Mikkeli Matlock
ce92e55255
Playwright discovery against the live feed found every link, then the whole
chain was replayed in plain urllib with no browser at all:
SSESS cookie -> GET /oauth/browser-token -> JWT (90 min)
JWT + x-api-key -> GET /v1/entry/{id} -> hdnts master URL (~25s)
master -> hdntl token (24h) -> ffmpeg
Both auth hops live off the Akamai CDN, so plain Python reaches them; ffmpeg
handles the CDN, which is the only host Python gets 403s from. Nothing needs
a fingerprint forged and Camoufox is now a fallback rather than the plan.
Two assumptions this disproved:
- The play click is not part of auth. Manifests arrive before any click, so
a headless run needs no interaction to mint a token.
- The 90 minute JWT does not constrain a 2 hour recording. It is spent before
ffmpeg starts; the 24h hdntl token carries the match.
discover.py drives the page with Playwright and identifies the mint and token
endpoints by what they RETURN rather than by guessing endpoint names, so it
survives the endpoints being renamed. It rides existing Firefox cookies and
needs no password. Verified working with --headless.
Sniffer v0.5 adds muted autoplay: the browser only has to trigger the manifest
fetch, ffmpeg records real audio separately, and muted autoplay is permitted
where audible is not. It stands down once playback starts, because the control
is a toggle and clicking twice would pause the recording.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01Kyt7QHQvLJtQRuiY4wAqKB
brfc-stream-pirate
Personal time-shifting archive for Bristol Rovers video pass streams. Kickoffs land at unfriendly hours in JST; this records them unattended.
Stream is plain HLS, no DRM (StreamAMG behind Akamai). Nothing here breaks a protection measure -- it replays the same authenticated request the player makes, using your own paid session.
Pieces
| File | Job |
|---|---|
tampermonkey/brfc-stream-sniffer.user.js |
Hooks fetch/XHR in the page, captures the manifest URL verbatim, POSTs it to the catcher |
catcher.py |
Listens on 127.0.0.1:8787, hands the URL to yt-dlp, records to recordings/ |
probe.py |
Byte-exact manifest fetch + concurrency test |
The token
Manifest URLs carry an Akamai path token:
hdntl=exp=<unix>~acl=/*~id=<n>~data=hdntl~hmac=<sig>
exp-- ~24h validityacl=/*-- wildcard over the whole host, not just your matchhmac-- signature over the literal path
It is a bearer credential. Anyone holding a live URL can pull the stream until
exp. Keep it out of pastebins and issue trackers. stream-url.txt and
cookies.txt are gitignored.
Do not re-encode the path. curl normalises %2f to %2F, which
invalidates the HMAC. probe.py sends the request target verbatim.
Use Firefox for watching
yt-dlp lifts session cookies from the browser. Chrome 127+ on Windows uses app-bound cookie encryption and extraction fails. Firefox works with no fuss.
set BRFC_BROWSER=firefox # default
Workflow
pip install yt-dlp # done
python catcher.py # leave running
Install the userscript in Tampermonkey, open the match page, press play. The
sniffer catches the manifest, the catcher starts yt-dlp. Recording is MPEG-TS
(--hls-use-mpegts) so a killed process still leaves a playable file.
For a 3am kickoff: Task Scheduler opens the match page a few minutes before, the browser autoplays, the sniffer fires, the catcher records. Nobody is awake.
Concurrency check
An Akamai edge token is a stateless HMAC -- the edge validates signature and expiry and serves; it holds no session table, so it cannot count viewers. Any concurrent-stream limit lives in the entitlement API that issues tokens, upstream of the CDN. Confirm rather than assume, while the browser is playing:
python probe.py --url "<manifest from the sniffer>" --parallel 3
3/3 alongside the playing browser means four concurrent readers of one token and the edge does not care.
Findings (2026-08-29, live 2300 JST match)
Verified against a live stream. Recorded 1080p successfully end to end.
Two token types, not one
The player uses a two-stage token chain:
| Token | Where | TTL | Purpose |
|---|---|---|---|
hdnts= |
query string, acl=/* unencoded |
~25 seconds | fetch the master playlist |
hdntl= |
URL path, acl=%2f* encoded |
~24 hours | media playlists + segments |
The master response rewrites each variant URL with a 24h hdntl token. So the
hdntl token is the durable one worth handing to a downloader. Chasing a
hdnts URL by hand is pointless -- it dies before you can paste it.
Confirmed by experiment
- Concurrency is not limited. Two independent ffmpeg downloads ran at full bitrate while Firefox played the same match. Three concurrent readers of one token, no complaint from the edge. Akamai token auth is a stateless HMAC check; it has no viewer counter.
- No CDN cookies exist. All 13 relevant cookies are on
bristolrovers.co.uk; nothing is scoped toakamaized.net. The token in the URL is the whole auth. - Stream is 1920x1080 H.264 + AAC ~5.2 Mbit/s -> roughly 4.7 GB per match.
- Output is MPEG-TS even though yt-dlp names it
.mp4. That is what--hls-use-mpegtsbuys: a killed process still leaves a playable file. - Player is Bitmovin, embedded on the club site.
0_xm5vrrw6is a Kaltura entry id and identifies the match -- the catcher dedupes on it.
Gotcha: use ffmpeg/yt-dlp, not a hand-rolled HTTP client
Python's http.client gets a 403 on every request, with any header set,
including ffmpeg's exact headers, on an unexpired token from the same IP. The
difference is below HTTP (TLS handshake). ffmpeg fetches the same URL fine, so
just use yt-dlp. probe.py is diagnostic scaffolding and inherits this 403 --
do not use it to conclude a token is dead.
Firefox, not Chrome
yt-dlp reads cookies from a running Firefox. Chrome/Edge lock their cookie DB while running (yt-dlp issue 7271), and an unattended job cannot close the browser to read them.
The stream never ends
After full time the feed switches to a static league slate and keeps serving
indefinitely at full CBR bitrate (~4.7 Mbit/s to encode a still image). There
is no #EXT-X-ENDLIST, so ffmpeg never finishes, and there is no stall to
detect either -- from the downloader's point of view it is a healthy live
stream forever.
A hard duration cap is therefore the only stop condition. catcher.py
passes ffmpeg_o:-t $DURATION_MIN*60. Do not remove it; without it an
unattended run fills the disk with a logo.
Observed: 116 min recorded for a 23:00 kickoff, still going at 01:04 and only stopped manually. Budget ~3.5-4 GB per copy per match at 40 MB/min.