Download Video – Earlier it was very easy to download any photo or video from a website. You can get the direct links to photo or video from the website page source code. Recently websites are opting for different techniques in delivering videos to users. Videos are divided into chunks or bits and then delivered to user sequentially. Sometimes the media format will also be different like .TS format. These chunks/bits are made into a playlist. This playlist file is of format M3U8. It is a simple file with all the links to the video bits.

How To Download Video

For this you need a laptop or PC with Google Chrome and VLC Media Player. Go and find one. Open the a link which is having a video in Google chrome. Once the page loads press F12 or click on three vertical dots in Chrome. Then go to More Tools and then to Developer Tools.

Now on left hand side of the chrome select iPad or iPad Pro. On right hand side select Network tab. Inside Network tab select All tab. Now refresh the page and you can see list of files that are getting loaded on right side Network tab.

Start playing the video and pause immediately for 10 seconds. Now carefully check the All tab and try to find an entry with .M3U8. Once you find the entry then you can right click on it and open it new tab. Then the .M3U8 file will be downloaded in to your PC. If you don’t have VLC Media player then download and install the application.

Two Ways To Save Video

Media Convert/Save

Open VLC Media player and select Convert/Save from Media Menu. A pop up will be shown, select the M3U8 file in it and click Convert/Save. You can also make some changes to audio and video settings as well. Once the settings are made, video will start playing and parallely video will be saved in Videos Library.

Advanced Controls – Record

If the above method is not saving the video then follow this. Select Advanced Controls from View menu of VLC player. Now go to the location of M3U8 file and open it with VLC application. Click on the record button once video starts. Video will be saved in Videos Library.

Please use these methods for educational purpose. Do not download any copyrighted video. Check the file permissions before downloading any video or photo from any website.