the inspector, the file name is only "Master.mpd" and the URL contains "&KeyName=primary&Signature" you must put the URL in quotes for youtube-dl or the & symbols mess with the URL

[dgcurtis]

Also, if you want the subtitles/captions, you can search for "Mastercaption". Make sure you enable CC in the video. If you right-click and get the curl link, you can paste that into your shell and redirect the output to a vtt file. Then you can merge the video and vtt with ffmpeg.