Script to automatically download new episodes of TV shows from the ZDF Mediathek. The script is meant to quickly download new episodes, not all available episodes.
The downloader needs the "canonical url" of a given show within the ZDF Mediathek. An example for ZDF Magazin Royale (https://www.zdf.de/shows/zdf-magazin-royale-102) would be zdf-magazin-royale-102
- Script assumes that all files in the target folder are named
<Showname> SxxExxnaming-scheme and no files violate this scheme. It also asumes that you are using a flat filestructure for all seasons. - When a new episode is found, a sequential filename is generated for the new download. If you want the file to be downloaded in a new season, you have to rename it manually. The next file will then be sequentially added to this season.
- After a file is downloaded, its URL is added to a history-file and it will not be downloaded again.
Before starting the script, add a custom configuration.yaml-file to your directory. You can find an example configuration in the configuration-folder
See configuration-example.yaml for an example configuration. The configuration file has to be placed at /app/configuration/configuration.yaml.
| Paramter | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
| interval | Minutes between each scan for new episodes | 60 |
| shows[].canonical-id | Canonical ID of the show to download | "zdf-magazin-royale-102" |
| shows[].filter.minDate | Minimum date of episode to download | "2021-09-01 00:00+00:00" |
| shows[].download.folder | Path to the folder where the downloaded files are located for this show | "/serien/ZDF Magazin Royale" |
| shows[].download.filename | Base filename that is used to consecutively name episodes. | "ZDF Magazin Royale" |
The recommended way to use this program is to start a lightweight Docker-container and mount your media-folders and configuration.
You can start a docker-build using the following command:
docker build -t zdf-download .
Afterwards, you can deploy the built container using this command:
docker run -d --name=zdf-download -v <host-media-folder>:<docker-media-folder> -v <host-configuration-folder>:/app/configuration zdf-download:latest
You can also use the pre-build container and deploy directly from the GitHub container-registry:
docker run -d --name=zdf-download -v <host-media-folder>:<docker-media-folder> -v <host-configuration-folder>:/app/configuration ghcr.io/niklasheld/zdf-download:latest
Install the packages from requirements.txt, preferably in a python virtual environment. Make sure that yt-dlp and ffmpeg are installed and available. Start the application using python app.py.