Looks like Apple direct downloads are working again if you replace the subdomain. Anyway, I’ve modified our main catalog to automatically switch to using www.apple.com when it detect that direct download is working. When it detects that direct downloads are broken, it’ll switch back to use movies.apple.com and add the yellow alert bar at the top.
As for the blog, I’m going to continue using movies.apple.com. There are plans to add a filter/plugin that’ll automatically switch the subdomain.
Thanks to Le Bao Phuc for sending this in. It looks like replacing the subdomain for Apple trailers with www is working again, similar to the fix 2 months ago.
Given that Apple disabled this workaround after about a month, and now it’s starting to work again, I’m not sure now long before they disable it again.
I’ve updated all the Apple trailer URLs back to using www.apple.com (instead of movies.apple.com). Let me know if you encounter any issues.
Apple HD trailer links are broken again. I currently don’t have time to look too deep into the issue, but from a quick analysis, it looks like the domain www.apple.com has blocked out all access movie trailers. You may recall that the solution that bypassed the QuickTime user agent check was to change the domain movies.apple.com to www.apple.com in the url.
The current workaround is back to setting the user agent and using the movies.apple.com domain. For more information about the workaround, please read Direct Download Links from Apple Are Not Working.
Remember in order for the workaround to work, you have to change the domain from www.apple.com to movies.apple.com, if it’s not already correct.
See Update: Replacing Subdomain Working Again For Apple Trailers
If you’re experiencing slow download speeds from Apple, it’s very likely their website is being overloaded with the announcement of the new iPods. Previously trailers were hosted on movies.apple.com, which actually redirected to Akamai (worldwide distributed mirrors), so speeds were pretty much guaranteed. However, since we’ve switched to www.apple.com to bypass the QuickTime user agent requirement, we’re now hitting Apple’s main web server directly, which according to my logs is not hosted by Akamai.
If you want to see faster speeds from Apple during this overloaded period, my suggestion is to switch back to movies.apple.com and use a download utility that can spoof the QuickTime user agent. Hopefully after the rush of people interested in seeing the new iPods, speeds will return to normal.
As I tweeted earlier, Apple trailer links are once again working. However, the links themselves had to be tweaked a bit. In order to download directly, you’ll have to modify the domain from movies.apple.com to www.apple.com. Once the URL is modified, you can once again use it to direct download. For full detailed instructions, I’ve updated the tutorial.
So far I’ve fixed the main catalog as well as my blog entries. If you see issues with any particular trailer, please let me know.
Personally, I have no idea if this is only a temporary solution or not. Lets keep our fingers crossed and hope Apple doesn’t feel evil again.
We have Dave to thank for this hint.
Update: Please see this blog post on how to get direct downloading to work again: Apple Trailer Links Are Working
Direct download links for HD trailers on Apple are currently busted. From their tweet, it looks like the change was made to deal with the influx of user traffic/bandwidth for the Avatar trailer:
Adjustments made to support additional #Avatar teaser trailer traffic now live http://tinyurl.com/avatarteaser/ #avatarmovie
It looks like one of the adjustments they made was to only allow Quicktime to download the trailer. Any web browser will be automatically redirected to the Apple – Movie Trailers’ homepage.
If you have a download utility or are able to spoof the User Agent in your browser (i.e. User Agent Switcher for Firefox), you can still get around this.
The user agent my Quicktime uses is:
QuickTime/7.6.2 (qtver=7.6.2;os=Windows NT 5.1Service Pack 3)
I’ve confirmed you don’t actually need the content inside the parenthesis: ()
Using wget, I was able to download the Avatar 1080p trailer with:
wget -U "QuickTime/7.6.2" http://www.apple.com/movies/fox/avatar/avatar2009aug0820a-tsr_h1080p.mov
Update #2: You can also use curl (comes with Mac OSX) to download using the following command:
curl -A "QuickTime/7.6.2" http://www.apple.com/movies/fox/avatar/avatar2009aug0820a-tsr_h1080p.mov
Update: If you want to use the User Agent Switcher for Firefox, you’ll first need to install the extension. After installing the extension, go to Tools > Default User Agent > Edit User Agents…
Create a new User Agent by clicking on New > New User Agent… Clear out all the fields and copy and paste QuickTime/7.6.2 into the Description and User Agent fields.
