Script Summary: Links directly to flash video (FLV) files on TVNZ On Demand site.
You should see links to the individual chapters underneath the video container. Note that TVNZ are using RMTPE (i.e. streaming Flash) more and more as a delivery mechanism which renders "downloading" as a moot point.
16 Mar 2011: At last! An update.
9 Jun 2010: tvnz added a param in the Flash which the script now works around.
22 Apr 2010: added an event listener to wait until the entire page has loaded until applying the script.
12 Dec 2009: TVNZ did a rebuild of the website and cunningly changed the variable "flashVars" to "flashvars". Fortunately my l33t h4X0ring ski11z worked that one out eventually. Also had to move the download links to under the title since that's all I could be bothered doing.
25 May 2009: TVNZ seem to have moved retired the "TVNZ On Demand" brand in favour of the shiny new tvnz.co.nz, and have changed the format of the SMIL so I have updated the script accordingly. There's also an advisory if the show is unable to be downloaded. Not all local shows will work -- the Goodnight Kiwi is on a totally different page so more work is obviously needed.
6 Feb 2009: tvondemand IS using RMTP/E for transferring the metadata but the vast majority still appear to be HTTP; they just moved things around in terms of how this XML is made available etc. The upshot is I've updated the script and it appears to work a whole heap better. It ain't pretty but it's working.
6 Feb 2009: Looks like tvnzondemand is now using RMTPE for tranferring XML data about the video files; as a result this script doesn't work at the moment. The FLV files are still transferred via HTTP so you can still get the movie URLs in Firebug if you turn on Net logging for the domain. Something like FlashGot might work as well.
Only applicable to certain shows (i.e. the free ones) bust this accomodates all the older ones as well as recent eps of Shortland Street, Media 7 etc.
The downloaded files will have FLV extensions -- these can be played in everybody's favourite, VLC.
If this doesn't work for you (or even if it does!) let me know in the comments. If you like my work, feel free to buy me a beer.
16 Oct 2008: ignore what I said about it not working anymore -- it still works a treat! I wonder whether they rolled back the earlier change to the player at some point (which, by the looks of things, was requested the URLs of the FLVs over RTSP but still loading them in over HTTP, so you could save them if you had Firebug or similar logging the HTTP requests.
25 Sep 2008: changes with TVNZ ondemand means this doesn't work at the moment. It doesn't looking they're using RTSP as a delivery protocol (yet) so the FLV URLs should be able to be worked out. I'll do this as soon as I have the time.
31 May 2008: updated to version 0.3. Should now work on all areas of tvnzondemand.co.nz, not just the individual show pages.
