Niconico

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Revision as of 07:31, 13 February 2021 by Taka (talk | contribs) (→‎Spinoff sites: Added services hosted by NicoNico.)
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Niconico
Niconico logo
Wwwnicovideojp-full.png
URL http://www.nicovideo.jp[IAWcite.todayMemWeb]
Status Online!
Archiving status Not saved yet
Archiving type Unknown
IRC channel #archiveteam-bs (on hackint)

Niconico (http://www.nicovideo.jp/), formerly known as Nico Nico Douga is a Japanese video sharing site similar to Youtube managed by Niwango, a subsidiary of Dwango. As of December 2014, Niconico is the ninth most visited site in Japan. It has a unique comment system where the comments are overlaid directly over the video, synced to a specific video playback time. The site is known for its anime related content and memes. Due to the limited server capacity, Niconico restricts access to the website to free users at peak times (7 p.m. to 2 a.m.) by forcing them to stream lower quality versions of videos or blocking access entirely to newly registered users. An English-language version was added on October 17, 2012, replacing the Niconico.com website, featuring a new player and translation tools allowing users to translate video descriptions into English or Chinese. An HTML5 player was trialled beginning in 2016 and made default across the site in 2017, replacing the old Flash player. From February 28, 2018 an account is no longer required to watch videos.

As of spring 2021, Niconico will begin deleting metadata and comments from deleted videos (which were previously visible to logged-in users).At the same time, the "past log," a feature that displays past comments that had been hidden due to restrictions on the number of comments that can be displayed, will also be discontinued with the renewal of the comment server, regardless of the availability of the video.[1]

Spinoff sites

Scripts

  • nicovideo-dl is a small command-line program (similar to youtube-dl) to download videos from www.nicovideo.jp. It is implemented in Python. It is platform-independent and should work on Unix/Windows/Mac.It seems to be unavailable now.
  • Nicofox NicoFox is a Mozilla Firefox extension for video website Nico Nico Douga. It contains a Download Manager, which can download videos from the website with their comments. (Nicofox will burn in comments into the video file with no way to watch the saved video with comments disabled, if that feature is enabled. Not recommended for serious archival.)

There are several other generic scripts and browser extension that can download videos from video sharing sites that will work with Niconico, but they can't download videos with the comments overlaid over the video. youtube-dl supports Niconico but will cut out during the video due to not properly supporting the required heartbeat requests to maintain the connection (introduced in 2018); pull requests have been made to fix this but as of April 2020 are still pending.

  • youtube-dlIt is possible to download videos through youtube-dl.

Recommended way to archive niconico videos using nicovideo-dl

This method will require you to have an account registered on niconico. To get the highest quality video possible, you will need either need to buy a premium subscription (540 yen a month) or only download videos outside of the peak times (7pm - 2am JST). One way to tell if you're getting the higher quality download is that they usually have a .mp4 extension, whereas lower-quality downloads result in a .flv file.

nicovideo-dl --username "YOUR-USERNAME" --password "YOUR-PASSWORD" --get-comment --raw-comment --title http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm20338084

This will grab the video and the comment XML file. The XML file can be converted into an ASS subtitle file compatible with most video players using the danmaku2ass script by m13253.

Site reconnaissance

"As of October 31, 2011, Niconico has over 23,690,000 registered users, 6,870,000 mobile users and 1,390,000 premium users." Since then the number of premium users peaked at around 2,560,000 in mid-2016, before declining. As of December 2019 the number of active premium users is about 1,660,000.

Video IDs appear to be sequential, although very low video IDs may be handled specially.

Overview of Video IDs

A video ID is a number given to each video, consisting of a two-letter alphabetic string representing the video site where the video was posted or the content holder providing the video, and a unique sequential number unique to the video itself. In short, it is the http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/aa9999 part of the video URL. The following is a list of the types of videos.

IDs of videos that can be posted by users

  • sm - SMILEVIDEO videos. Can be attached to almost any video.
  • nm - Videos posted with official Nico Nico Video editing software (such as Nico Nico Movie Maker).

IDs of videos that could be posted in the past

These things are not linked automatically. Containing the metadata of the video.

  • am - Videos uploaded to "AmebaVision", which was discontinued in October 2007, making it impossible to watch videos.
  • fz - Videos uploaded to "Photozo", discontinued in May 2008, but still available for viewing.
  • ut - A video uploaded to "Youtube". Cannot be viewed now.
  • dm - A video uploaded to "DailyMotion", which was used by niconico.com.

Official Videos

  • ax - "avex" official
  • ca - "Cho! Animelo", "Nyoko Nyoko Video"
  • cd - (unknown)
  • cw - "Callawood Video"
  • fx - "MTV official", not supposed to be posted to SMILEVIDEO
  • ig - "i*gura video exit_nicochannel"
  • na - "Livedoor net animation"
  • om - "Otome"
  • sd - Basically, it's still used for development purposes by the management.
  • sk - "spike NicoNico Channel exit_nicochannel"
  • yk - "YuriChannel video"
  • yo - "Yoshi Yoshi video"
  • za - "NicoNicoNico Anime Channel"
  • zb - "NicoRadio&TV"
  • zc - "NicoAni News"
  • zd - "ai sp@ce"
  • ze - "Niji Audio Visual Room"
  • nl - NicoNico Live Broadcast
  • so - SmileOfficial. the distribution of dedicated identifiers for official videos such as the above has been discontinued, and all official video identifiers have been unified to this.

If you watch official videos via NicoNico Channel, you will be assigned a different ID for the channel video, so you may not see these videos as rarely.

Vital signs

Seems stable, though premium user counts are still declining. There was a scare in April 2020 when a clause relating to "service ending" was added to their Terms of Service, leading to rumours of the site potentially shutting down, but it turned out to be due to a change in legal requirements.

External links