Switch to the newly created QuickTime/7.6.2 User Agent by selecting it from the Tools > Default User Agent menu. Now you should be able to click/save Apple HD trailers from our site as you normally did before. Remember to switch back to the Default User Agent after you’re done saving trailers.
Update #3: Found this page that’ll teach you step by step on how to change your user agent in the following browsers: Firefox, Opera, and Internet Explorer: Switching User Agents.
Let’s just hope this is temporary or else it’d be quite inconvenient for users to download HD trailers from Apple anymore.
Recently, Alex and I have noticed that Apple has begun watermarking their trailers. They’ve added the Apple logo (as seen to the left) to the bottom right corner to most if not all their new movie trailers.
This has been going for few weeks already. The first set of trailers I noticed this was around late September when the trailer for Waltz With Bashir and Breakfast With Scot came out. At first, I thought they only watermarked exclusive or independent movie trailers, but later on I noticed they watermarked mainstream movie trailers available at multiple sites.
It’s not annoying per se, but does somewhat ruin a perfectly good high definition trailer. It’s sort of like people who watermark their photos so others can’t steal them.
As some of you have noticed, Apple – Movie Trailers‘ layout has changed and this has broken my parser. The changes aren’t that simple either as they’ve complicated a few things:
I’ve gone ahead and fixed all the source links to point to the main page instead of /hd, but I’m still working on a fix for the parser so it can work for all their layouts. I’m hoping to be able to fix the parser this weekend.
Update: Looks like I got the parser up and working. If you notice any errors or broken links, please do let us know. Thanks!
I hope everyone’s having a wonderful 4th of July!
I finally got around to uploading Apple’s Red Band trailers.
First I played with Filefactory, but was disappointed with their speed as my download rate maxed out around 50KB/s, making a 150MB 1080p trailer download take almost an hour.
Then I tried MegaUpload and was much happier with their speed (was getting 300KB/s), though in addition to a Captcha, they make you wait 45 seconds per file, which gets a bit annoying.
Those were just 2 of the few file sharing sites which actually support files greater than 100MB. These Red Band trailers are all between 150MB and 200MB. Both file sharing sites have a limit of 1 simultaneous download, so I’ll be listing both file shares just in case you want to download 2 simultaneously.
** WARNING ** The following PREVIEWS have been approved for RESTRICTED AUDIENCES ONLY by the Motion Picture Association of America, Inc.
Deleted Apple Red Band Trailers (1080p):
I believe both file services delete the files from their servers after a 30 day period of inactivity. If for a certain file above, both links are broken, please leave a comment and I’ll reupload it. Enjoy!
So some of you may have noticed that Apple recently started releasing Red Band trailers (in contrast to the normal green ones) to signify these were rated R trailers intended for mature audiences.
A day or two ago, TekMan alerted me that the Red Band trailer link for Burn After Reading was broken. I checked and indeed it was and interestingly enough, it was completely removed from Apple’s website.
Today, Matt emails me and tells me the Red Band trailer was broken for Wanted and that piqued my curiosity. I went and checked every single Red Band trailer (there’s been 4 so far) and they were all no longer available. They’re not even available on iTunes anymore.
I went ahead and removed them from the main page, but the blog entries are still around. I still have copies of the 1080p trailers and will probably upload them to some file sharing site sometime soon. If I don’t, someone should ping me.
Anyway, I have no idea if they just expire after some time or if Apple removed them altogether at once. It could be that since it’s rated R for mature audience, they received complaints or what not and decided to no longer support them. If someone knows the real reason, I’d like to know.
Update: The 1080p versions of all 4 Red Band trailers have been reuploaded. See this post for more details.
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