ffmpeg-concat

Concats a list of videos together using ffmpeg with sexy OpenGL transitions.

(example of 9 videos concatenated together with unique transitions)

(note that the quality and fps is only poor due to the GIF preview; here is the original)

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Intro

FFmpeg is the de facto standard in command-line video editing, but it is really difficult to concatenate videos together using non-trivial transitions. Here are some convoluted examples of a simple cross-fade between two videos. FFmpeg filter graphs are extremely powerful, but for implementing transitions, they are just too complicated and error-prone.

GL Transitions, on the other hand, is a great open source initiative spearheaded by Gaëtan Renaudeau that is aimed at using GLSL to establish a universal collection of transitions. Its extremely simple spec makes it really easy to customize existing transitions or write your own as opposed to struggling with complex ffmpeg filter graphs.

This module and CLI make it easy to concat videos together using gl-transitions.

Install

This module requires ffmpeg to be installed.

npm install --save ffmpeg-concat

# or if you want to use the CLI
npm install -g ffmpeg-concat

This package runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows.

Node.js versions 10.13.0 and up are supported. Note (macOS only): due to an inadvertant low-level breaking change in libuv's process handling code, OpenGL is not supported when running Node.js version 12.13.1 through to 13.6.0 on macOS. A fix has been released in Node.js version 13.7.0. A fix for 12.x is pending. Other platforms are unaffected.

CLI

  Usage: ffmpeg-concat [options] <videos...>

  Options:

    -V, --version                         output the version number
    -o, --output <output>                 path to mp4 file to write (default: out.mp4)
    -t, --transition-name <name>          name of gl-transition to use (default: fade)
    -d, --transition-duration <duration>  duration of transition to use in ms (default: 500)
    -T, --transitions <file>              json file to load transitions from
    -f, --frame-format <format>           format to use for temp frame images (default: raw)
    -c, --concurrency <number>            number of videos to process in parallel (default: 4)
    -C, --no-cleanup-frames               disables cleaning up temp frame images
    -O, --temp-dir <dir>                  temporary working directory to store frame data
    -v, --verbose                         enable verbose logging from FFmpeg
    -h, --help                            output usage information

  Example:

    ffmpeg-concat -t circleopen -d 750 -o huzzah.mp4 0.mp4 1.mp4 2.mp4

Usage

const concat = require('ffmpeg-concat')

// concat 3 mp4s together using 2 500ms directionalWipe transitions
await concat({
  output: 'test.mp4',
  videos: [
    'media/0.mp4',
    'media/1.mp4',
    'media/2.mp4'
  ],
  transition: {
    name: 'directionalWipe',
    duration: 500
  }
})

// concat 5 mp4s together using 4 different transitions
await concat({
  output: 'test.mp4',
  videos: [
    'media/0.mp4',
    'media/1.mp4',
    'media/2.mp4',
    'media/0.mp4',
    'media/1.mp4'
  ],
  transitions: [
    {
      name: 'circleOpen',
      duration: 1000
    },
    {
      name: 'crossWarp',
      duration: 800
    },
    {
      name: 'directionalWarp',
      duration: 500,
      // pass custom params to a transition
      params: { direction: [ 1, -1 ] }
    },
    {
      name: 'squaresWire',
      duration: 2000
    }
  ]
})

API

concat(options)

Concatenates video files together along with OpenGL transitions. Returns a Promise for when the output video has been written.

Note that you must specify videos, output, and either transition or transitions.

Note that the output video's size and fps are determined by the first input video.

options

videos

Type: Array<String> Required

Array of videos to concat, where each item is a path or URL to a video file.

output

Type: String Required

Path to an mp4 video file to write.

Note: we currently only support outputting to mp4; please open an issue if you'd like to see support for more formats.

transition

Type: Object

Specifies a default transition to be used between each video.

Note that you must specify either transition or transitions, depending on how much control you want over each transition. If you specify both, transitions takes precedence.

// example
const transition = {
  duration: 1000, // ms
  name: 'directionalwipe', // gl-transition name to use (will match with lower-casing)
  params: { direction: [1, -1] } // optionally override default parameters
}

transitions

Type: Array<Object>

Specifies a (possibly unique) transition between each video. If there are N videos, then there should be N - 1 transitions.

Note that you must specify either transition or transitions, depending on how much control you want over each transition. If you specify both, transitions takes precedence.

// example
const transitions = [
  {
    duration: 1000,
    name: 'fade'
  },
  {
    duration: 500,
    name: 'swap'
  }
]

audio

Type: String Optional

Path or URL to an audio file to use as the audio track for the output video.

if parameter is not provided - assuming user wants to concat the source scenes audio.

args

Type: Array<String> Optional

Default: ['-c:v', 'libx264', '-profile:v', 'main', '-preset', 'medium', '-crf 20', '-movflags', 'faststart']

Array of output-only ffmpeg command line arguments for the final video.

frameFormat

Type: string Default: raw

The format for temporary frame images. You may, for example, use png or jpg.

Note: the default is raw for performance reasons, as writing and reading raw binary pixel data is much faster than encoding and decoding png frames. Raw format is difficult to preview and debug, however, in which case you may want to change frameFormat to png.

concurrency

Type: Number Default: 4

Max number of videos to process in parallel.

log

Type: Function Default: noop

Optional function to log progress and the underlying ffmpeg commands. You may, for example, use console.log

cleanupFrames

Type: boolean Default: true

By default, we cleanup temporary frame images. Set this to false if you need to debug intermediate results.

tempDir

Type: string Default: random directory in /tmp

The temporary working directory to store intermediate frame data. This is where the frames in cleanupFrames will be saved.

Transitions

Here are some gl-transitions that I've found particularly useful for quality video transitions:

• fade
• fadegrayscale
• circleopen
• directionalwarp
• directionalwipe
• crosswarp
• crosszoom
• dreamy
• squareswire
• angular
• radial
• cube
• swap

Related

• ffmpeg-gl-transition - Low-level ffmpeg filter for applying GLSL transitions between video streams (gl-transitions). It allows the use of more advanced and customizable filter graphs, but it requires you to build a custom version of ffmpeg.
• gl-transitions - Collection of GLSL transitions.
• fluent-ffmpeg - Underlying ffmpeg wrapper library.
• awesome-ffmpeg - A curated list of awesome ffmpeg resources with a focus on JavaScript.

License

MIT © Travis Fischer

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