Direct Download Links from Apple Are Not Working

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Update: Please see this blog post on how to get direct downloading to work again: Apple Trailer Links Are Working

Direct download links for HD trailers on Apple are currently busted. From their tweet, it looks like the change was made to deal with the influx of user traffic/bandwidth for the Avatar trailer:

Adjustments made to support additional #Avatar teaser trailer traffic now live http://tinyurl.com/avatarteaser/ #avatarmovie

It looks like one of the adjustments they made was to only allow Quicktime to download the trailer. Any web browser will be automatically redirected to the Apple – Movie Trailers’ homepage.

If you have a download utility or are able to spoof the User Agent in your browser (i.e. User Agent Switcher for Firefox), you can still get around this.

The user agent my Quicktime uses is:
QuickTime/7.6.2 (qtver=7.6.2;os=Windows NT 5.1Service Pack 3)

I’ve confirmed that the only portion you need is QuickTime.

Using wget, I was able to download the Avatar 1080p trailer with:
wget -U QuickTime http://trailers.apple.com/movies/fox/avatar/avatar2009aug0820a-tsr_h1080p.mov

Update #2: You can also use curl (comes with Mac OSX) to download using the following command:
curl -A QuickTime http://trailers.apple.com/movies/fox/avatar/avatar2009aug0820a-tsr_h1080p.mov

Update: If you want to use the User Agent Switcher for Firefox, you’ll first need to install the extension. After installing the extension, go to Tools > Default User Agent > Edit User Agents…

Create a new User Agent by clicking on New > New User Agent… Clear out all the fields and copy and paste QuickTime/7.6.2 into the Description and User Agent fields.

Switch to the newly created QuickTime/7.6.2 User Agent by selecting it from the Tools > Default User Agent menu. Now you should be able to click/save Apple HD trailers from our site as you normally did before. Remember to switch back to the Default User Agent after you’re done saving trailers.

Update #3: Found this page that’ll teach you step by step on how to change your user agent in the following browsers: Firefox, Opera, and Internet Explorer: Switching User Agents.

Let’s just hope this is temporary or else it’d be quite inconvenient for users to download HD trailers from Apple anymore.

91 thoughts on “Direct Download Links from Apple Are Not Working”

  2. Hmmmm….

    I’m not having issues with the referrer. I even tried setting the referrer to http://www.hd-trailers.net and was able to download it.

    curl -I -A QuickTime -e http://www.hd-trailers.net http://movies.apple.com/movies/paramount/ironman2/ironman2-z7r459g-tlr1_h1080p.mov
    HTTP/1.1 200 OK
    X-Cache-TTL: 3345
    Content-Length: 198212327
    Content-Type: video/quicktime
    Server: Apache/2.2.11 (Unix)
    Last-Modified: Thu, 17 Dec 2009 02:32:12 GMT
    ETag: W/”bd07ae7-47ae36e356300″
    X-Cached-Time: Thu, 17 Dec 2009 02:36:27 GMT
    Cache-Control: max-age=2100
    Expires: Tue, 22 Dec 2009 03:33:14 GMT
    Date: Tue, 22 Dec 2009 02:58:14 GMT
    Connection: keep-alive

  3. So far the current workaround of setting the user agent is working, and you don’t have to put the referrer either. In addition, in one instance I didn’t even have to put the ‘h’ before the ‘480p’. I’ve found the easiest is just to copy the link into an download accelerator like Orbit and then on the ‘browser context’ tab paste the user agent ‘QuickTime/7.6.2’. For Flashget you have to put the user agent in the ‘Protocol’ section under Options’.

  4. In trying to download the Avatar trailer so I could show my kids the next day without waiting for my G5 to re-download and wait, I stumbled across this blog page. Trying various methods (like Jing for screencapture; having problem saving to hd, though), I thought I’d try something that used to work. I successfully downloaded the 720p version of this trailer by looking in my QT cache and looking for the temp file that was DATED last and verifying the download (as it was downloading) by its size. So, this seems to work. Just sayin’

    The cache file name will be a random string of numbers and letters. I simply selected the cache file, copied it from my Library>caches>QuickTime>(folder containing the file; you have to manually search for it) to my desktop. There, I renamed it Avatar trailer and added the extension .mov

    When my comp asked if I wanted to change the extension to .mov from whatever it was, I simply clicked yes. That did it.

    Michael

  5. Okay, scratch my comment. I had it working when I copied partials (to double check) but once completed and copied+renamed, QT tells me the file is not a movie file. So, guess it didn’t work. Maybe someone can take what I did and figure out and endgame to this method.

    Sorry

  9. Fabio;

    got your reply and tried the adon; not working with either Safari nor Firefox. Having the link didn’t give me any file to download in Safari’s Activity window and in Firefox, using DownloadThemAll gave only an 81k file. Where is this small menu supposed to appear? When I right click, I don’t get anything other than save the link in various ways. Point is, I need a download file url for the full 150+Mb clip, in this case. I can get the whole file in the QT cache, but something happens once the browser is closed and I’ve renamed the file with the extension .mov to insure QT will open it up again. When I click, let’s say, on the 720p option at Apple’s trailer website for Avatar, Qt wants to play it for me. If I can get the browser to play it, there should be a file loading as viewed through Activity window of the Safari browser. The name of the link is there, but no .swf, .mov, .mp4 etc file shows. Qt is in control at this point, which is why I went looking in the Library>caches>quicktime and rooted about for the latest cache item over 10mb. I can find it, but can’t seem to save it AS A MOVIE file after the browser is closed.

