This tutorial was meant to teach you how to download HD Trailers from Yahoo! Movies.

Where to find the trailers:
You should be able find most of Yahoo! Movies HD Trailers on this page: High Definition Trailers (HD) on Yahoo! Movies, however the list isn’t updated as frequently and you may find some HD trailers on the Just Added list that’s not on this page.

What to do once you decide on the trailer and resolution you want:
Once you find the movie trailer you want and decide on a resolution, you’ll notice the link points to a qtl file, like this this link. You should be able to right click that link and save it to your hard disk. If you’re using a download utility such as wget or curl, you might get a blank file back. The problem is that there’s a referral url check, so you’ll need to define the referrer explicitly within the yahoo.com domain.
i.e. http://movies.yahoo.com/

How to read the redirection file:
Once you download this file and open it up in notepad or your favorite text editor, you’ll find an xml file which has an embedded source. The key thing you want from this source is the sid. In this case, the sid is 37208666.

How to download the actual trailer:
The final step is easy. The barebone URL you’ll need is:
http://playlist.yahoo.com/makeplaylist.dll?sdm=web&pt=rd&sid=

Append the sid you retrieved earlier from the qtl file to the url above, constructing a url that looks like this link. Once you have this link, you can open it in your browser and File > Save it or you can use a file download tool like wget or curl. This constructed link actually still gets redirected, but the redirection is needed to get the authentication code to allow you to download the video. Therefore, in some browsers (i.e Firefox) which shows the save file dialog before actually doing the redirection, you’ll be asked to save makeplaylist.dll, which you should just rename to movieName.mov and everything should be fine. On the other hand, browsers like IE7 that actually do the redirection before asking you to save the file, and you’ll be prompted to save something like 37208666.mov, which you can rename to better classify the file.

With wget and curl, you actually get a lot of gibberish in the filename, but since you’re using wget and curl, I’m assuming you’re advanced enough to know what to do with the downloaded file afterwards.

Using Download Managers:
For those using a download manager (i.e. FlashGet, DownladThemAll!, etc.), you may experience some issues where you’d be prompted to enter a username/password. The cause for this as it turns out is Yahoo! isn’t too fond of users simultaneously downloading multiple pieces of the same trailer. My recommendation is to download directly from the browser or use a download utility such as wget or curl.