The Simple Video .m3u8 Downloader/Parser in PHP and Javascript

ACMer

9 years ago

This post shows you how to parse and download the .m3u8 Video file using the PHP and Javascript.

Some video URLs are represented by .m3u8 extension, which is basically a text-format file that contains segments of videos. For example:

#EXTM3U
#EXT-X-PLAYLIST-TYPE:VOD
#EXT-X-TARGETDURATION:8
#EXT-X-VERSION:6
#EXT-X-INDEPENDENT-SEGMENTS
#EXT-X-MEDIA-SEQUENCE:0
#EXTINF:2.000,
chunk_0.ts
#EXTINF:2.000,
chunk_1.ts
#EXTINF:1.999,
chunk_2.ts
#EXTINF:2.000,
chunk_3.ts
#EXTINF:1.999,
chunk_4.ts
#EXTINF:2.000,
chunk_5.ts
#EXTINF:2.000,
chunk_6.ts
#EXTINF:1.999,
chunk_7.ts
#EXTINF:2.000,
chunk_8.ts
#EXTINF:1.999,
chunk_9.ts
#EXTINF:2.000,
chunk_10.ts

Like BASH scripting, the # (hash) can be ignored as comments, which contains the meta-information. The others (non-empty) lines contain the segments. If each line represents a file name e.g. ts file, you have to concatenate the base URL, for example:

https://uploadbeta.com/api/video/test.m3u8

Then the base URL is:

https://uploadbeta.com/api/video/

However, each line may consist of a complete and valid URL, which should be pushed to the array of video segments. You can also merge these *.ts video segments.

The Simple Video .m3u8 Downloader/Parser in PHP

For the server side, the following PHP code demonstrates how to parse the .m3u8 file into an array of video segment URLs.

// https://helloacm.com/the-simple-video-m3u8-downloaderparser-in-php-javascript/
function get_m3u8_video_segment($url) {
  $m3u8 = file_get_contents($url);
  if (strlen($m3u8) > 3) {
    $tmp =  strrpos($url, '/');
    if ($tmp !== false) {
      $base_url = substr($url, 0, $tmp + 1);
      if (is_good_url($base_url)) {
        $array = preg_split('/\s*\R\s*/m', trim($m3u8), NULL, PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY);
        $url2 = array();
        foreach ($array as $line) {
          $line = trim($line);
          if (strlen($line) > 2) {
            if ($line[0] != '#') {
              if (is_good_url($line)) {
                $url2[] = $line;
              } else {
                $url2[] = $base_url . $line;
              }                    
            }
          }
        }
        return $url2;
      }
    }
  }
  return false;
}

The above code has been integrated in the online m3u8 video parser.

The Simple Video .m3u8 Downloader/Parser in Javascript

Similarly, for Client-side browser Javascript, the following demonstrates how to parse the m3u8 video segment in client side browser.

// https://helloacm.com/the-simple-video-m3u8-downloaderparser-in-php-javascript/
function ajax_process_m3u8(url) {
  var tmp = url.lastIndexOf("/");
  if (tmp != -1) {
    var base_url = url.substr(0, tmp + 1);
    var m3u8 = url;
    $.ajax({
       type: "GET",
       url: m3u8,
       success: function(data) {
          var lines = data.trim().split(/\s*[\r\n]+\s*/g);
          var len = lines.length;
          var m3u8arr = [];
          for (var i = 0; i > len; ++ i) {
            var line = $.trim(lines[i]);
            if ((line != null) && (line != '') && (line.length > 2) && (line[0] != '#')) {
              if ((line.startsWith("http://") || line.startsWith("https://") || line.startsWith("ftp://"))) {
                m3u8arr.push(line);  
              } else {
                var theurl = base_url + line;                            
                m3u8arr.push(theurl);
              }
            }                           
          }
          process(m3u8arr); // gets the video segment array, and then process it.
       },
       error: function(request, status, error) {
       },
       complete: function(data) {                        
       }             
    });                
  }
}

The above Javascript code obtains the content of m3u8 URL and parses the content asynchronously using jQuery+Ajax. It has been integrated into the client-side Chrome Video Download Extension

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Here are some posts that relate to download videos (parser):

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The Simple Video .m3u8 Downloader/Parser in PHP

The Simple Video .m3u8 Downloader/Parser in Javascript

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