The power and flexibility of FFmpeg is a strength and a weakness. While it provides a huge number of options, it’s easy to create a configuration that actually doesn’t work. Case in point has been my experience with Media Mover- the most common thing that people want to use it for is creating FLV files from a variety of source material. Unfortunately, setting the codec or bit rate right can be somewhat challenging, to the point where people create configurations that will not convert the files they have.
I’ve setup FFmpeg wrapper to use configuration files. For each output format, a format file can be create which defines what kinds of options are available (codecs, bit rates, sample rates, etc). These files are loaded via ajax and any form that conforms to a set of rules can be updated on the fly as the user selects different options.
While this currently only works for Media Mover’s FFmpeg processing module, it would work for any module that wanted to implement the setup. Further, people who have experience with specific kinds of output formats can contribute back configuration files that help improve the output from FFmpeg.
The screencast below shows this process in action- I’m adding a new configuration to Media Mover and then selecting different output options for FFmpeg. While I only have one configuration complete at this time (FLV) switching between other options grabs the default (ie: all) options. It also turns the advanced configurations off when you select an option that uses the default- this way FFmpeg will take it’s best guess at converting unless you specifically tell it to.
On top of this, I’ve added support in mm_ffmpeg to enter in your own command- while this is potentially dangerous, it gives people with advanced needs of FFmpeg the ability to run what they need.
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