Video Stream Downloader is a powerful command-line utility that enables users to download video content streamed over HTTP from websites. It supports both DASH (Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP) using .mpd manifest files and HLS (HTTP Live Streaming) using .m3u8 playlists. The tool is designed to handle adaptive bitrate streams, fetch individual video and audio segments, and optionally mux them into a single playable file, making it ideal for offline viewing, archival, or analysis of online video content.
- Captures network requests and lists playlist and subtitle files from websites.
- Compatible with both DASH and HLS playlists.
- Enables multi-threaded downloading for faster performance.
- Muxing streams to single video container using ffmpeg.
- Offers robust automation support.
- One unified progress bar tracking the entire download, with real-time file size updates.
- Supports decryption for
AES-128,SAMPLE-AES,CENC,CBCS,CENSandCBC1. - Live stream downloading (not currently planned).
- ffmpeg (optional, recommended) required for transmuxing and transcoding streams.
- chrome / chromium (optional) needed only for the capture sub-command.
Visit the releases page for pre-built binaries or grab the latest CI builds.
Download and extract the archive, then copy the vsd binary to a directory of your choice.
Finally, add that directory to your system's PATH environment variable.
| Host | Architecture | Download |
|---|---|---|
| Android 7+ (Termux) | aarch64 | .tar.xz |
| Linux | aarch64 | .tar.xz |
| MacOS 11.7+ | aarch64 | .tar.xz |
| Windows | aarch64 | .zip |
| Linux | x86_64 | .tar.xz |
| MacOS 11.7+ | x86_64 | .tar.xz |
| Windows | x86_64 | .zip |
You can also install vsd using cargo.
$ cargo install vsd- Capture playlists and subtitles from a website.
$ vsd capture <url> --save-cookiesThe saved cookies can be used as
--cookies cookies.jsonwithsavesub-command later on.
- Download playlists. (test streams)
$ vsd save <url> -o video.mp4Use
-i, --interactiveflag to open an interactive session.
- Download encrypted playlists. (drm test vectors)
$ vsd save https://bitmovin-a.akamaihd.net/content/art-of-motion_drm/mpds/11331.mpd \
--keys "eb676abbcb345e96bbcf616630f1a3da:100b6c20940f779a4589152b57d2dacb" \
-o video.mp4- List and select specific streams from a playlist.
$ vsd save <url> --list-streams
$ vsd save <url> --select-streams "1,2" -o video.mp4- Prefer some specific languages when downloading audio/subtitles.
$ vsd save <url> --audio-lang "en,fr" --subs-lang "en,fr" -o video.mp4- Use as a playlist parser. (json schema)
$ vsd save <url> --parse > parsed-playlist.json$ vsd --helpDownload video streams served over HTTP from websites, DASH (.mpd) and HLS (.m3u8) playlists.
Usage: vsd.exe [OPTIONS] <COMMAND>
Commands:
capture Capture playlists and subtitles from a website
extract Extract subtitles from mp4 boxes
merge Merge multiple segments to a single file
save Download DASH and HLS playlists
help Print this message or the help of the given subcommand(s)
Options:
--color <COLOR> When to output colored text [default: auto] [possible values: auto, always, never]
-h, --help Print help
-V, --version Print version
$ vsd save --helpDownload DASH and HLS playlists
Usage: vsd.exe save [OPTIONS] <INPUT>
Arguments:
<INPUT> http(s):// | .mpd | .xml | .m3u8
Options:
--base-url <BASE_URL> Base url to be used for building absolute url to segment. This flag is usually needed for
local input files. By default redirected playlist url is used
-d, --directory <DIRECTORY> Change directory path for temporarily downloaded files. By default current working
directory is used
-o, --output <OUTPUT> Mux all downloaded streams to a video container (.mp4, .mkv, etc.) using ffmpeg. Note
that existing files will be overwritten and downloaded streams will be deleted
--parse Parse playlist and returns it in json format. Note that --output flag is ignored when
this flag is used
--color <COLOR> When to output colored text [default: auto] [possible values: auto, always, never]
-h, --help Print help
Automation Options:
--all-streams Download all streams with --skip-audio, --skip-video and --skip-subs filters
kept in mind
--audio-lang <AUDIO_LANG> Preferred languages when multiple audio streams with different languages are
available. Must be in RFC 5646 format (eg. fr or en-AU). If a preference is not
specified and multiple audio streams are present, the first one listed in the
manifest will be downloaded. The values should be seperated by comma
-i, --interactive Prompt for custom streams selection with modern style input prompts. By default
proceed with defaults
--interactive-raw Prompt for custom streams selection with raw style input prompts. By default
proceed with defaults
-l, --list-streams List all the streams present inside the playlist
--quality <WIDTHxHEIGHT|HEIGHTp> Automatic selection of some standard resolution video stream with highest
bandwidth stream variant from playlist. If matching resolution of WIDTHxHEIGHT
is not found then only resolution HEIGHT would be considered for selection.
