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FFMPEG on the IBM Cloud
Team 8: Rishi Ishairzay, Puloma De, Andrew
Hwang
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Content
Intro to FFMPEG
Basics of Video
The Server
Basics of FFMPEG
Little more in-depth with FFMPEG
Examples
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FFMPEG
Stands for Fast Forward MPEG
Completely open source
Used by thousands of video-
enabled websites
Supports encoding/modifying
video/audio/image formats
Extremely thorough set of
options
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Audio Encoding
Audio Sample Rate
Number of samples per second (e.g. 48 kHz)
Audio Bitrate
How much data is used to represent a single second of audio (e.g.
128kbps)
Audio Codec
Specific algorithm to use for representing the audio (e.g. MP3,
FLAC, etc.)
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Video Encoding
Frame Rate
Amount of frames per second
Video Dimensions
Height and width of each frame in the video
Cropping/Padding
Amount of pixels to chop off from the edge of the video or amount
of pixels to add to the edge of the video.
Video Codec
Specific algorithm used to represent the data
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How we did it
Getting FFMPEG installed in 5 steps
curl http://ffmpeg.org/releases/ffmpeg-0.10.2.tar.gz | tar xz
cd ffmpeg-0.10.2/
./configure --disable-yasm
make
make install
These steps (and more) have already been done for you on the server.
The standard FFMPEG install provides support for basic video
and audio formats. Other codecs are supported through
separate installations.
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Working with FFMPEG
Basic Commands
ffmpeg –i <Input> -s <Dimensions> …
Input – Source video file
Dimensions – Width x Height (e.g. 800x600)
… –b:v <Bitrate> -codec:v <Codec> ...
Bitrate – Video bitrate in kbits/s (e.g. 768kbps)
Codec – Video codec (e.g. libxvid)
… –bt <Tolerance> -r <Frame rate> …
Tolerance – The acceptable variance in bitrate
Frame rate – The frame rate for the output file
… -codec:a <Codec> -b:a <Bitrate>
Codec – Audio codec (e.g. mp3)
Bitrate – Audio bitrate in kbits/s
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Let’s see it in action
ffmpeg -i input.mpeg -s 640x266-b:v 512k -bt 240k -codec:v
libx264 -codec:a ac3 -b:a 192k output.avi
Takes in input.mpeg
Sets the size of the output video to 640x266px
Sets the bit rate of the video to 512kbps
Allows a fluctuation of 240kbps in video quality, which allows the
quality to range from 392kbps (for low action scenes) to 632kbps
(for high action scenes)
Sets the video codec to libx264
Sets the audio codec to ac3
Sets the audio bitrate to 192kbps
Outputs file to output.avi
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Do it!
Before running any commands, switch into your team
directory ~/ffmpeg/teams/<team name>
If the directory doesn’t exist, then make it!
Try executing the command with your own input file (or use
the one provided – ~/ffmpeg/transform.mov)
If you don’t have a sample file to work with, you can download a
movie trailer with the command below.
curl -A QuickTime -O http://trailers.apple.com/movies/paramount/transformers3/transformers3-sbspot_h720p.mov
Should look something like this:
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Congratulations!
You just started a video conversion with FFMPEG!
You should be seeing
a screen like the one
on the right, outlining
how much progress
has been made along
with the metadata
associated with the
input and output
streams.
P.S. The video you just
created is the exact
format that iPhones
and iPads are capable
of playing.
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Let’s access your converted file
The nginx web server is installed on the cloud module, you
can access your files by visiting the IP address of the cloud
instance in your browser.
If the page doesn’t load then it’s possible nginx isn’t running,
you can start nginx with the following command:
sudo /usr/local/nginx/sbin/nginx
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More advanced options
-ss <Position> -t <Duration>
Set the start position and duration of the output file (used to trim a file,
e.g. –ss 00:00:05 –t 00:00:10 which trims from 5 – 15 seconds).
-vf crop=<Width>:<Height>:<X>:<Y>
Crop a video dimensions starting at (X, Y) with the dimensions Width
x Height
-vf pad=<Width>:<Height>:<X>:<Y>:<Color>
Pad a video to fit a size staring at (X, Y) with the dimensions Width x
Height with a color to fill the excess space (in hex).
-frames:v <Frames>
The amount of video frames to output
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Putting it to use
Using a combination of the previous options, you’re capable
of performing some advanced operations.
The below command grabs a thumbnail from a video at 5
seconds and saves it as thumb.jpg
ffmpeg -i input.mov -ss 00:00:05 -codec:v mjpeg -frames:v 1 -s
320x240 thumb.jpg
Try it out!
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And there’s more!
This tutorial has only been a small glimpse of what’s possible
with FFMPEG. To view all the commands please visit:
http://ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg.html
You now have the ability to perform basic conversions via the
command line. FFMPEG is used in production environments
all over the web – try to do something interesting with it!
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Thank you!
Created by
Rishi Ishairzay ([email protected])
Puloma De ([email protected])
Andrew Hwang ([email protected])
