Can I use urlllib2 to play videos? [closed]

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Can I use urllib2 to open a webpage which contain video (like vimeo page) and this visit will be counted as view?

Answer 1

In general, yes. A request done with urllib2 will be a normal HTTP request and as such will be recognized as a normal “visit” for the server you are connecting to. Depending on what additional headers you set, you can even make yourself look like a common browser, so they won’t be able to filter you out either.

As far as video counts go however, I’m pretty sure that simply visiting the site—without executing any code on it, and without actually playing the video—will not increase the view counter. In addition, these sites employ some systems to prevent abuse of the counter too. So if you have the hope to be able to spoof real views and increment the view counter by repeatedly visiting the page, then you will be out of luck.

As for actually playing—if you are interested in the content instead of the view counter—then yes, you can use Python to get access to the video. Of course Python won’t be able to play it, but you can download it instead. There are scripts like this one that already do this for you too.