115 lines
4.1 KiB
Markdown
115 lines
4.1 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: How to Download a RTMP Video
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layout: post
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---
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[RTMP or Real Time Messaging
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Protocol](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Time_Messaging_Protocol) is a
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protocol developed by Adobe to stream Flash videos. It's currently in use by
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sites like the New York Times, ABC, NBC, Hulu, and so on. Since the video is
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streamed to the user's Flash player (in their browser) bit-by-bit, the full
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video file is never given to the user for them to keep. This is desirable to a
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lot of media companies because then they can force you to watch through ads to
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see their content and can charge you to download the full video.
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However, [RTMPDump](http://rtmpdump.mplayerhq.hu/), an open-source tool
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designed to intercept RTMP streams, can download the full video.
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Despite numerous “How to use RTMPDump” tutorials and forum posts coming up
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with a brief Google search, I've found a large portion of them are either
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completely incorrect or are far too complicated since they are not using the
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full toolkit that RTMPDump provides. Since it took me so long to find a decent
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procedure for downloading a RTMP video, I thought it would be worth sharing
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here.
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Since this is questionably legal, make sure you understand any Terms of
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Services you accepted or laws in your locality regarding this before you follow
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the steps below ;).
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###Have Linux###
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Most of these instructions will assume you have Ubuntu, but
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most distributions will work.
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While RTMPDump works on a variety of operating systems, I've only researched
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how to do this on Linux. Feel free to comment if you know how to do this in
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Windows or OSX.
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###Install RTMPDump###
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This open source goodness can be found at
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[http://rtmpdump.mplayerhq.hu/](http://rtmpdump.mplayerhq.hu/) or you can just
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intall it using your Linux distro's package manager. For Ubuntu, that would be
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typing the following into your terminal:
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```bash
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sudo apt-get install rtmpdump
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```
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###Redirect ALL the RTMP!###
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Now we need to configure your firewall to redirect
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all RTMP traffic to a local port on your computer (Note: this will screw up any
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RTMP streaming video you try to watch on your computer, so make sure you run
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the undo command in one of the later steps to return things to normal). Type
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the following into your terminal, there should be no output from the command:
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```bash
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sudo iptables -t nat -A OUTPUT -p tcp --dport 1935 -j REDIRECT
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```
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###Run rtmpsrv###
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When you install `rtmpdump`, a program called `rtmpsrv`
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should have been bundled with it and installed as well. We will want to run
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this now by entering the following command in a terminal:
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rtmpsrv
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This should output something that looks like this:
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RTMP Server v2.4 (c) 2010 Andrej Stepanchuk, Howard Chu; license: GPL
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Streaming on rtmp://0.0.0.0:1935
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###Feed rtmpsrv the Precious Video###
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Now go to your browser and open/refresh
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the page with the desired video. Try playing the video. If nothing happens and
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it just continues to give you a black screen, then you're on the right track:
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rtmpsrv has intercepted the video.
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If you look back at the terminal that's running rtmpsrv you should see that
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some text was outputted. There is one line in this printout that we need; it
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should be a command that starts with `rtmpdump`. Copy that entire command, we
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will need it later.
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You can CTRL+C out of rtmpsrv now that we have what we need.
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###Undo the Redirection###
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You must undo the iptables redirection command we
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performed earlier before you can do anything else, so run this in your
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terminal:
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```bash
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sudo iptables -t nat -D OUTPUT -p tcp --dport 1935 -j REDIRECT
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```
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###Finally, Download the Precious Video###
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Now paste that command you copied
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from the rtmpsrv output in the step before last into your terminal prompt and
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hit enter. You should now see a torrent of `INFO` printout along with a
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percentage as the video is being downloaded.
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###Feast Eyes on Precious Video###
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Once downloaded, the video file, which has a
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`flv` extension and was named by the `-o` parameter in the command you copied
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and pasted, should be in your current directory (`ls | grep flv` can find it as
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well). Any video player should be able to play it, but vlc is a nice video
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player for Ubuntu.
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You're welcome.
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