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Official Verified media Safety 3/5

m3u8-downloader

Download encrypted m3u8/HLS videos using parallel downloads. Use when given an m3u8 URL to download a video, especially encrypted HLS streams with AES-128.

Why use this skill?

Download and merge encrypted HLS m3u8 video streams using OpenClaw. High-speed parallel downloading and automatic FFmpeg integration for seamless MP4 creation.

skill-install — Terminal

Install via CLI (Recommended)

clawhub install openclaw/skills/skills/easonc13/m3u8-downloader
Or

What This Skill Does

The m3u8-downloader is a powerful OpenClaw agent skill designed to bridge the gap between complex HLS (HTTP Live Streaming) infrastructure and local media files. It automates the multi-step process of extracting HLS stream URLs from web pages, parsing master playlists to identify the highest quality variants, and performing high-speed, parallelized downloads of encrypted or standard segments using aria2c. Finally, it uses FFmpeg to concatenate these segments into a single, seamless MP4 video without the need for time-consuming re-encoding, preserving the original quality of the source stream.

Installation

To begin, ensure you have the necessary system dependencies installed on your host machine:

  1. Install aria2: brew install aria2
  2. Install ffmpeg: brew install ffmpeg
  3. Install the skill via the OpenClaw hub: clawhub install openclaw/skills/skills/easonc13/m3u8-downloader

Use Cases

This skill is ideal for archiving web content where traditional 'Right-Click Save' methods fail. It is particularly effective for:

  • Saving educational video courses that use HLS/AES-128 encryption.
  • Archiving streaming media for offline analysis.
  • Automated batch processing of video segments from complex web-based players.
  • Recovering high-definition media streams from websites that utilize fragmented DASH or HLS protocols.

Example Prompts

  1. "Download the video at this URL: https://example.com/player/index.html and save it to my Downloads folder as presentation.mp4."
  2. "Extract the m3u8 stream from the current page and download the 1080p version using the m3u8-downloader."
  3. "I have an encrypted m3u8 stream here: https://cdn.example.com/hls/master.m3u8. Please download and merge the segments into a single file."

Tips & Limitations

  • Master Playlists: Always verify the master playlist content before launching the full download, as some streams may require specific headers or session cookies.
  • Cleanup: The skill generates temporary files in /tmp/video_download. While the workflow includes a cleanup step, verify that your disk space can handle the segment cache during processing.
  • Encryption: While the skill supports AES-128 decryption via FFmpeg integration, streams with Digital Rights Management (DRM) or Widevine protection cannot be bypassed by this tool.
  • Network Speed: Parallel downloads (j=16, x=16) are aggressive. Ensure your network connection is stable to prevent partial segment failures.

Metadata

Author@easonc13
Stars2387
Views1
Updated2026-03-09
View Author Profile
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Add to Configuration

Paste this into your clawhub.json to enable this plugin.

{
  "plugins": {
    "official-easonc13-m3u8-downloader": {
      "enabled": true,
      "auto_update": true
    }
  }
}

Tags(AI)

#media#video#hls#automation#ffmpeg
Safety Score: 3/5

Flags: network-access, file-write, file-read, code-execution