Crooks And Liars has spent two decades building one of the most idiosyncratic video archives on the political web. Its library blends syndicated broadcast clips, original interviews, and commentary segments that frequently vanish from their original network hosts within weeks. For anyone treating this material as a research record, the site's own pages are a fragile shelf: embeds break, CDNs rotate, and segments are quietly delisted.
Archiving it is technically awkward. Modern delivery relies on adaptive streaming — DASH and HLS manifests that slice a single segment into hundreds of short fragments delivered at varying bitrates. That means 4K or 8K renditions arrive as separate video and audio streams that must be muxed afterward, 60fps tracks demand higher sustained throughput, and long playlists multiply the fragment count into the thousands. Rate limiting and per-connection throttling punish naive downloaders, while server-side conversion tools frequently strip subtitle tracks entirely.
On legality: capturing a copy for personal study, criticism, commentary, or news reporting sits within long-established Fair Use doctrine in the United States, and comparable quotation exceptions exist elsewhere. Archival preservation of publicly available political media is a recognized scholarly activity. Redistribution, re-uploading, or commercial reuse is a different matter entirely, and you should assume your local copyright regime governs you. This guide assumes personal, non-commercial preservation only.
Below we compare three approaches: a dedicated desktop application built on a Rust and Tauri stack, the upstream command-line tool, and browser-based converter sites. Each solves a different slice of the problem, and the tradeoffs between convenience, control, and privacy are sharper than most guides admit.
yt-dlp app (Recommended Desktop GUI)
This is a proprietary desktop application that wraps the upstream open-source yt-dlp, FFmpeg, and aria2c utilities behind a native window. The shell is built on Tauri v2 with a Rust core, which keeps the binary light and the file handling genuinely local. Downloads are orchestrated by a multi-connection fragment engine, so a six-hour playlist of short fragments assembles far faster than single-stream pulls.
FFmpeg muxing happens automatically, which matters when Crooks And Liars serves 1080p or 4K video and audio as separate DASH streams — you get one clean file rather than scrambled parts. Subtitle tracks are preserved where the source exposes them. All settings, history, and job state live in local filesystem JSON; nothing is transmitted to a remote account, and there is no telemetry pipeline.
Step-by-Step Instructions
Step 1: Download & Launch yt-dlp app
Install the desktop application from the official source and open it. First launch creates a local JSON configuration directory on your filesystem.
Step 2: Paste the Crooks And Liars URL
Copy the page URL containing the video, or the playlist or category index URL if you intend to capture a series. Paste it into the primary input field.
Step 3: Select Format & Quality
Inspect the available renditions and choose your target — 1080p is usually sufficient, though 4K is offered on newer uploads. Enable subtitle download if the segment carries caption tracks.
Step 4: Choose Output Folder & Start
Point the destination at your archive drive and begin the job. The fragment engine will fetch video and audio streams in parallel while you work elsewhere.
Step 5: Verify the Muxed Output
When the job completes, play the finished file end-to-end to confirm audio sync and duration. Store it alongside the source URL in a plain-text manifest for future reference.
Advantages
- ✓ Multi-connection fragment acceleration handles long playlists and 60fps source material without manual tuning
- ✓ Automatic FFmpeg muxing and subtitle retrieval produce ready-to-archive files in a single pass
- ✓ Entirely local configuration in filesystem JSON means no account, no cloud sync, and no telemetry
Drawbacks
- ✗ Requires desktop installation
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Get yt-dlp appyt-dlp (Command Line Interface)
The upstream yt-dlp CLI is the open-source engine that many other tools quietly depend on, and it remains the most granular option available. Every aspect of extraction is exposed: format selectors, fragment concurrency, rate limits, cookie jars, metadata sidecars, and post-processing hooks. For batch archival of a whole Crooks And Liars category, a single scripted loop beats any point-and-click interface.
The cost is terminal fluency. You will be editing config files and remembering flag combinations, and you must manage FFmpeg and aria2c installation yourself. It rewards that effort with reproducibility: your command history becomes a documented, re-runnable archiving procedure.
Step-by-Step Instructions
Step 1: Install the CLI and Dependencies
Install yt-dlp along with FFmpeg for muxing and aria2c if you want multi-connection fragment downloads. Confirm each is available on your system path.
Step 2: Test a Single URL
Run a format-listing command against one Crooks And Liars page to see the available video, audio, and subtitle streams before committing to a full run.
Step 3: Compose Your Format Selector
Build a selector that prefers the highest video stream and best audio stream separately, then merge them. Add subtitle flags if caption tracks are present.
Step 4: Enable Multi-Connection Downloading
Route fragments through the external downloader with a concurrency value suited to your bandwidth. This is the single largest speed gain for fragmented streams.
Step 5: Archive the Playlist
Point the tool at the playlist or category index and let it iterate. Write metadata sidecars so each file retains its original URL and title.
Advantages
- ✓ Full control over format selection, concurrency, throttling, and post-processing behavior
- ✓ Scriptable and reproducible, ideal for scheduled or bulk playlist archival
- ✓ Runs on headless servers and NAS devices without a graphical environment
Drawbacks
- ✗ Steep learning curve for anyone unfamiliar with terminal workflows
- ✗ Manual dependency management for FFmpeg, aria2c, and interpreter updates
Web-Based Online Converters
Browser converters require nothing more than a pasted link. They appeal because they work on a borrowed laptop or a locked-down machine where you cannot install software. For a one-off low-resolution clip, that convenience is real and occasionally useful.
The tradeoffs are substantial. These sites are typically ad-funded, and the ad networks they carry are aggressive — redirects, overlay interstitials, and deceptive download buttons. Your submitted URLs are logged by a third party, which is a poor fit for research on political media. Output is often re-encoded down to 720p or lower, caption tracks are dropped, and queues are choked by server-side rate limits that make playlist work impractical.
Step-by-Step Instructions
Step 1: Locate a Converter
Find a browser-based service that accepts the Crooks And Liars page URL. Expect captchas and interstitial advertising before you can proceed.
Step 2: Paste and Submit
Paste the video page URL and submit. Note that the full URL, including any query parameters, is now recorded by a third party.
Step 3: Select the Offered Quality
Choose from whatever renditions are listed. In most cases the maximum offered will be well below what the source actually streams.
Step 4: Download and Inspect
Save the produced file and check its resolution, audio sync, and whether captions survived. Re-encoding artifacts are common on longer segments.
Advantages
- ✓ No installation required and usable from any browser session
- ✓ Fast enough for a single short clip at modest resolution
Drawbacks
- ✗ Intrusive ads, redirects, and deceptive download buttons are common
- ✗ Third-party logging of every URL you submit creates a real privacy exposure
- ✗ Strict resolution caps and re-encoding that discards subtitle tracks and 60fps fidelity