0xced / MediaProxy

Proxy for HTTP Live Streaming

About

MediaProxy is an Azure Functions app that proxies HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) content.

It was written to download France TV content outside of France with yt-dlp.

Usage

1. Deploy the function app to Azure in the France Central region
2. Patch the francetv.py extractor to replace the video URL with the proxy URL (replace <DEPLOYMENT_URL> with the actual deployed URL and <FUNCTION_KEY> with the actual function key)

--- a/yt_dlp/extractor/francetv.py
+++ b/yt_dlp/extractor/francetv.py
@@ -1,3 +1,5 @@
+import urllib.parse
+
 from .common import InfoExtractor
 from .dailymotion import DailymotionIE
 from ..utils import (
@@ -144,6 +146,8 @@ def _extract_video(self, video_id, catalogue=None):
                 video_url = video.get('url')
 
             ext = determine_ext(video_url)
+            video_url = (f'https://<DEPLOYMENT_URL>.azurewebsites.net/?url={urllib.parse.quote(video_url)}'
+                         f'&code=<FUNCTION_KEY>')
             if ext == 'f4m':
                 formats.extend(self._extract_f4m_formats(
                     video_url, video_id, f4m_id=format_id, fatal=False))

3. Download some content, make sure to explicitly specify the HLS streams (PROTO = m3u8) with the -f option and download 50 fragments concurrently to speed up the download using the -N 50 option

./yt-dlp.sh -f hls-5398+hls-audio-aacl-96-Audio_Français -N 50 https://www.france.tv/france-2/astrid-et-raphaelle/saison-4/5418627-l-oeil-du-dragon.html

ℹ️ The formats can be listed with the -F option:

./yt-dlp.sh -F https://www.france.tv/france-2/astrid-et-raphaelle/saison-4/5418627-l-oeil-du-dragon.html

ID                                  EXT   RESOLUTION │   FILESIZE PROTO │ MORE INFO
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
spritesheets                        mhtml unknown    │            mhtml │ storyboard
hls-audio-aacl-96-Audio_Description mp4   audio only │            m3u8  │ [qad] audio description
dash-audio_qad=96000                m4a   audio only │ ~ 36.43MiB dash  │ [qad] audio description
hls-audio-aacl-96-Audio_Français    mp4   audio only │            m3u8  │ [fr] Audio Français
dash-audio_fre=96000                m4a   audio only │ ~ 36.43MiB dash  │ [fr] DASH audio, m4a_dash
dash-video=400000                   mp4   384x216    │ ~151.81MiB dash  │ DASH video, mp4_dash
hls-522                             mp4   384x216    │ ~198.11MiB m3u8  │
dash-video=950000                   mp4   640x360    │ ~360.54MiB dash  │ DASH video, mp4_dash
hls-1105                            mp4   640x360    │ ~419.37MiB m3u8  │
dash-video=1400000                  mp4   960x540    │ ~531.32MiB dash  │ DASH video, mp4_dash
hls-1582                            mp4   960x540    │ ~600.40MiB m3u8  │
dash-video=2000000                  mp4   1280x720   │ ~759.03MiB dash  │ DASH video, mp4_dash
hls-2218                            mp4   1280x720   │ ~841.77MiB m3u8  │
dash-video=5000000                  mp4   1920x1080  │ ~  1.85GiB dash  │ DASH video, mp4_dash
hls-5398                            mp4   1920x1080  │ ~  2.00GiB m3u8  │

During development

While developing, using a (SOCKS5) proxy in France can be achieved thanks to the the Tor Browser. The torrc file (found at ~/Library/Application Support/TorBrowser-Data/Tor/torrc on macOS) must be configured with exit nodes in France by adding this line:

ExitNodes {fr} StrictNodes 1

Then the HttpClientProxy environment variable must be set to socks5://127.0.0.1:9150.

This allows to test whether the code proxying the HLS content is correct, but with mostly slow download speed due to the nature of the Tor network.

Alternative

After writing MediaProxy I realized that it would be much easier to use a SOCKS proxy directly since yt-dlp supports the --proxy option.

It would probably have been easier to deploy the rastasheep/ubuntu-sshd container to Azure and create a tunnel instead, see https://gist.github.com/noelbundick/be9bf7bcaa6c6bcee4b65da841c620a3

#!/bin/bash
# Create a container in Azure in the region you want
az group create -n temp-proxy -l southcentralus
az container create -g temp-proxy -n proxy --image rastasheep/ubuntu-sshd --ip-address Public --ports 22 --dns-name-label myproxy
ssh -D 1337 -C -N [e-mail]

# Go to your network connection, set your SOCKS proxy to localhost:1337
# Browse around, your traffic is being tunneled through southcentralus
# When you're done, unset your proxy

# Clean up
az group delete -n temp-proxy -y --no-wait