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My experience with fmpeg is like a DSL embedded into another DSL. It's very powerful yet confusing at times. I saved a ton of ffmpeg one-liners in a notebook ju

by est 6y ago

My experience with fmpeg is like a DSL embedded into another DSL. It's very powerful yet confusing at times. I saved a ton of ffmpeg one-liners in a notebook just in case.

pfortuny 6y ago
Yes, same here. The big problem is that the filters DSL is probably too complex because it uses too many short expressions. It is unbelievably powerful though.
ponderingfish 6y ago
Very true. And, the parameters change over time, but, the stackoverflow answers using the old parameters remain on top. This IMO adds to the confusion :)
- _Gyan_ 6y ago
  Yes, the stackexchange (implicit) model contributes to this. It assumes once a Q has been asked and answered, the issue is resolved. Due to the non-duplicates policy, any corrections or updates are supposed to be added to the same thread. But the original accepted answer will have a tick mark next to it and likely a high score. So naive users don't read further and the obsolete answers remain heeded. Some sort of deprecation or salience decay needs to be added.
  - madeofpalk 6y ago
    You can edit the accepted answer!
    - _Gyan_ 6y ago
      I don't like to mix voices - that's inorganic when the changes are more than minor and can lead to parts of the 'answer' being at odds with itself. Except for typos, syntax..etc, I don't edit someone else's answer; I leave a comment and let the original respondent edit.
raverbashing 6y ago
Yes And the worse part is everything is turned into command line arguments It would be easier if you could specify it in something more human readable like (sigh) yaml
- est 6y ago
  someone need to make a GPT-3 to ffmpeg commands converter
Hamuko 6y ago
I wrote a small Python front-end for ffmpeg just so I can do some of my most common video encoding tasks done without Google.
antihero 6y ago
FWIW when I asked about doing something on IRC (splitting a stream, process one, and overlay it over the existing one at 20%), they were quite helpful. It was: `split[a][b];[b]lut3d=${path}[c];[a][c]blend=all_mode=overlay:all_opacity=${opacity}`
demomode 6y ago
I find gstreamer (using gst-launch)[1] a more pleasant experience than ffmpeg. You can't use some expresions on the command line like `x=(w-text_w)/2:y=(h-text_h)` but it can be workaround with some scripting using python bindings for example. Some (simple) text overlay can be acomplished with: gst-launch filesrc location=sample.mp4 \ ! decodebin \ ! videoconvert \ ! textoverlay text="Hello" font-desc="Sans Bold 150px" y-absolute=0.5 \ ! autovideosink 1. http://manpages.org/gst-launch http://manpages.org/gst-launch
- kingosticks 6y ago
  They also have very cool support for HTML overlays: https://base-art.net/Articles/web-overlay-in-gstreamer-with-wpewebkit/ https://base-art.net/Articles/web-overlay-in-gstreamer-with-...
  - potench 6y ago
    Looks like BBC’s Brave project was the inspiration for this: https://github.com/bbc/brave https://github.com/bbc/brave (specifically the gst-WebRenderSrc) Brave is a real-time remote video/audio editing app. Looks neat. Unrelated but wow, BBC has quite a bit of interesting and relevant open source projects. Simorgh, their react SSR framework, caught my eye “used on some of our biggest websites”. Encouraging for those looking to build out performance react/amp platforms https://github.com/bbc/simorgh https://github.com/bbc/simorgh
  - iso1210 6y ago
    I used CasparCG[0] to do live html overlays with a major broacaster out of Singapore about 5 years ago, still going strong. The actual on air graphics that were used rather tame compared with the sample ones I did to prove the system. [0] https://github.com/CasparCG/ https://github.com/CasparCG/
- dylan604 6y ago
  Why do you say you can't do expressions like that on the command line? I do it all of the time. You have to escape the parentheses, but other than that it is totally doable.
emarsden 6y ago
Indeed. I use libraries such as MoviePy* that wrap ffmpeg and allow you to implement effects on each frame. * https://zulko.github.io/moviepy/index.html https://zulko.github.io/moviepy/index.html
iso1210 6y ago
Yes, and the best part is everything is turned into command line arguments. ffmpeg of 15 years ago was confusing, but now it's so simple - to compile, to add your own filters, and to use, they've done a great job.
modernlearner 6y ago
Seems like everyone has a notebook of ffmpeg commands: https://hhsprings.bitbucket.io/docs/programming/examples/ffmpeg/index.html https://hhsprings.bitbucket.io/docs/programming/examples/ffm...

