Direct Download Links from Apple Are Not Working

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

  1. excellent, thank you very much. i got this to work on OS X 10.5.8 with wget (wget for mac from statusq.org). now to convert to DIVX and transfer it to my ps3!

  2. @alex

    Really? I can’t get that to work. I put the Avatar 1080p file on a USB drive, but the ps3 won’t see the .mov file. I renamed it to .mp4, it still plays on the mac as an ‘mpeg-4’ movie, but transferring that one to the ps3 shows it as ‘corrupted data’, and it won’t play.

    The DIVX converted file did play, however. I use MediaLink to stream that over the air from the mac to the ps3. But i’d love to know how to get the .mov files to play on the ps3, will def save me lots of conversion time. thanks!

  3. @ blueshifter

    You need to download the 1080p file that’s under the MP4 Encode section. Those will work on the PS3; they are already converted to .mp4 from the original .mov file so you don’t have to.

  4. MOV DownLoad Tool (download the real file from browsers / QT plugin) was updated the day after this post : it also solves the issue described here. You can launch this stand-alone version (1.2.0) in order to update the QuickTime Alternative pack.

  5. @s|b: Must be something to do with the latest version of QuickTime Alternative. I just a random Apple trailer and still get redirected to their homepage.

    When you say you can view/download Apple HD trailers again, how exactly are you viewing/downloading it?

  6. @ Krunk

    I use Mozilla Firefox 3.5.2 to go to apple.com/trailers. I select a trailer and choose HD. The HD trailer is downloaded (through QuickTime Alternative, something called MOV Download Tool) and after download it’s played with Media Player Classic.

    I just downloaded (and viewed) the HD trailer of ‘Gamer’ (480p) without a problem.

  7. @s|b: Has that ever stopped working for you? That scenario you describe was never really broken. When you click on a trailer on Apple’s website, what you’re downloading is a shortcut file containing information of where the real video is. Firefox then passes that onto QuickTime (or QuickTime Alternative) and that is what is downloading the actual video, so the user agent would’ve always been correct.

  8. @ Krunk

    Yes, this stopped working (with QuickTime Alternative 2.9.0) a couple of days ago. Download would be very fasted (of course, the complete file wasn’t downloaded), but MPC wouldn’t render the ‘unknown’ file. That’s how I stumbled upon your site.

    The I saw QuickTime Alternative 2.9.2 was available. I downloaded and installed (settings are saved during upgrade) and now it works again.

    Changelog for 2.9.0 > 2.9.2

    * Updated Media Player Classic to version 6.4.9.1 rev. 104
    * Updated MOV Download Tool to version 1.2.0

    It must have been the change to MOV Download Tool that did it…

  9. @slb: My guess would be that the updated QuickTime Alternative fixed its issue where it wasn’t providing QuickTime as the user agent when it tried to download. If you had the real QuickTime installed, the scenario you described was always working.

  10. @Krunk
    First of all i wanna thank u for alll the valuable information… Mine is a completely different issue.. We have .mov extension blocked here in our network. Initially i followed your suggestion and i gave that direct link to the http://www.netload.in remote uploading. There by i used to get a .html from netload instead of .mov file from apple. But due to the current changes i am unable to upload the trailer into netload as “adding h in between url ” is not working.. i tried the user Agent Switcher but couldn’t d/l as .mov extension is blocked here in out ntwk. I request you to help me find a solution for this … thanks in advance….

  11. @Deepak

    If I understand you correctly, your work firewall blocks out .mov requests, so you use netload.in’s remote upload as a bypass mechanism.

    Unfortunately due to this recent change where they’re enforcing QuickTime user agent, you’ve been unable to use netload.in to bypass your work firewall.

    Have you tried changing the domain as suggested here: http://www.hd-trailers.net/blog/2009/08/26/apple-trailer-links-are-working/

    If you change movies.apple.com to http://www.apple.com, you don’t need to set the user agent and netload.in should work as previously.

