Download from MTV

The process to download trailers from MTV requires a bit more technical skills with the computer. You’ll be capturing an RTMP stream with a utility such as RTMPDump. If you think you’re capable of doing so, please continue.

Visit MTV’s movie trailers page and locate the movie trailer you want. Take note of the URL of the trailer you want.

For example:
http://www.mtv.com/videos/movie-trailers/752852/the-host.jhtml

You’ll want to copy the video id, which in this case is 752852.

Open the following URL after updating the video id: http://www.mtv.com/player/includes/mediaGen.jhtml?vid=752852 and you’ll find an XML file with video stream information.

Locate the resolution you want and copy the stream URL.

For example, the 720p stream above is located in this block of data:
<rendition cdn="level3" duration="82" width="1280" height="720" type="video/mp4" bitrate="3500">
<src>rtmpe://viacommtvstrmfs.fplive.net/viacommtvstrm/gsp.originmusicstor/sites/mtv.com/news/2012/march/26/TheHostDomesticTrailer1World_ProRes2_1280x720_3500_h32.mp4</src>
</rendition>

Moving forward, I’ll be providing instructions for RTMPDump, but feel free to use your favorite rtmp capture tool.

The command you’ll want to run will look like the following:
rtmpdump -l 2 -o TheHostDomesticTrailer1World_ProRes2_1280x720_3500_h32.mp4 -r rtmpe://viacommtvstrmfs.fplive.net/viacommtvstrm/gsp.originmusicstor/sites/mtv.com/news/2012/march/26/TheHostDomesticTrailer1World_ProRes2_1280x720_3500_h32.mp4

To clarify the options:

  • -l 2 specifies to use the RTMPE protocol
  • -o FILENAME is where you want to save the file to
  • -r URL is the stream url you got from the XML above

Like I initially stated, this process is a bit more complicated compared to other trailer sites. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment below.

11 thoughts on “Download from MTV

  1. I want to download a couple interviews from MTV.com. Thanks for the tutorial, Krunk. I speak English well and I’m capable enough with a computer, but I’m not fully understanding these instructions. These instructions are made for someone who already knows what they’re doing, not for someone who knows nothing about “RTMPs” or “RTMP Capture Tools.” Thanks for the effort. I think a Youtube tutorial will probably be my best bet.

    • I don’t actually make the assumption you have any idea of what RTMP or RTMP Capture Tools or RTMPDump is. but I do make the assumption that you would know how to download a tool after giving you their homepage.

      I can make the same offer to you. Tell me which step you’re stuck on and I’ll try to help.

  2. This worked great for me for one video. I did encounter a problem on a second one and I hope you can help me. The second video was an interview and was broken up into three separate segments. I managed to get the first part of the video, but the second and third I couldn’t find the video ID as it was part of like a playlist. Is there any way to determine the video IDs for all the videos — segments — in a playlist?

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