hls-to-mp4 is a bash script that downloads HLS .m3u8 format videos from a formatted input file. If the videos have non-embedded captions (such as in WebVTT format), you can include them in the input file to be downloaded with their corresponding video as .srt files.
Why? I made this for my own personal use.
Required:
- ffmpeg
- youtube-dl
Download the script. Add permissions:
chmod +x ./hls-to-mp4.bashrc
Create the input file with videos (and captions) to download.
Input file only has videos to download:
./hls-to-mp4.bashrc -f <input file path>
Input file has videos and captions to download:
./hls-to-mp4.bashrc -s -f <input file path>
Each line in the input file is a video to download and optionally, its corresponding captions. Each line is split by '|' and ends with ';'.
Video and caption:
file name to save as with no extensions | full url for .m3u8 video | full url to captions;
Video only:
file name to save as with no extensions | full url for .m3u8 video;
The file name is applied to the name of the saved video and captions. If you open the video in VLC, the captions should automatically appear since the .srt file is the same name as the video.
You cannot have an input file that has both lines of videos with and without caption urls. The input file must either all be videos without captions to download or videos with captions to download.
Videos (and captions) are saved to the directory where the script is executing in the sample input files. You can include the path of where you want it to be saved:
/Users/jenny/Videos/Season 1/Episode 1 | ... which will save the video to /Users/jenny/Videos/Season 1 as Episode 1.mp4
If a directory does not exist, it will create the directory. For example, if /Users/jenny/Videos does not exist, it will create it and save the video/subtitles there.
If a file exists at the specified save location for a video and/or subtitles, it will NOT overwrite that file. It will just skip that download.