*Note: This post was originally created in August 2019 but has been updated as of August 2021.*
To view this entire guide as a pdf file, click here. (last updated 12/21/21)
Obsessed college football fans, like myself, can now cut the cord and watch
almost all the college football possible while saving boatloads of money that
used to be going to your local cable company or DirecTV/Dish Network. However, one of the biggest challenges about
the various streaming services that exist out there is DVR service or being
able to rewatch your favorite games as much as you want for as long as you
want. Unfortunately, the DVR’s that most
services off (sometimes requiring an extra fee), only save games for a limited
period of time and/or impose limits on the number of hours of programming you
can record. That is why I created this
guide, to allow you the degenerate college football fan to record/dvr/save/download
as much college football as you want. So
please read below for the various options that exist to
record/save/download/dvr college football (and other sports) games.
DISCLAIMER: This work was put together using data from various sources. As such, if you come across something that is inaccurate, please feel free to reach out to me to correct it via email realcordcutters@outlook.com or Twitter: @RealCordCutters or by leaving a comment below. My goal is to make a comprehensive and accurate guide that can help people quickly & easily decide how to watch as much college football as they want for the cheapest possible method. Unlike other cord cutting websites, we welcome and encourage reader feedback, both positive and negative. For updates, please look for the ► sign (alt + 16 to type it) with a date following it; these indicate changes, additions, corrections, etc.
This guide will be broken down into three main sections. First, I’ll talk about the various options that exist for recording OTA antenna channels. Next, I’ll talk about the options that exist for recording the various college football cable channels from a streaming service that you subscribe to. Finally, I’ll talk about how to download/save games that air on channels such as ESPN, FOX, BTN, etc. using some free software.
RECORDING OTA CHANNELS
Do you currently
use an antenna to receive CBS, ABC, FOX, NBC, Stadium or other channels? Congratulations, you’re getting the highest
quality signal possible for free, minus any antenna related costs. Local channel broadcasts on cable/satellite
& streaming services are often compressed in order to save bandwidth so OTA
signals generally look much better.
There are a multitude of ways to record games that air on OTA channels
ranging from cheap & basic to expensive & detailed. I’m going to give a basic summary of the
different kinds of devices that are available below but please do further
research by looking at excellent guides like this, if you are interested in purchasing one.
*OTA converter
boxes connected directly to a TV – These are devices that take your antenna
cable as an input and then connect to your TV using an HDMI cable. Some of these require external storage (like
a USB drive or external hard drive) to record programs while others come with
internal storage. Several examples are
listed below.
-Cheap digital converter boxes with
VCR like menus: Ex. Mediasonic Homeworx HW180STB, iview 3500STBII
-Tablo DUAL HDMI & QUAD HDMI
-Tivo Bolt & Roamio & Edge
for antenna
-AirTV Player (white version)
*TV Tuner cards
– These are either internal or external (USB) devices that connect from an
antenna cable (input) to a computer (output) and record OTA programs from your
antenna onto your computer’s hard drive.
You can then watch these recordings on your computer or other media
streaming devices (Roku, Fire TV, etc.)
-Hauppauge WinTV-dualHD, HVR-955Q,
quadHD, HVR-1265, HVR-1150
*WIFI/Ethernet
Streaming Devices – These devices take your antenna cable as an input but
then convert the channel signal to a digital one and stream that signal over
WIFI or ethernet. Thus, you must watch
using software, such as Plex or Channels or the manufacturer’s proprietary
software, in order to view the channels.
These devices do record (usually to a computer or external storage connected
to the device) but the recording is done via internet. Thus, the quality will be dependent upon the
strength of your internet service, unlike the first two options which are
recording directly from the antenna signal to a hard drive.