by est 6y ago

My experience with fmpeg is like a DSL embedded into another DSL. It's very powerful yet confusing at times. I saved a ton of ffmpeg one-liners in a notebook just in case.

pfortuny 6y ago

Yes, same here. The big problem is that the filters DSL is probably too complex because it uses too many short expressions. It is unbelievably powerful though.

ponderingfish 6y ago

Very true. And, the parameters change over time, but, the stackoverflow answers using the old parameters remain on top. This IMO adds to the confusion :)

_Gyan_ 6y ago
Yes, the stackexchange (implicit) model contributes to this. It assumes once a Q has been asked and answered, the issue is resolved. Due to the non-duplicates policy, any corrections or updates are supposed to be added to the same thread. But the original accepted answer will have a tick mark next to it and likely a high score. So naive users don't read further and the obsolete answers remain heeded. Some sort of deprecation or salience decay needs to be added.
- madeofpalk 6y ago
  You can edit the accepted answer!
  - _Gyan_ 6y ago
    I don't like to mix voices - that's inorganic when the changes are more than minor and can lead to parts of the 'answer' being at odds with itself. Except for typos, syntax..etc, I don't edit someone else's answer; I leave a comment and let the original respondent edit.

raverbashing 6y ago

Yes And the worse part is everything is turned into command line arguments It would be easier if you could specify it in something more human readable like (sigh) yaml

est 6y ago
someone need to make a GPT-3 to ffmpeg commands converter

Hamuko 6y ago

I wrote a small Python front-end for ffmpeg just so I can do some of my most common video encoding tasks done without Google.

antihero 6y ago

FWIW when I asked about doing something on IRC (splitting a stream, process one, and overlay it over the existing one at 20%), they were quite helpful. It was: `split[a][b];[b]lut3d=${path}[c];[a][c]blend=all_mode=overlay:all_opacity=${opacity}`

demomode 6y ago

I find gstreamer (using gst-launch)[1] a more pleasant experience than ffmpeg. You can't use some expresions on the command line like `x=(w-text_w)/2:y=(h-text_h)` but it can be workaround with some scripting using python bindings for example. Some (simple) text overlay can be acomplished with: gst-launch filesrc location=sample.mp4 \ ! decodebin \ ! videoconvert \ ! textoverlay text="Hello" font-desc="Sans Bold 150px" y-absolute=0.5 \ ! autovideosink 1. http://manpages.org/gst-launch http://manpages.org/gst-launch

kingosticks 6y ago
They also have very cool support for HTML overlays: https://base-art.net/Articles/web-overlay-in-gstreamer-with-wpewebkit/ https://base-art.net/Articles/web-overlay-in-gstreamer-with-...
- potench 6y ago
  Looks like BBC’s Brave project was the inspiration for this: https://github.com/bbc/brave https://github.com/bbc/brave (specifically the gst-WebRenderSrc) Brave is a real-time remote video/audio editing app. Looks neat. Unrelated but wow, BBC has quite a bit of interesting and relevant open source projects. Simorgh, their react SSR framework, caught my eye “used on some of our biggest websites”. Encouraging for those looking to build out performance react/amp platforms https://github.com/bbc/simorgh https://github.com/bbc/simorgh
- iso1210 6y ago
  I used CasparCG[0] to do live html overlays with a major broacaster out of Singapore about 5 years ago, still going strong. The actual on air graphics that were used rather tame compared with the sample ones I did to prove the system. [0] https://github.com/CasparCG/ https://github.com/CasparCG/
dylan604 6y ago
Why do you say you can't do expressions like that on the command line? I do it all of the time. You have to escape the parentheses, but other than that it is totally doable.

emarsden 6y ago

Indeed. I use libraries such as MoviePy* that wrap ffmpeg and allow you to implement effects on each frame. * https://zulko.github.io/moviepy/index.html https://zulko.github.io/moviepy/index.html

iso1210 6y ago

Yes, and the best part is everything is turned into command line arguments. ffmpeg of 15 years ago was confusing, but now it's so simple - to compile, to add your own filters, and to use, they've done a great job.

modernlearner 6y ago

Seems like everyone has a notebook of ffmpeg commands: https://hhsprings.bitbucket.io/docs/programming/examples/ffmpeg/index.html https://hhsprings.bitbucket.io/docs/programming/examples/ffm...