5 ms·

Will this be open-sourced? I'd like the idea of a self-hosted version of this. Good work!

mtusman 9y ago
Thanks for your feedback. Really appreciate it. I’m looking into open sourcing some features it in the coming weeks and I’ll post an update on the website when that happens, so just keep checking.
fvargas 9y ago
Just curious, why would you want to self-host it?
- wanderfowl 9y ago
  For me, often, it's just a bandwidth issue. If a colleague has a 12 GB movie they'd like to transmute, a local app might be a possibility, but an hour long upload followed by a 20 minute long download won't be.
  - khedoros1 9y ago
    Well, that, plus whatever the conversion time would be.
  - fvargas 9y ago
    The creator mentions in another post that the service does indeed upload the data to a server for processing. But, in general, it being a web app doesn't mean it uploads your data any more than a locally run application might. A web app can just as well do the processing in the browser without it ever leaving your machine.
    - metaobject 9y ago
      Using a web app requires one to upload their file 100% of the time. Using a local app requires one, I'd expect, to upload their file 0% of the time.
      - fvargas 9y ago
        On what are you basing these expectations? Uploading means transmitting data to a third party. One could write a CLI that does just that. One could also write a web app where the processing takes place in the browser and the data never leaves the machine. The difference is the web app runs within the browser sandbox while the CLI executes with user permissions.
- croon 9y ago
  Not op, but for myself, not having any way of knowing if the service reads or retains any information from my files (outside of the core purpose) would limit the amount of data I would be willing to put through the service.
- stevemk14ebr 9y ago
  Many reasons. Primarily because of security and control of my information. Secondly because services like these tend to be short-lived and unreliable, if i host it myself i can trust it's there when i need it. And i hadn't considered the uploading time issue mentioned in a previous comment, but that is actually a very good point that self-hosting would solve as well. I also just want to see the code because i think it's cool
  - natch 9y ago
    >I also just want to see the code because i think it's cool This is not "the" code but here's a script. I can't take credit for it... I don't remember but I probably cobbled it together by taking stack overflow code and making it more friendly. First, you need ffmpeg (ymmv.. this assumes macOS, for others installing ffmpeg is also possible but left as an exercise for the reader): $ brew install ffmpeg Then: [edit: fixed some typos] #!/bin/bash export OLD_IFS=$IFS export IFS='' mkdir -p converted for a in *.{webm,mkv,ts} do ffmpeg -i "$a" -c:v libx264 -preset slow -crf 20 -c:a libvo_aacenc -b:a 128k "$a.mp4" if [[ $? == 0 ]]; then mv "$a.mp4" converted fi done export IFS=$OLD_IFS Save as convert-to-mp4.sh then run it in a directory containing files of undesirable types like .webm Not saying this is perfect. Take it as a proof of concept. And there's no web UI, nor would I want one. Suggestions for tweaks welcome.
    - josephfrazier 9y ago
      > First, you need ffmpeg (ymmv.. this assumes macOS, for others installing ffmpeg is also possible but left as an exercise for the reader): > $ brew install ffmpeg FWIW, there's a `brew` fork for linux: https://github.com/Linuxbrew/brew https://github.com/Linuxbrew/brew It's not especially useful in this case as ffmpeg is available in linux package managers, but it's handy for tools that aren't.
  - fvargas 9y ago
    Yeah, the primary benefit I see is if one fully audits the code and any future updates. Otherwise, self-hosting doesn't confer much in the way of guarantees for security or privacy.
bo1024 9y ago
If you run Linux, you can use `ffmpeg` and `convert` to duplicate the functionality of this site locally. For example $ convert input-file.jpg output-file.pdf $ ffmpeg -i input-file.mov output-file.mp4
- khedoros1 9y ago
  I've seen you mention those tools a couple times. I'm familiar with ffmpeg. Does convert also cover the MS Office file formats, as this tool purports to?
  - jncraton 9y ago
    The convert tool is part of imagemagick and only works on image formats as far as I know. I personally use pandoc to do similar conversions on documents and ssconvert for spreadsheets.
    - khedoros1 9y ago
      That's kind of what I thought. Although I'm aware of imagemagick itself, I didn't know that convert was provided by it. Thanks for the clarification.
  - bo1024 9y ago
    I missed the MS formats -- sorry! I don't know off the top of my head, but doubt it. libreoffice should though.
  - systoll 9y ago
    No. For office formats there's unoconv https://github.com/dagwieers/unoconv https://github.com/dagwieers/unoconv
- ldjb 9y ago
  For the video, you'd probably want to do a stream copy, which will retain the original quality and save you from having to potentially wait a long time for it to encode: $ ffmpeg -i input-file.mov -c copy output-file.mp4 This works if the output container format supports the codecs used by the input file, which should be the case for most mov->mp4 conversions.

