 Re: Recording Amazon Instant Video On Demand (VOD)
Amazon.com : Amazon Instant Video (AIV), formerly: Amazon VOD, Amazon Video On Demand - Registration, Login, Amazon account, Amazon Prime, Free Trial, Subscription?
No, nothing needed. No money, no credit card, no U.S. bank, no login, no account, nothing. Well, except for a proxy and some tool(s). By the way, I am not the original author of this hacking method; full credits go to several SRF members, in particular to the team who modified the Replay Media Catcher 3 plugin. And it is safe to assume that the whole video release scene must have been abusing the procedure for years without telling.
- Full length.
AIV's have at least 1 of the following most common attributes:
"?? hours/days rental", "Buy this ??", "Buy TV Pass", "HD", "Video currently unavailable", "Play free preview", "Play trailer", "(no play button whatsoever)", "Prime members".
Bad news: Only those AIV's the attributes of which include "Play free preview" can be downloaded in full length. A large group of AIV's which have a "Play trailer"-button instead are costly Hollywood blockbuster movie productions, for which official trailers were explicitly produced. Whenever such an official trailer video clip replaces the free preview, the AIV cannot be downloaded in full-length because it is blocked by the existence of that very trailer.
Good news: Whenever it says "Play free preview", the full-length downloadability is guaranteed! And most AIV's do have this button, e.g. low budget films (for theater/TV/cinema), TV shows, TV series, TV series in HD, documentaries and other Movie Genres.
Bottom line: There exists no rule by which you could possibly predict whether an AIV comes with a free preview- or with a trailer-button, for example do a search on < harry potter and the chamber of secrets > and you get 5 results: 2 movies with a free preview-button, 3 movies with a trailer-button!
- Localization.
Amazon videographic material (and MP3 downloads) is meant exclusively for U.S. residents. However you can easily fool the website with proxies if you live outside the United States. For this, try different proxy types, clear the browser cache (Temporary Internet Files) in between and reload the AIV webpage. Once you're in, feel free to shut down your proxy servers and continue the piracy downloading with your normal IP address (issued from your local ISP). As you can see, you only need to fool the website once, at the very beginning (say, of your day). Well, if you're paranoid, continue to hide your identity with proxies: safety comes first, huh? 
- Streaming quality, bitrates.
When you play the free preview stream in non-HD mode, the Flash Player automatically examines your connection speed (bandwidth) and decides for 1 fixed streaming quality. Once the video has started streaming, you cannot change its quality anymore. The streaming quality is indicated at the bottom of the Flash Player:
Connection speed / Video quality: Very Low / Very Low (348 kbits/sec) |
Connection speed / Video quality: Low / Low (664 kbits/sec 480p) ||
Connection speed / Video quality: Medium / Medium (996 kbits/sec 480p) |||
Connection speed / Video quality: High / High (1328 kbits/sec 480p) ||||
the max. is 4 green bars, which means a resolution of 480p at a high bitrate of ~1328kbps *.FLV (1200kbps for the AVC video + 128kbps for the AAC audio). With a DSL 6000 line, it is easy to maintain such a stream. If you have difficulties achieving the 4 green bars, you can "reset" your connection speed by running the online speed test once. Also close unnessary windows, kill unnessary background processes. This ensures that your system is again fresh and fast. Then repeatedly reload the AIV webpage until you get the 4 green bars.
- HD (High Definition, 720p).
The existence of the HD streaming option is coupled with the offered AIV item itself and absolutely independent from you, your internet connection or your system. Every amazon surfer on the globe confronts identically the same picture: Either a particular AIV item does have an additional HD streaming option or it doesnt; it is nothing which you (or your system) could determine, control or influence! As a general rule, old Hollywood movies dont come with a HD streaming option whereas all recent popular U.S. TV series do have a "HD-button" to switch between standard streaming vs. high definition streaming. Anyway, when you play the free preview, look for button(s) which let you switch to streaming the free preview in HD. Typically some button in the embedded Flash Player is labelled "HD".
- Download transfer speed and parallel downloads.
You can download several AIV's at the same time. The download speed (per stream) is typically faster than the actual playing time of the video, and it may range from 90KB/s to 250KB/s (depending on the number of green bars). A HD stream's typical download speed may range from 450KB/s to 0.6MB/s. The situation is comparable to downloading multiple RTMPE-streams from TV.com or Hulu.com; nothing special to note.
- Resumability.
This property tops it all off! You can pause/halt/stop/interrupt your download, shut down your PC, and get up next morning with a new (local) IP address, and then resume your download. Very fascinating to see that resuming works! And why or how does it work? I dont know. Maybe the RMTPE-url's are (in a certain way) static url's which dont expire. Maybe we can run some tests and compare, for example for
Amazon.com: Grey's Anatomy [HD]: Season 7, Episode 18 "Song Beneath the Song [HD]": Instant Video
i get:
Code:
rtmpe://92.123.77.93:1935/ondemand?_fcs_vhost=cp79203.edgefcs.net&ovpfv=2.1.4&auth=da.cxcycpbaascsb.bqdnbKd4bWaAaSdWav-bnTGDK-FPa-MxM0Fyo-r8rbl6pgmfp5qSsUpenerdlVmcnco3kUrerfl6p5maqTparap2ngsVkdmen4o9kRrcsRmUqUmfpeqWr8qQng&aifp=v001&slist=ans/107562/h264/HD/ABC/8/_71/rey/g/;ans/107562/h264/ABC/8/_71/rey/g/
The original untouched *.FLV-downloaded file (i.e. with unfixed duration):
Code:
General
Complete name : C:\pirating amazon\Amazon.com Grey's Anatomy [HD] Season 7 Episode 18 Song Beneath the Song [HD] Instant Video.flv
Format : Flash Video
File size : 839 MiB
Video
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L4.0
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 2 frames
Format settings, GOP : M=3, N=46
Codec ID : 7
Bit rate mode : Variable
Maximum bit rate : 3 750 Kbps
Width : 1 280 pixels
Height : 720 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Variable
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Color primaries : BT.709-5, BT.1361, IEC 61966-2-4, SMPTE RP177
Transfer characteristics : BT.709-5, BT.1361
Matrix coefficients : BT.709-5, BT.1361, IEC 61966-2-4 709, SMPTE RP177
Audio
Format : AAC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile : LC
Codec ID : 10
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
The above was the introductory outline of what the method does for you. All further details and screenshots of how you apply the method are included in the following *.ZIP-archive, your download link:
Last edited by placebo : 06-15-2011 at 03:23 PM.
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