Download Apple HD Movie Trailers

I like being able to direct download 1080p HD trailers from Apple to my MediaPC. That way I can sit in the comfort of my couch and really appreciate them as I watch them on my big and expensive widescreen TV. For several months I was doing something similar to the instructions over at HD-Trailers.net. Recently this seems to have stopped working.

Through a bit of Googling and some trial and error I discovered that you can still download the HD trailers, but you need to set the User-Agent in whatever client you are using. For me that is either wget or axel. Some quick instructions are below.

For the Prince of Persia trailer, if you right click on the button for the HD trailer of your choice (in Firefox that is) and choose Copy Link Location you will get a URL like http://movies.apple.com/movies/disney/princeofpersia/princeofpersia-tlr1_1080p.mov. Next step is to download the actual trailer. Before you pass the URL to your client you will need to add a h before the resolution part of the URL so that it becomes this http://movies.apple.com/movies/disney/princeofpersia/princeofpersia-tlr1_h1080p.mov.

The command for wget, including passing on the Quicktime User-Agent is:

wget -U QuickTime/7.6.2 http://movies.apple.com/movies/disney/princeofpersia/princeofpersia-tlr1_h1080p.mov

And there you have it, enjoy!

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