Get and return media url (m3u8) using PHP

Question

I have a website that hosts videos from a client. On the website the files load externally via m3u8 link.

The client would now like to have those videos on a Roku channel.

If I simply use the m3u8 link from the site it gives an error because the url generated is sent with a cookie and so a client must click and the link to generate a new code for them.

I would like if possible (and I have not seen this here) is to scrape the html page and just return the link via PHP script on the website from the Roku.

I know how to get titles and such using pure php but am having problems returning the m3u8 link..

I do have code to show I am not looking for handouts and actually am trying.

This is what I have used for getting the title name for example.

Note: I would like to know if it is possible to have one php that autofills the html page per url so I do not have to use a different php for each video with the url pretyped in.

<?php
$html = file_get_contents('http://example.com'); //get the html returned from the following url

$movie_doc = new DOMDocument();

libxml_use_internal_errors(TRUE); //disable libxml errors

if(!empty($html)){ //if any html is actually returned

    $movie_doc->loadHTML($html);
    libxml_clear_errors(); //remove errors for yucky html

    $movie_xpath = new DOMXPath($movie_doc);

    //get all the titles
    $movie_row = $movie_xpath->query('//title');

    if($movie_row->length > 0){
        foreach($movie_row as $row){
            echo $row->nodeValue . "<br/>";
        }
    }
}
?>

this might be doable on Roku's side too, roUrlTransfer supports custom headers and cookies — Nas Banov, Jan 28 '17 at 23:35

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 20 '17 at 00:59

There is a simple approach for this, which involves using regex.

In this example let's say the video M3u8 file is located at: http://example.com/theVideoPage

You would point the video URL Source in your XML to your PHP file.

http://thisPhpFileLocation.com

<?php
$html = file_get_contents("http://example.com/theVideoPage");

preg_match_all(
    '/(http.*m3u8)/',

    $html,
    $posts, // will contain the article data
    PREG_SET_ORDER // formats data into an array of posts
);

foreach ($posts as $post) {
    $link = $post[0];

header("Location: $link");
}
?>

Now if you want to use a URL that you can append a URL link at the end it could look something like this and you would use an address as such for a Video Url located at

http://thisPhpFileLocation.com?id=theVideoPage

<?php
$id = $_GET['id'];
$html = file_get_contents("http://example.com".$id);

preg_match_all(
    '/(http.*m3u8)/',

    $html,
    $things, // will contain the article data
    PREG_SET_ORDER // formats data into an array of posts
);

foreach ($things as $thing) {
    $link = $thing[1];

// clear out the output buffer
while (ob_get_status())
{
    ob_end_clean();
}

// no redirect
header("Location: $link");

}
?>

Get and return media url (m3u8) using PHP

1 Answers1