Thanks for your feedback. Really appreciate it. I’m looking into open sourcing some features it in the coming weeks and I’ll post an update on the website when that happens, so just keep checking.

fvargas 9y ago

Just curious, why would you want to self-host it?

wanderfowl 9y ago
For me, often, it's just a bandwidth issue. If a colleague has a 12 GB movie they'd like to transmute, a local app might be a possibility, but an hour long upload followed by a 20 minute long download won't be.
- khedoros1 9y ago
  Well, that, plus whatever the conversion time would be.
- fvargas 9y ago
  The creator mentions in another post that the service does indeed upload the data to a server for processing. But, in general, it being a web app doesn't mean it uploads your data any more than a locally run application might. A web app can just as well do the processing in the browser without it ever leaving your machine.
  - metaobject 9y ago
    Using a web app requires one to upload their file 100% of the time. Using a local app requires one, I'd expect, to upload their file 0% of the time.
    - fvargas 9y ago
      On what are you basing these expectations? Uploading means transmitting data to a third party. One could write a CLI that does just that. One could also write a web app where the processing takes place in the browser and the data never leaves the machine. The difference is the web app runs within the browser sandbox while the CLI executes with user permissions.
croon 9y ago
Not op, but for myself, not having any way of knowing if the service reads or retains any information from my files (outside of the core purpose) would limit the amount of data I would be willing to put through the service.
stevemk14ebr 9y ago
Many reasons. Primarily because of security and control of my information. Secondly because services like these tend to be short-lived and unreliable, if i host it myself i can trust it's there when i need it. And i hadn't considered the uploading time issue mentioned in a previous comment, but that is actually a very good point that self-hosting would solve as well. I also just want to see the code because i think it's cool
- natch 9y ago
  >I also just want to see the code because i think it's cool This is not "the" code but here's a script. I can't take credit for it... I don't remember but I probably cobbled it together by taking stack overflow code and making it more friendly. First, you need ffmpeg (ymmv.. this assumes macOS, for others installing ffmpeg is also possible but left as an exercise for the reader): $ brew install ffmpeg Then: [edit: fixed some typos] #!/bin/bash export OLD_IFS=$IFS export IFS='' mkdir -p converted for a in *.{webm,mkv,ts} do ffmpeg -i "$a" -c:v libx264 -preset slow -crf 20 -c:a libvo_aacenc -b:a 128k "$a.mp4" if [[ $? == 0 ]]; then mv "$a.mp4" converted fi done export IFS=$OLD_IFS Save as convert-to-mp4.sh then run it in a directory containing files of undesirable types like .webm Not saying this is perfect. Take it as a proof of concept. And there's no web UI, nor would I want one. Suggestions for tweaks welcome.
  - josephfrazier 9y ago
    > First, you need ffmpeg (ymmv.. this assumes macOS, for others installing ffmpeg is also possible but left as an exercise for the reader): > $ brew install ffmpeg FWIW, there's a `brew` fork for linux: https://github.com/Linuxbrew/brew https://github.com/Linuxbrew/brew It's not especially useful in this case as ffmpeg is available in linux package managers, but it's handy for tools that aren't.
- fvargas 9y ago
  Yeah, the primary benefit I see is if one fully audits the code and any future updates. Otherwise, self-hosting doesn't confer much in the way of guarantees for security or privacy.

bo1024 9y ago

If you run Linux, you can use `ffmpeg` and `convert` to duplicate the functionality of this site locally. For example $ convert input-file.jpg output-file.pdf $ ffmpeg -i input-file.mov output-file.mp4

khedoros1 9y ago
I've seen you mention those tools a couple times. I'm familiar with ffmpeg. Does convert also cover the MS Office file formats, as this tool purports to?
- jncraton 9y ago
  The convert tool is part of imagemagick and only works on image formats as far as I know. I personally use pandoc to do similar conversions on documents and ssconvert for spreadsheets.
  - khedoros1 9y ago
    That's kind of what I thought. Although I'm aware of imagemagick itself, I didn't know that convert was provided by it. Thanks for the clarification.
- bo1024 9y ago
  I missed the MS formats -- sorry! I don't know off the top of my head, but doubt it. libreoffice should though.
- systoll 9y ago
  No. For office formats there's unoconv https://github.com/dagwieers/unoconv https://github.com/dagwieers/unoconv
ldjb 9y ago
For the video, you'd probably want to do a stream copy, which will retain the original quality and save you from having to potentially wait a long time for it to encode: $ ffmpeg -i input-file.mov -c copy output-file.mp4 This works if the output container format supports the codecs used by the input file, which should be the case for most mov->mp4 conversions.