Show HN: I made a Bluesky video downloader • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: I made a Bluesky video downloader

#41

Post by Retr0id » Fri, Oct 25, 2024, 12:49 PM UTC

reportgunner wrote: post #37

Retr0id wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This does not work for sites that serve videos in a segmented format, such as bluesky

I downloaded a video off bluesky this way before posting, I didn't check if the whole video got downloaded though, just the extension. You are right that some websites give you .m3u or some kind of .htm that is not the actual video this way.

You presumably downloaded the first TS segment (in MPEG-TS format, not MP4), which could plausibly have been the whole video if it was short enough.

Re: Show HN: I made a Bluesky video downloader

#42

Post by egeozcan » Fri, Oct 25, 2024, 12:55 PM UTC

RobotToaster wrote: post #25

bluetidepro wrote: post #21

Off topic but related… With so many ways to get around downloading videos/media like this for example, I will never understand why companies don’t just allow videos to be saved like a picture. Add a simple download button to make it obvious and simple for users to download a video. For example, Tiktok has this, and just adds their watermark to the downloaded video. It’s just a false sense of security to users when th…

If they used standard HTML video elements it would be just as easy, but everyone wants to use their own non-standard players.

Actually most use the HTML video element but use JS to download blobs and add them as src, and/or bury the elements like this:

https://imgur.com/C8AP7y0 (random video I found on threads as an example)

Just to break native download functionality and/or add own silly controls on top.

Re: Show HN: I made a Bluesky video downloader

#43

Post by Equal46 » Fri, Oct 25, 2024, 1:03 PM UTC

Retr0id wrote: post #32

Equal46 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clearly, he based it on the open-source code from GitHub, which simply concatenates the MPEG-TS segments and adds an .mp4 file extension at the end. You can check out my previous work on a download site for the Bluesky platform at https://blueskyvideodownload.com , which runs smoothly and returns the correct video.

Fascinating, your site looks so similar I wouldn't be surprised if one was a clone of the other. But, I checked yours out and can confirm that it returns a correctly muxed MP4. Maybe if you both open-sourced your codebases we could've avoided this duplication ;)

Appreciate the feedback—it got me thinking the design needed a real upgrade. So, I went back and gave the whole layout a fresh look. Check it out—feels like a new experience, right? Definitely a step up from before. Let me know what you think!

Re: Show HN: I made a Bluesky video downloader

#44

Post by londons_explore » Fri, Oct 25, 2024, 1:08 PM UTC

Retr0id wrote: post #29

Retr0id wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a UX perspective, right-click-save-as should absolutely be a thing that works. But the fact that it doesn't isn't some kind of industry-wide conspiracy, it's just not an easy feature for a browser to implement in a generic way, given how streamed video works.

Maybe I should write a browser extension that actually does do this generically, by hooking the SourceBuffer interface, increasing the playback speed, and remuxing into a container format.

Even better, send a pull request to Blink to add this feature. It doesn't actually need to play the whole content, merely fire the right js events to get all the content loaded before doing a save.

It would ideally get integrated into the browser "downloading..." UI too, although I could imagine that being technically hard to do.

Re: Show HN: I made a Bluesky video downloader

#45

Post by Equal46 » Fri, Oct 25, 2024, 1:13 PM UTC

Retr0id wrote: post #12

fwiw cobalt.tools already has support for downloading bluesky videos https://github.com/imputnet/cobalt

“Haha, I appreciate the observation! As a backend developer, I’m definitely more comfortable with the backend processes. But I also used Claude for the frontend, and while AI helps maintain a consistent aesthetic, it does lead to similar responses for everyone. That’s one of the downsides of relying on AI!”

“Appreciate the feedback—it got me thinking the design needed a real upgrade. So, I went back and gave the whole layout a fresh look. Check it out—feels like a new experience, right? Definitely a step up from before. Let me know what you think!”

Sometimes I can see the comments, and other times I can’t. But I just want you to know, I appreciate your insights!

Re: Show HN: I made a Bluesky video downloader

#46

Post by reportgunner » Fri, Oct 25, 2024, 1:25 PM UTC

Retr0id wrote: post #41

reportgunner wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I downloaded a video off bluesky this way before posting, I didn't check if the whole video got downloaded though, just the extension. You are right that some websites give you .m3u or some kind of .htm that is not the actual video this way.

You presumably downloaded the first TS segment (in MPEG-TS format, not MP4), which could plausibly have been the whole video if it was short enough.

It was a very short .webm, looked like a gif converted to .webm

Re: Show HN: I made a Bluesky video downloader

#47

Post by reportgunner » Fri, Oct 25, 2024, 1:27 PM UTC

greenchair wrote: post #15

danielovichdk wrote: post #11

What is bluesky?

appears to be a twitter clone. On the front page most posts I see are either pictures of manga art or cats.

Jack Dorsey left twitter and made bluesky

Re: Show HN: I made a Bluesky video downloader

#48

Post by reportgunner » Fri, Oct 25, 2024, 1:29 PM UTC

AlienRobot wrote: post #20

londons_explore wrote: post #10

I'm sure this is a feature of the browser... Just right click the video and "save as" and it'll give you a .mp4 file right? Or just Ctrl+C to copy the video onto the clipboard. Oh wait, we let commercial interests take that functionality from us...

I don't think you ever could "copy the video onto the clipboard" in anything. That said, I do wonder why you aren't able to just save as. Is it a "commercial interest" or is there an optimization going on?

How would you copy a video from one folder into another without using the clipboard ?

How would you copy a video clip from one video editing project into another without using the clipboard ?

Re: Show HN: I made a Bluesky video downloader

#49

Post by orwin » Fri, Oct 25, 2024, 1:36 PM UTC

facialwipe wrote: post #35

dsab wrote: post #28

It is a shame that "decentralized" social network does not allow you to download videos

Everyone connects to the Bluesky PDS (Personal Data Server) otherwise they won’t have anyone to interact with. Similar story on Mastodon. Decentralized in protocol only. Not in practice.

Depends what you call "in practice". If i can make my own client, it's decentralized enough.

Re: Show HN: I made a Bluesky video downloader

#50

Post by Retr0id » Fri, Oct 25, 2024, 1:53 PM UTC

reportgunner wrote: post #46

Retr0id wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You presumably downloaded the first TS segment (in MPEG-TS format, not MP4), which could plausibly have been the whole video if it was short enough.

It was a very short .webm, looked like a gif converted to .webm

Sounds like you downloaded a "gif" embed, rather than a "video" embed. (It's 2024 and everyone serves """gif"""s inside video container formats to save bandwidth, but the UX and implementation details are still different to that of a "video" player)