-Tablo DUAL LITE, DUAL 128 GB, QUAD,
QUAD 1 TB
-HDHomeRun CONNECT, Extend, Flex
Duo, Flex 4K, Scribe 4K
-Fire TV Recast
-AirTV 2, AirTV Anywhere
RECORDING STREAMING
SERVICE CABLE CHANNELS
One way to record channels offered through a streaming
service is to use capture software which will record the audio & video from
your computer screen into a video file. Basically,
you will open a browser window on a computer and navigate to the website which
is playing the event you wish to record.
This could be the website of the service you subscribe to, for example
YouTube TV’s website, or it could also be the specific channels website, such
as watchespn.com for events airing on ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, etc. Then once the video of the event is playing,
you will open the capture software, resize the window to make it match the
window size of the video and then hit the record button to start the recording
of your file. Note that while some
programs do come with scheduler programs where you can enter a specific
day/time to open a web browser to a specific address, most of the time you will
need to manually start and/or stop the recording. Below are some options of capture software/services
that you can use to record college football games from any streaming channel.
DOWNLOADING/SAVING
LIVE OR REPLAY EVENTS
The great thing about games broadcast on ESPN channels is
that most (but not all) are available for replay on ESPN’s website (see here). Also, most channels that stream online do so
using .m3u8 files which can be captured and saved for live events as well. You can download (or record) these games
using some free software like Streamlink and youtube-dl and then convert them
to *.mkv files using FFMPEG, allowing you to watch them forever. The process is a little bit tricky but once
you’ve got the hang of it, it’s really quite painless. Below is a brief summary of the process,
assuming that you’ve installed all the necessary programs. I will also show how to download/save ESPN+
events at the end as well as there is one additional piece of info you need for
those.
1) Prep a notepad file with the template link that you
will paste some info into
2) Open a command prompt window and navigate to the
directory where streamlink (or youtube-dl) is installed
3) Go to the WatchESPN website (or the website showing
airing the event you want to record/download) and find the event you wish to
download/save
4) Start the event playing and grab the URL associated
with the video playlist file that is playing
*For ESPN+ events you also need to grab an authorization
key
5) Paste that URL (and the authorization key for ESPN+
events) into the notepad template link; then copy & paste that entire link
into the command prompt to start the download/recording process
6) Once the download has completed (or the event has
completed for live events), convert the .ts file to a .mkv file using FFMPEG
(note: this generally isn’t necessary for youtube-dl files)
7) Watch the .mkv file (or original .ts file) using VLC Player or your favorite video player
Ok, now here is the exact process in detailed steps including several videos at the end which will show a demonstration of the actual process happening from start to finish on multiple websites (ESPN, ESPN+, FOX, and PBS Kids) for both live events and replays of events.
1. First, download
and install the following programs:
Streamlink & FFMPEG and/or youtube-dl
You can download Streamlink from here -> https://github.com/streamlink/streamlink/releases/latest
You can download FFMPEG from here -> https://ffmpeg.org/download.html
You can download youtube-dl from here
-> https://youtube-dl.org/
*Make a note of the directory where you installed the
Streamlink.exe file (or youtube-dl.exe file) as you will need it later. It will most likely be C:\Program Files
(x86)\Streamlink\bin for Streamlink.
Streamlink
streamlink "hlsvariant://<HERE>" best
--hls-segment-threads 5 -o myfile.ts
streamlink --http-header "authorization=<KEY>" "hlsvariant://<HERE>" best --hls-segment-threads 5 -o file.ts (for ESPN+ events only)
This is the command that you will run which will download/save the .ts file from the website.
*best is the highest available quality
*myfile.ts is the name of the .ts (Transport Stream) file
that will be saved to your hard drive.
You can specify the specific location to save the file by putting
parameters in front of the file name (ex. c:\myfile.ts); not including any
parameters will save it to the same directory where the Streamlink.exe file is
located.
