Things you should know about m3u8 file

The term m3u8 is familiar to those who often download videos which is also one of the obstacles when downloading.

The reason is, m3u8 is not a video file but a playlist which contains the video file itself and the video file is divided into small parts that form segments which are generally referred to as "video file chunks" which later - when the playlist (m3u8) is played, each segment will be played sequentially.

The video file that has become segments will have a .ts extension instead of .mp4 like most videos have where the .ts extension can't be played on some video players except - one of them is VLC.

An illustration of an m3u8 playlist is like this:

Videos played through m3u8 playlists are also often referred to as HLS videos where HLS stands for HTTP Live Streaming, a video streaming technology developed by Apple Inc. HLS videos can be played online in most modern browsers via websites that display them on both mobile phones and PC.

Back to the m3u8 file, where the m3u8 file can also contain other m3u8 files. So, sometimes we will find that there are several m3u8 files in an m3u8 file. Typically, an m3u8 file will be a master file which is generally called master and named master.m3u8, then in this master file there will be several other m3u8 files that function as "video quality options" which is usually referred to as index.m3u8 files and each file is generally named based on the quality of the video like file_360/index.m3u8, file_480/index.m3u8 etc.

The function of this video quality option is to allow the server to automatically select which file to play based on network strength, or even be manually selected by the user.

The m3u8 files, both master and index files can be downloaded to the device storage, what we need is a link from the file. And, after we save it on the device, we can open it to find out its contents using supported software such as Notepad++ on a PC.

Various methods to download HLS videos m3u8 as mp4

HLS videos can't be easily downloaded as mp4. For that, we need to have various kinds of software because one software does not always work well to download it.

Update

Some new methods to download and convert m3u8 to mp4 on Windows and Android can be found in this article: m3u8 to mp4 downloader and converter for Windows and Android

Download and convert m3u8 on PC

For example, the ffmpeg software cannot download HLS video if its m3u8 file is protected using a security key or commonly referred to as encrypted m3u8. Or if possible then it must go through the advanced way.

Another example is VLC for PC. HLS video can indeed be played and downloaded by VLC via Stream » Network by entering the file or link of the m3u8 and then selecting Convert even though the download duration through this method is very long. However, as with ffmpeg, VLC cannot play and download protected HLS videos.

Note

Once, I downloaded an m3u8 file on my laptop and found that it contained a video segment URL with an .html extension. Then I re-downloaded the file using Opera Mini on Android, and this time the downloaded file contained a video segment URL with a .ts extension.

What I want to convey is - that VLC can play m3u8 file (which have been downloaded and stored on the PC) containing video segment URLs with .html extension but not video URLs with .ts extension.

Another thing is that if the video segment file is a very small file with a play time duration of less than 3 seconds, neither ffmpeg nor VLC will be able to play and download it.

The another tool is browser extensions. Most browser extensions can only download m3u8 files and not mp4 video files. Even if it can, the quality of the downloaded video is the lowest. And also for protected m3u8 files, browser extension can't download them. However, browser extensions make it easy to find links from m3u8 files without having to open developer tools.

Download and convert m3u8 on Android

The latest version of Opera Mini for Android can download m3u8 files as mp4, but it's limited to a few sites. We can experiment with data saving features (automatic and extreme) so that the browser brings up options (play, download and so on) after we click the play button on the video.

Sometimes at the top next to the address bar, Opera Mini will also display a sign if there is media detected. From here we can download the media, but sometimes the extension option of the downloadable file is only m3u8.

Another Android browser is UC Turbo. This browser can download m3u8 files along with small chunks of video files which are then stored in a folder so that the m3u8 files can be directly played via UC Turbo, but not necessarily can be played on other m3u8 players.

Not only that, the small chunks of video files that make up segments don't have the ts extension. Instead, it's just a file with an unknown extension. However, HLS m3u8 videos that have been downloaded via UC Turbo can be converted to mp4 using a converter app.

© aLeziana