How to download video from arte+7, arte-tv and similar sites?

Question

Arte tv has a website called arte+7 where some videos are provided for a period of time. But these are not as easy to download as those on youtube and other such websites.

Is there a program that can do that?

Answer 1

Depending on the evolution of the website, some of these solutions may stop working from time to time.

A cross-platform solution:

Lately, Arte has posted on its Youtube channel some of the videos. (On that here.)

Another cross-platform solution:

A userscript does the trick. Can be used with Greasemonkey in Firefox and Tampermonkey in Chrome - so this is a cross-platform solution.

It will display download option under the video screen.

After installing Greasemonkey, click here to install the script.

If that stops working, look for an updated version.

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Videoob

It is the 'video capability' of the powerful and much larger tool Weboob.

sudo apt-get install weboob weboob-qt

Videoob is not limited to arte tv.

To just search and watch the video (in a rather limited integrated video player), you can use Qvideoob, the qt frontend of videoob.

(The player window shows the url of the video, which can be copied and used in an external player - see below.)

From there you can update and add new 'backends' (tv stations and such). Backends > Add. (The Weboob backends configuration tool can also be launched separately from a launcher like Dash.)

To download:

Open terminal and run videoob. You will see this

videoob>

Type help to see more options.

Type search TERM in order to find titles, like for example

videoob> search republique

then, after getting a list of titles just type, download NUMBER to download a certain title according to its number (it should look like so: videoob:/search> download 1). The download goes to ~/.

I use a desktop file to launch the terminal directly with that:

gedit ~/.local/share/applications/TV-download.desktop

with

[Desktop Entry]
Categories=AudioVideo;
Exec=gnome-terminal -e 'videoob' --profile=hold
Icon=qvideoob
Name=TV France (search, then download)
StartupNotify=true
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=Network;System;

Instead of downloading with wget in terminal, you may watch the video in an external player like mpv (with mpv <url>) or SMPlayer (Open-URL). To get the video url use info instead of download and the address will appear after url:

Also, the url of the video is displayed in the window of the Qvideoob integrated player as seen above.

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Qarte

(Source) - Also, thanks to Carl for posting an answer on Qarte in September 2015 on the new Qarte versions that work.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:vincent-vandevyvre/vvv
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install qarte

To download the deb, here.

Qarte has a second part dedicated to arte live web

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A very good tool is Captvty from Windows: to install that under Wine, see this separate post; installing it may take some time, but it may be very useful in that it displays all available titles for many stations without the need (and the possibility) to search.

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Answer 2

Arte.tv website has been completly rewritten in March 2013... Probably old scripts and hacks have not updated their code.

I have created a small standalone php webpage that allow you to download, without any software or account any Arte+7 videos as a MP4 file , just go there: http://floriancrouzat.net/arte/ and paste your Arte+7 URL. If you liked it, either recommend the page or leave me a comment, it's always a pleasure ;) -- Florian

Answer 3

There is qarte (http://www.oqapy.eu/download?lang=en), but you still need to be in a country where you can watch Arte.

There is a how-to in French here : http://doc.ubuntu-fr.org/qarte

Answer 4

Another way to do it:

• GO TO http://www.arte.tv/guide/fr/, choose the desired video link and open it in browser
• click “View Page Source”
• in source, search for link that contains PLUS7 and ALL.json
• copy that link but don't remove the string player/ from it
• open it in browser
• in that page, search for .MP4 or HD - (if you want high-definition) or version for language.

The first URL found is something like that: http://arte.tv/papi/tvguide/videos/stream/player/F/053366-002_PLUS7-F/ALL/ALL.json

There are several HBBTV.mp4, one for each version. Look for the language version of mp4 which you would prefer. There are blocks like:

"HTTP_MP4_EQ_1":{"quality":"MD - 400p","width":720,"height":406,"mediaType":"mp4","mimeType":"video/mp4","bitrate":1500,"url":"http://artestras.vo.llnwd.net/v2/am/HBBTV/053366-002-A_EQ_2_VF-STF_01749068_MP4-1500_AMM-HBBTV.mp4","videoFormat":"HBBTV","versionProg":"1","versionCode":"VF-STF","versionLibelle":"VF","versionShortLibelle":"VF","VQU":"EQ"},

They are all written on one line, so copy-pasting to a text editor helps. It becomes possible to use new lines where the closing brackets are, and thus to separate the versions. Warning: there are also versions other than mp4 files.

Once you have found the link you want, copy this new link to browser (e. g. Firefox) and wait if necessary. When you see the player, right-click on it and choose "save video as".

Thanks to Nikola for the first part of this answer.

Answer 5

You could try my python script. It is an interactive menu based application. Still some work to be finished. But mostly working

Go and get it at https://github.com/solsticedhiver/arteVIDEOS

But most arte+7 videos are available on youtube nowadays so any youtube downloader can get you what you want most of the time.