Harmontown Video Downloader

This is a rough script for downloading videos from the Harmontown.com website.

Output snippet:

page 6
    Downloading https://download.harmontown.com/video/harmontown-2019-04-01-final.mp4 to /Users/bipster/Desktop/temp/video-episode-328-jeffs-joke-corner.mp4
     Progress: 3% 6% 9% 12% 15% 19% 22% 25% 28% 31% 35% 38% 41% 44% 47% 51% 54% 57% 60% 63% 66% 70% 73% 76% 79% 82% 86% 89% 92% 95% 98% 
    Downloading https://download.harmontown.com/video/harmontown-2019-03-25-final.mp4 to /Users/bipster/Desktop/temp/video-episode-327-a-cardigan-with-stab-holes.mp4
     Progress: 3% 7% 11% ...

Overview

• This is a Groovy script that requires Java be installed on your computer. If you are on a Mac, this should work as-is.
• This will require more than 220GB of space available. (TODO: update with exact number)
• This requires an active subscription to Harmontown.com
• If the script dies for some reason, you will be able to restart the script from where you left off; you will not have to start from scratch
• This only downloads the full-resolution videos. It skips both low-resolution videos and audio files

Note: As of October 21, 2019, 66 of the 99 archive pages at Harmontown.com contain 227 videos, totaling ~237.5 GB. As-is, the script will scrape the first 98 archive pages for videos — quickly skipping over any that lack videos — which should be sufficient until .. the End 🙁 The first attempt at a video episode was Episode 117 – “Debbie Request Permission To Do Dallas”

Be Good

Pay the subscription fee

You will need to supply credentials for an active subscription via a properties file; do not share/borrow them.

Do not make this this multi-threaded

For the benefit of not just the community’s but your own ability to download videos at a reasonable pace, please respect:

“Planning on downloading everything? Make sure you have about 220GB of space available, and only download one file at a time to keep the server fast for everyone.”

Preparing the Script

Download the script using the green “Clone or download” button (Download zip) and unpack into a local directory.

Copy harmontown.properties.template to harmontown.properties and fill in these properties:

• script.output.dir — The directory path on your computer whereto you want these files downloaded. /example/path/format/
  If your filepath has spaces in it, put this in double-quotes. Use this forward-slash format even if you are on a Windows machine.
• harmontown.username — Your login username
• harmontown.password — Your login password
• harmontown.download.* — change to true for the ones you want

You can leave the other properties w/ with their defaults.

Running the Script

If you are on the Mac, the easiest approach might be:

1. Open Terminal
2. cd [DIRECTORY OF YOUR UNPACKED ZIP]
3. sh harmontown-downloader.sh This is a very simple — and probably unnecessary — wrapper around the Java command inside the file (which you can run directly).

If you are on Windows (and have a recent Java installed!):

1. Open Command Prompt
2. cd [DIRECTORY OF YOUR UNPACKED ZIP]
3. Run: java -classpath %cd%/lib/*;%cd% groovy.ui.GroovyMain src/org/bipsterite/DownloadVideos.groovy — This is the Windows version of the Java command inside harmontown-downloader.sh

Restarting the Script

By default, the script starts at the first page of podcasts, downloading files one by one until it gets to the last page.

If you need to stop your script at some point, or it crashes, look through the output to determine which page the script
had stopped. Change these properties in your harmontown.properties and restart the script:

• script.page.start — Change to the page from which you would like the script to start
• script.page.end — If desired, change to the page on which you would like the script to end. Useful for if you
  only want to download portions of the archive, or only want to download a single page of files (e.g. if you find one is
  corrupted)

Harmontown is coming to a close at the end of 2019. We’ve still got a lot of great shows for you this year, and we haven’t ruled out producing some more Harmontown in the future.

Podcast listeners:

All episodes will continue to be available in your favorite podcast app for the foreseeable future.

Subscribers:

If you’re a subscriber, nothing changes until the last episode. You can still purchase subscriptions, download and watch episodes, and view the live stream for every episode left. All auto-renewals will be canceled after the last episode.

If you signed up for one of our old 6 or 12 month subscriptions and you’ve still got more than one month of your subscription remaining after the last episode, you will receive a pro-rated refund for any time left on your subscription. You will still be able to use your account to watch or download whatever you want until your subscription expires. For example, if on the day of the last show you have 50% of your subscription period remaining, you’ll receive a 50% refund of your last subscription charge, but you can keep using your subscription until when it normally would have expired. Refunds will take 7-10 days to appear in your account after the final show.

If your subscription expires, or you don’t have one, we will leave non-renewing subscriptions available for a few months after the last episode. You’ll be able to pay $5 to get 30 days to watch and download anything you might have missed.

Planning on downloading everything? Make sure you have about 220GB of space available, and only download one file at a time to keep the server fast for everyone.

Ticket buyers:

Click “BUY TICKETS” at the top of harmontown.com to see which shows we’ve confirmed and still have seats available. If it’s not listed there yet, it means we haven’t confirmed we’ll be doing a show that week. If you’re planning on traveling to see one of the final shows, keep checking that page for availability and buy tickets as soon as you see them – we expect these last shows to sell out very quickly. You also can follow @JoinTheDynasty on Twitter to be notified when new tickets are put up.