    But, if you can run me through an exact procedure whereby your adon works, by all means, ‘splain away, Lucy!’

  10. The way I found the easiest of batch downloading trailers was to do it like this:

    Get wget for windows
    make a batch file (.bat) in the wget directory
    copy/paste as many lines of ‘wget -U “QuickTime/7.6.2″‘ as you need

    Go to apple.com/trailers, search for the trailers I wanted (in HD), open them in tabs, copy/paste the 720p links
    Then when I had all the desired trailers I’d replace ‘_720p’ with ‘_h720p’.
    Run the script, and voila – it’s automatically downloading all the trailers you picked.

  11. Oh and sometimes when you get brought to a fanart-like page with no direct links to the trailers except for ones that open them in quicktime, add ‘/hd’ to the url and it’ll take you to the regular download page most of the time.

  12. Krunk,

    I’m not using anything related to ‘user agent’; I’m just finding the QT cache and when I see one that is most recent and a very large file, I copy it to my desktop (usually, this is a partial as I look while it’s still downloading to play through QT) and then, if I double click the file, it plays. But then, when the file is complete and I copy that, then rename it including adding the extension .mov, upon trying to open it, QT tells me it’s not a movie format. Soooo, that’s the process I went through. Something changes when the browser is shut down because the partial IS the movie exactly as I’m seeing it in QT.

  13. @Michael, I guess my question to you is given that you’re willing to try other programs to download these trailers, is there a reason you don’t want to use the user-agent method, which is guaranteed to work?

    The QT cache method is interesting, but as you noted, QT corrupts the file by the time it finishes downloading it.

  14. Krunk;

    No, I don’t have an aversion per se to using other programs and I will probably give the other a try, I just thought there was an easy fix that didn’t include yet another program. I used to be able to grab the odd video clip from the Activity window and it’s pretty simple, but this hd trailer was so much better re quality, I thought to try and save it and the usual method isn’t working. Just thought there was an easier workaround but will give the other a try.

    I also figured there were smarter people than myself that might know exactly what is happening re the cache/activity window and thought I’d step in line and learn something, ya know? No disrespect meant, either! I’ll give the other a try. Btw, is it going to work on my G5?

  15. Krunk;

    Added the user switcher to Firefox (3.5.6). Could you walk me through the procedure? I don’t usually dl using FF (I usually use Safari on my G5 iMac, running Tiger) and don’t have the method for dl with FF. I’m using QT 7.5 and not the pro version, which allows me to dl and save directly from QT (as opposed to the regular version that I’m using). So, the problem is saving in QT since the movies are not playing in FF.

    Thanks.

  16. Krunk;

    I installed the adon (user switcher) and still get the clip playing in QT. How am I supposed to save it? Again, I DON’T have QT pro, and am on a Mac. There’s no menu save nor anything that I can see in FF. This last part, the saving, is the part I don’t seem to have access to. Any help?

  22. Seems it’s broken again so you can’t get them from their RSS feed? They’ve started using javascript on the pages and have no links to the .mov files in the HTML… it’s all AJAX apple protected stuff.

  27. What’s with the script making the torrents for the hd-trailers.net RSS (which e.g. feeds Vuze subscribers?) It’s accepting the Apple error HTML (22.1kB trailers would be a neat development, mind) and cranking out a nicely packaged .mov full of Javascript (and some HTML.)

    • That QuickTime Alternative is for Win32 (thus less handy, but I should try it in WINE.) I can write scripts to do the download managing, but there’s no guaranteeing Apple won’t move the release the way it presumably does on the list’s RSS URIs.

      The scripters fixed things (mostly,) with recent exceptions (apparent from the 24.2kb item size) being (Trailers to):
      Sucker Punch
      Soul Kitchen
      Sinbad the Fifth Voyage
      …
      The Extra Man
      then after Bran Nue Dae and La Soga (OK; 87 and 182MB):
      Charlie St. Cloud (Featurette)
      The Expendables (Pt. 4 Fighting)
      then Let Me In (Red Band Trailer) is OK
      Saw 3D among other 24.2kb results
      and the latest few among the RSS entries that look short on Vuze are
      Step Up 3D (clip), and
      Battle
      It would be neat if new items were generated, but there’s not much controlling the fact that the files have the same name (causing Vuze to go ‘oh hai I got that 23k it didn’t work out.’)

      Maybe it’s Apple making RSS look dumber than atom (which…it is,) maybe it’s some curation on the list generation against 3D clips with no time dedicated to getting viewers used to the matte. We should know all the love given to Piranha, their needs, habits and ecosystems in the film, and it just doesn’t come through in the trailer. Was Amazing Grace really all headshots?

  29. To play properly all video/audio formats on WinOS 32 + 64 bit [Win2000/XP/2003/Vista/2008/7], one has only to install K-Lite Codec Pack Mega (which installs also RealPlayer/RealMedia codecs) [free]:
    http://www.codecguide.com/about_kl.htm
    also here:
    http://www.free-codecs.com/download/K_Lite_Codec_Pack.htm
    on top of QTM Alternative [free]:
    http://www.free-codecs.com/download/QuickTime_Alternative.htm
    Then use MPC-HC (Media Player Classic Home Cinema) to play anything/any format [including 720p/1080p], even with DXVA2 (GPU shaders) turned on:
    http://www.guru3d.com/article/accelerate-x264-1080p-movies-over-the-gpu-guide/
    and make use of DD (AC3, AC3 enh, DTS or DTS-HD) 5.1/7.1 [digital output thru optical cable to DD 5.1/7.1 “stereo” amp + dedicated speakers].
    HTH

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