*<HERE> will represent the URL for the specific
event you wish to download/save; we’ll replace it with a long link later
*<KEY> will represent the authorization key for the
specific event you wish to download/save; we’ll replace it with a long list of
characters later
Also, paste the following into the notepad file on a separate line. This will be used later to create a .mkv file from the .ts file you download.
ffmpeg -i "c:\program files (x86)\streamlink\bin\myfile.ts"
-codec copy myfile.mkv
*c:\program files (x86)\streamlink\bin\ represents the
directory where the .ts files is saved after downloading
*Note that in the example above it will create the .mkv file in this same directory where ffmpeg is located but you can also add parameters to create it in a different directory.
youtube-dl
youtube-dl "<HERE>" --hls-prefer-native
-o myfile.ts
This is the command that you will run which will download/save the .ts file from the website.
*myfile.ts is the name of the .ts (Transport Stream) file
that will be saved to your hard drive.
You can specify the specific location to save the file by putting
parameters in front of the file name (ex. c:\myfile.ts); not including any
parameters will save it to the same directory where the youtube-dl.exe file is
located.
*<HERE> will represent the URL for the specific
event you wish to download/save; we’ll replace it with a long link later
3. Open a command
prompt by doing one of the following
*Click Start, start typing command prompt and select it
*Click Start, type Run & hit enter, type cmd and hit
enter
4. Navigate in the command prompt to the directory where streamlink.exe (or youtube-dl.exe) is located. For me that is C:\Program Files (x86)\Streamlink\bin (for Streamlink) and c:\youtube-dl (for youtube-dl)
Streamlink
*Type cd.. (and hit enter) to move back one directory and
repeat this until you’re at C:\>
*Type cd <FOLDER NAME\FOLDER NAME\FOLDER NAME> (and
hit enter) to move forward to that new directory
*Example: Type “cd program files (x86)\streamlink\bin”
(no quotes) to move into that directory which is where streamlink.exe is
located on my computer
youtube-dl
*Type cd.. (and hit enter) to move back one directory and
repeat this until you’re at C:\>
*Type cd <FOLDER NAME> (and hit enter) to move to
the directory where youtube-dl is located
*Example: Type “cd youtube-dl” (no quotes) to move into
that directory which is where youtube-dl is located on my computer
5. Open up a browser window and navigate to the specific event you want to download/save. Before you click on the event, open up the Network Tools (in the browser) which will show the specific URL you need to paste into the Notepad file once the file starts playing.
*Firefox – Settings button (3 lines) -> Web Developer
-> Network
*Chrome – Settings button (3 dots) -> More Tools ->
Developer Tools, Network Tab
(Note: It is
helpful to filter by entering .m3u8 in the Filter box in Chrome to hide all of
the other files you don’t need)
(►UPDATED 12/12/21) To save replays of FOX
events (FOX, FS1, FS2, BTN, etc.), you must have the specific URL of the event
and this can only be found while the event is playing live. For example, if you want to record the live
stream of FS1, you would go to https://www.fox.com/live/channel/FS1/
and then follow the process listed on this page to start recording using
Streamlink. However, if want to record a
replay of an event airing on FS1 after the fact, you need the specific URL for
the event which is different than the generic URL for the channel. The way to get the specific event URL is to
click “restart” on the event while it is playing, which will then reload the
page and start the event from the beginning.
For example, the page that will now load will have a URL like https://www.fox.com/watch/1b9895c8e0c699c9e48bb78070880f59/#restart-live-FS1. Copy that URL and save it. You do not need the #restart-live-FS1 part at
the end; you only need the part in front of it.
Then you can use that event specific URL to grab the replay of the event
later (by going to it and then getting the m3u8 link once it starts playing)
and thus, you can use either youtube-dl or Streamlink to download the event
since youtuble-dl can’t be used to save/record live streams. There is a new video at the bottom which
demonstrates how to grab a replay of a FOX event or you can click here.
