devinschumacher/how-to-ffmpeg.md

## how-to-ffmpeg.md

      
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              how-to-ffmpeg.md
            
          
    .m3u8 file is a playlist format used by HLS (HTTP Live Streaming).
Instead of being a single video file, it contains URLs to many small video segments (.ts files).
Your browser or media player downloads them on the fly and plays them in order.
In other words:
•	.mp4 → one solid file
•	.m3u8 → a list of mini-files streamed in sequence
Watch the video 👇


Method 1:  Find the .m3u8 URL

We’re intercepting the video player’s master playlist URL (the .m3u8 file) and downloading all its segments into a single .mp4 file.

Install ffmpeg (Mac: brew install ffmpeg).
Open the video page in Chrome (e.g., Skool classroom video).
Open Developer Tools → Network tab (Cmd+Opt+I on Mac / Ctrl+Shift+I on Windows).
Filter for m3u8.
Click Play on the video.
Look for the top request from stream.video.skool.com (this is the master playlist).
Right-click → Copy → Copy as cURL.

Get this command ready

ffmpeg -headers "Referer: https://skool.com/" \
      -i "" \
      -c copy output.mp4

Example of a 'copy as cURL' that you will be copy & pasting

curl 'https://stream.video.skool.com/ttoH002mbFAgKR1Eeod4Iq402jP9CWuW8uiVeEvn6D1qE.m3u8?token=eyJhbGciOiJSUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJhdWQiOiJ2IiwiZXhwIjoxNzU0ODU2MDk5LCJraWQiOiJPVjIwMHZ6SWZuZFVCNHdXdTAxbDRjb0hrYTVQQUd3TlYwMEtZSkJrQkppVlFrIiwicGxheWJhY2tfcmVzdHJpY3Rpb25faWQiOiIzMDJ2dXNuVG1lbW1QSzllOUpMaWxaUmpnVkJ3T2hTNlVLdGkyWnhJS2V1WSIsInN1YiI6InR0b0gwMDJtYkZBZ0tSMUVlb2Q0SXE0MDJqUDlDV3VXOHVpVmVFdm42RDFxRSJ9.DEM65MQoPZpRbrZGzFGMCFA_Pwwsl1eMdLC9NqdV_QNHfIAbXkDPXs0Kv1X1G4ohp2Fh0Q7mpmtJL786NJx8moKDyCr5rXOpwViDWwGOhveLQ0m654xqaukkG1hY4Q_z0Dg4re-jk2ReLzxpoJTKVuXD01lW3xxp8El1hLfdkidUqGT3KLJ7R2QS6egU-FJy9SrFcHYLdW3ddQ4HX0XqeXrUMHzQhCBL7x39bSiBPbXEp_77l21KW3vCVocpm5uMc4iP8UFQNm5QTTtXzMB_OucJhDCRrjhBmmj-f-DDWC9iLC6Z57Xkx3kS2iuT3zoVc_MHlvyLuSs6z9nJv95PtQ&CMCD=cid%3D%22ttoH002mbFAgKR1Eeod4Iq402jP9CWuW8uiVeEvn6D1qE%22%2Csid%3D%22bca9b88c-162e-405d-bc93-2c51906943e0%22' \
  -H 'accept: */*' \
  -H 'accept-language: en-US,en;q=0.9' \
  -H 'origin: https://www.skool.com' \
  -H 'priority: u=1, i' \
  -H 'referer: https://www.skool.com/' \
  -H 'sec-ch-ua: "Not(A:Brand";v="99", "Google Chrome";v="133", "Chromium";v="133"' \
  -H 'sec-ch-ua-mobile: ?0' \
  -H 'sec-ch-ua-platform: "macOS"' \
  -H 'sec-fetch-dest: empty' \
  -H 'sec-fetch-mode: cors' \
  -H 'sec-fetch-site: same-site' \
  -H 'user-agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/133.0.0.0 Safari/537.36'

Method 2: Find the manifest resource

If the first method did not work (or you cant find any m3u8 files, do this instead.
1. Get this command ready
ffmpeg -headers "Referer: https://skool.com/" \
      -i "" \
      -c copy output.mp4

2. Search for manifest instead of m3u8

Right click on the browser and "inspect"
Navigate to the Network tab & type manifest in the search/filter area
Refresh the page
Click on the video to play it


Right click on a manifest resource and "Copy as URL" (not cURL)
Paste that URL into the same ffmpeg command from above

ffmpeg -headers "Referer: https://skool.com/" \
      -i "https://manifest-gcp-us-east1-vop1.fastly.video.skool.com/H00jUZdQeNIxkvDZ00lp9JKRVUvbvafiuveoFRGIWbVVJSJCVCp2ogUIsSf02V00oDjPJmB00P3901taxXh7eY00DFw4f01d8NYFU6Ok/rendition.m3u8?cdn=fastly&expires=1756818000&rid=302vusnTmemmPK9e9JLilZRjgVBwOhS6UKti2ZxIKeuY&skid=default&signature=NjhiNmU0NGFfMWMxMjM3NDFlNDA0OTAyMDUwNzUwM2Q2ZWYyZjQ3MTFjMTU5NDY5ZWM2MmIzOWMwMTBmNGFmYzExYzZlYThiMw%3D%3D&vsid=ou1djvysqabRO6MESryczuxgdVO1RVhbCP1jOiCCTddf9pfOtlkA7Af00rypw500Ltle6NvPMkNspbvX6ZomA1a3QFShZhQ8sJk00L7Amoa004YqaAnZ9IQ01fSnsnwCNAhjt&CMCD=cid%3D%22FimsQtrWYlSqyYeM1VJgsxF02QsGi7Lki0202n7iLNjGc8%22%2Csid%3D%22af6a03ce-a195-4bfb-afb3-2924050209e3%22" \
      -c copy output.mp4


Paste it in your terminal


Tada!
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