  12. @Krunk

    Thanks for the immediate response. I tried the way that you suggested to replace movies.apple.com/* url with http://www.apple.com/* . However it worked for only files of 480p resolution(might be due to less size). If i follow the same process uploading this url in netload.in for 1080p.. then i am getting the following error…

    “The following error was encountered:

    * Zero Sized Reply

    Squid did not receive any data for this request. ”

    I request you to kindly look into the this issue and help me.
    Thanks & Regards,
    Deepak

  13. just use getright !!
    change the user agent to “QuickTime/7.6.2 (qtver=7.6.2;os=Windows NT 5.1Service Pack 3)” and there you go.
    works like a charm !

  14. There are other ways to get those files from Apple – the easiest is to download them through the itunes store. They’re free and are available at the same time as the ones on the website. I also have updated to Snow Leopard and using Quicktime X – which lets you save movies without having to upgrade to the pro version. I haven’t had any problems getting these movies and playing them on my xbox from a USB thumb drive.

  15. I think using the latest version of Quicktime alternative is the best option. I had been using it for so long … then suddenly it stopped working. Then I followed the message
    [Oz
    Sunday, 23. August 2009]

    I was astonished to find a new version of QT Alternative (2nd November). I downloaded it just to test. It also installed itself (as always) as firefox’s addin.

    Then I went to the Apple.com clicked on the trailer and … it started downloading the trailer… just like old times… I think everyone should try it instead of using command line tools… giving manual urls.. etc… just install this… point and click… and save…

    Following the link by Krunk in Post #17

  16. I have found a good solution for multi-threaded downloading from apple.

    For those curious the programs listed in this guide are completely safe and contain no Adware/Spyware.

    Needed:
    DownloadStudio: http://hotfile.com/dl/7893536/ad0fb40/downstudio-TE.rar.html

    Install Instructions:
    Install Winrar http://www.rarlab.com/download.htm to extract the files.

    View Install instructions on the nfo file “te.nfo” with http://www.softpedia.com/get/Office-tools/Text-editors/DAMN-NFO-Viewer.shtml

    Once downloaded and installed, in DownloadStudio, select Tools, expand Options, select HTTP and change “HTTP protocol user agent” to “QuickTime/7.6.2” without quotes.

    If you do not have your Firefox user agent set to QuickTime/7.6.2 you WILL NOT be able to initiate downloads from Firefox to DownloadStudio. I suggest you download https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/59 and follow the guide above. If not you can just paste the Apple links into DownloadStudio.

    To paste the links, copy the link locations from http://www.davestrailerpage.co.uk/ or anywhere ever else that has direct links to the apple trailers and manually paste them in DownloadStudio. There is a +Add button at the top right of the program.

    Now you will be able to download the trailers at max speed with multithreading.

  17. I’ve made a little bat script so you only need to enter the url and it downloads using wget.

    set INPUT=
    set /P INPUT=Type input: %=%
    C:\Program Files\GnuWin32\bin\wget -U “QuickTime/7.6.2 (qtver=7.6.2;os=Windows NT 5.1Service Pack 3)” %INPUT%
    @pause

  18. I made a little Windows tool to download trailers from Apple (also supports other pages):

    Screenshot: http://i46.tinypic.com/2jeokdu.png
    Download: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=D9ZMZY6E

    Instructions: Copy a web site URL such as http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount/ironman/ or http://www.hd-trailers.net/movie/avatar/ (i.e. a page where the trailers are linked) or a direct mov URL such as http://largeassets.myspacecdn.com/creative/hd/avatar_trlr/100256822_720p.mov and click Continue!

  19. I used to be able to do a ‘properties’ on a link, and paste it into Net Transport, adding the ‘h’ as described above, and download just fine. Now that doesn’t work anymore, even with all the various methods mentioned above. I am able to D/L using Windows, but it’s so much slower than Net Transport! Anyone know how to get Net Transport to D/L apple trailers?

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