comman values: [lowest, min, 144p, 240p, 360p, 480p, 720p, hd, 1080p, fhd, 2k,
1440p, qhd, 4k, 8k, highest, max] [default: highest]
-s, --select-streams <SELECT_STREAMS> Select streams to download by their ids obtained by --list-streams flag. It has
the highest priority among the rest of filters. The values should be seperated
by comma
--skip-audio Skip default audio stream selection
--skip-subs Skip default subtitle stream selection
--skip-video Skip default video stream selection
--subs-lang <SUBS_LANG> Preferred languages when multiple subtitles streams with different languages
are available. Must be in RFC 5646 format (eg. fr or en-AU). If a preference is
not specified and multiple subtitles streams are present, the first one listed
in the manifest will be downloaded. The values should be seperated by comma
Client Options:
--cookies <COOKIES> Fill request client with some existing cookies value. Cookies value can be same
as document.cookie or in json format same as puppeteer
--header <KEY> <VALUE> Custom headers for requests. This option can be used multiple times
--no-certificate-checks Skip checking and validation of site certificates
--proxy <PROXY> Set http(s) / socks proxy address for requests
--query <QUERY> Set query parameters for requests
--set-cookie <SET_COOKIE> <URL> Fill request client with some existing cookies per domain. First value for this
option is set-cookie header and second value is url which was requested to send
this set-cookie header. Example: --set-cookie "foo=bar; Domain=yolo.local"
https://yolo.local. This option can be used multiple times
--user-agent <USER_AGENT> Update and set user agent header for requests [default: "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT
10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/137.0.0.0
Safari/537.36"]
Decrypt Options:
--keys <KID:KEY;...> Keys for decrypting encrypted streams. KID:KEY should be specified in hex format
--no-decrypt Download encrypted streams without decrypting them. Note that --output flag is ignored if
this flag is used
Download Options:
--retries <RETRIES> Maximum number of retries to download an individual segment [default: 15]
--no-merge Download streams without merging them. Note that --output flag is ignored if this flag is
used
-t, --threads <THREADS> Maximum number of threads for parllel downloading of segments. Number of threads should be in
range 1-16 (inclusive) [default: 5]
- Install the Termux app on your device, then enable storage permissions manually from its settings page. After that, run the following commands in the terminal.
$ pkg update
$ pkg upgrade
$ pkg install ffmpeg
$ ln -s /storage/emulated/0/Download Download- Install vsd on termux. Currently, only arm64-v8a binaries pre-builts are available which can be installed using the following command.
curl -L https://github.com/clitic/vsd/releases/download/vsd-0.4.0/vsd-0.4.0-aarch64-linux-android.tar.xz | tar xJC $PREFIX/bin-
Use third party browsers like Kiwi Browser (developer tools) paired with Get cookies.txt LOCALLY extension or Via Browser (tools > resource sniffer) to find playlists within websites.
-
Now you can run vsd as usual. The streams would be directly downloaded in your android downloads folder.
$ cd Download
$ vsd save <url> -o video.mp4List of alternatives to vsd:
- N_m3u8DL-RE is the best alternative to vsd. It also supports live playlists, which vsd does not. However, it lacks features like capture functionality.
- yt-dlp is excellent for downloading various playlists, but its main drawback is limited support for decryption.
- dash-mpd-cli iis a highly effective tool for downloading DASH playlists. In fact, much of vsd’s internal logic for parsing and downloading DASH content is based on this tool.
- ffmpeg supports direct encoding of playlists.
- Both streamlink and vlc allow direct streaming of playlists.
Dual Licensed