Download Coursera videos in batch

#1

Post by jplehmann » Wed, Mar 28, 2012, 1:53 PM UTC

Download Coursera videos in batch
github.com

Re: Download Coursera videos in batch

#2

Post by jplehmann » Wed, Mar 28, 2012, 2:40 PM UTC

http://coursera.org is creating some fantastic, free educational videos (algorithms, machine learning, natural language processing, SaaS).

This script allows one to batch download videos for a Coursera class. Given a class name and related cookie file, it scrapes the course listing page to get the week and class names, and then downloads the related videos into appropriately named files and directories.

Why is this helpful? Before I was using wget, but I had the following problems:

  1. Video names have a number in them, but this does not correspond to the
     actual order.  Manually renaming them is a pain.
  2. Using names from the syllabus page provides more informative names.
  3. Using a wget in a forloop picks up extra videos which are not posted/linked,
     and these are sometimes duplicates.

Naming is intentionally verbose, so that it will display and sort properly using MX Video on my Andriod phone.

Inspired in part by youtube-dl (http://rg3.github.com/youtube-dl) by which I've downloaded many other good videos such those from Khan Academy.

Let me know if you like it.

Re: Download Coursera videos in batch

#3

Post by A_A » Wed, Mar 28, 2012, 4:12 PM UTC

this looks sweet. Thanks. I had been manually downloading the vids on my PC, but I hope this tool will now reduce the pain.

Re: Download Coursera videos in batch

#4

Post by jwr » Wed, Mar 28, 2012, 4:43 PM UTC

Thank heavens! Er, I mean thank you (the OP) for this tool. I already wrote scripts that renamed files to something sane, but this will make my life so much easier.

Re: Download Coursera videos in batch

#5

Post by themonk » Wed, Mar 28, 2012, 4:44 PM UTC

Thanks a lot, does it skip downloaded videos in next run?

Re: Download Coursera videos in batch

#6

Post by jeremyarussell » Wed, Mar 28, 2012, 4:45 PM UTC

I'm already using it, after sometime I got a connection forcibly closed by remote host error. I can't access the Coursera website either, not sure why though. (mayhaps a bunch of people suddenly using this script crashed their servers? or they blocked us)

It's back up, must have been a small glitch. Might I add that I love the fact the script picked up on the video I dropped earlier.

Re: Download Coursera videos in batch

#7

Post by jeremyarussell » Wed, Mar 28, 2012, 4:48 PM UTC

themonk wrote: post #5

Thanks a lot, does it skip downloaded videos in next run?

It seems to.

Edit: Tested, yeah it does, and won't skip a video if it was only half downloaded.

Re: Download Coursera videos in batch

#8

Post by jplehmann » Wed, Mar 28, 2012, 4:53 PM UTC

jeremyarussell wrote: post #6

I'm already using it, after sometime I got a connection forcibly closed by remote host error. I can't access the Coursera website either, not sure why though. (mayhaps a bunch of people suddenly using this script crashed their servers? or they blocked us) It's back up, must have been a small glitch. Might I add that I love the fact the script picked up on the video I dropped earlier.

Right now, if you kill the script it will remove any file being currently downloaded to remove partials. I'm not sure if that happens for other failure conditions. I have added an issue for this: https://github.com/jplehmann/coursera/issues/1

Re: Download Coursera videos in batch

#9

Post by jplehmann » Wed, Mar 28, 2012, 4:54 PM UTC

jwr wrote: post #4

Thank heavens! Er, I mean thank you (the OP) for this tool. I already wrote scripts that renamed files to something sane, but this will make my life so much easier.

That's great -- I am happy if just a couple of other people get use out of it as well.

Re: Download Coursera videos in batch

#10

Post by jeremyarussell » Wed, Mar 28, 2012, 5:17 PM UTC

jplehmann wrote: post #8

jeremyarussell wrote: post #6

I'm already using it, after sometime I got a connection forcibly closed by remote host error. I can't access the Coursera website either, not sure why though. (mayhaps a bunch of people suddenly using this script crashed their servers? or they blocked us) It's back up, must have been a small glitch. Might I add that I love the fact the script picked up on the video I dropped earlier.

Right now, if you kill the script it will remove any file being currently downloaded to remove partials. I'm not sure if that happens for other failure conditions. I have added an issue for this: https://github.com/jplehmann/coursera/issues/1

Going to put in a bug @ github, for some reason the video's won't actually play (and their file size is slightly larger.)