6. Click on the link for the event and have it start playing. (► UPDATED 9/4/21) ESPN is now using mpd files (instead of m3u8 files) for its main cable channels (ESPN/ESPN2/ESPNEWS/SECN, etc.) which streamlink and youtube-dl cannot download/save (ESPN3 & ESPN+ events still use the m3u8 format). However, if you copy the mpd URL and then replace "mpd" with "m3u8" (do not change anything else in the URL) it should still download the file as normal. Watch the Network window for the mpd link for ESPN cable channel events or an m3u8 link for ESPN3/ESPN+ & FOX events. Look for “preplay2” in the URL of the FOX event and the domain of content.uplynk.com/event/ for ESPN3/ESPN+ events as these are the highest quality streams. These are the mpd/m3u8 files with the highest available quality. Copy this URL and paste it into the Notepad .txt file replacing <HERE> in either your Streamlink or youtube-dl line. For ESPN events, if you have a link with mpd in it, replace mpd with m3u8 before you copy & paste the entire string of text in the next step.
*Firefox -> right-click on link & Copy -> Copy
URL
*Chrome -> right-click on link & Copy -> Copy
link address
-For ESPN+ events, you also need to find the authorization key which is found on “dust”. Type dust into the filter box and then look for the one that has “authorization=eYadnewrnjewrjewlkjrelwkjrjew……” You need to copy that entire string (just right-click on it and choose to copy it) and then paste that after the authorization= parameter in the Streamlink command.
7. After you do
that, copy the entire string that begins with Streamlink (or youtube-dl) and
then go to the command prompt window.
Paste that entire string in the command prompt and hit enter. You should then see “Found matching plug
stream for URL…..” followed by a list of “Available streams: 270p (worst), 360p, ….720p (best)” followed
by “Opening stream: 720p” (or something like that depending on the various
qualities available on the particular website) followed by “Written XX.X MB (Xs
@ XX.X MB/s)”.
*Note that this sequence needs to be done fairly quickly
as the .m3u8 URL will disappear after a few seconds, but the event must be
playing for the Streamlink download to start.
You have ~5 seconds or so to copy the URL, paste it into the .txt file,
copy the Streamlink command and then paste that into the command prompt.
8. Once it is finished, then next step is to run FFMPEG to turn the .ts file you downloaded into a watchable .mkv file (Note: this usually isn’t needed for files downloaded from youtube-dl). If you were recording a live event (unlike a replay), you will need to manually stop the recording in the command prompt. You can do this typing control + c several times to stop the Streamlink command.
Next, navigate to the directory where FFMPEG is installed by using the same cd.. and cd <FOLDER NAME> commands listed above in step 4. Once you are there copy the following from the notepad .txt file and paste it in the command prompt. Be sure to change the directory where the file is located (if you saved/moved it to a different spot) and/or the name of the file and/or the location for the .mkv file output if you want. An example of what you might type is below.
ffmpeg -i "c:\program files (x86)\streamlink\bin\myfile.ts"
-codec copy myfile.mkv
9. Once that is done, you now have a .mkv file which will hopefully include the entire event although if you used Streamlink to record/save it, there are most likely commercials in it. When downloading event replays from ESPN, youtube-dl generally ignores the commercials which is why I prefer to use it. You can now watch this in VLC or other media players or convert it to an mp4 using Handbrake.
The videos below show examples of how to download/save both live events and replays from various websites including audio instructions from me. Please note that on the replay videos, I cut out some of the time where the file was downloading just to make the video shorter.
STREAMLINK EXAMPLES
ESPN Live Events - https://youtu.be/njhRi14hDZI
ESPN Replays (Streamlink) - https://youtu.be/g9wVS5YNZMs
ESPN+ Replays - https://youtu.be/-AJAP42k3Ac
FOX Live Events - https://youtu.be/KIL7A8uMpLo
FOX Replays (Streamlink) - https://youtu.be/Cl_kFFiOW9s
PBS Kids (or other channels)
- https://youtu.be/d4HTQx1H9B0
YOUTUBE-DL EXAMPLE
ESPN Replays (youtube-dl) - https://youtu.be/Po1mcMtc1qo
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