moviemasher.js | angular-moviemasher | moviemasher.rb

Ruby library for mashing up video, images and audio utilizing FFmpeg and Ecasound

moviemasher.rb

Use moviemasher.rb to encode mashups of video, audio, and images from simple job descriptions. A job specifies multiple media inputs to be encoded together into one or more outputs, as well as where to find source assets and place the final rendering.

• concatenate files together sequentially with trimming
• mix audio tracks together with variable fading
• composite visual tracks together with transformations
• add titling as an effect or theme with custom fonts
• transfer media files to and from remote hosts
• specify callbacks that alert your system of processing milestones

Overview

The project aims to simplify common audio/video editing operations by turning your job description into a series of shell commands, and then overseeing their execution. As part of job processing, media inputs can be downloaded from remote hosts and rendered outputs can be uploaded as well. Using the same request mechanisms, external systems can be alerted by callbacks triggered when a job is started, during its processing and/or when it's completed.

• Documentation: generated with RDoc from source (HTML)
• Docker Image: moviemasher/moviemasher.rb (Dockerfile)

In addition to the raw media assets (video, audio and images), jobs can contain mash inputs that describe more complex compositing, titling and other effects. The related moviemasher.js project can be used to generate and display JSON formatted mash descriptions within a web browser, and angular-moviemasher can be used to package these into job descriptions.

Jobs are provided to the system for processing in different ways, depending on how it's been configured and deployed. At the lowest level, the MovieMasher.process method is sent a job as a hash, a JSON/YAML formatted string or a local path to one. The MovieMasher.process_queues method calls it with any jobs it finds while scanning a preconfigured watch folder or queue. This scanning can be done for a certain number of seconds, until no jobs are found, just once or forever. There are rake tasks for each of these methods, to simplify calling from shell scripts, cron jobs and other tasks.

AWS Integration

The system optionally supports Amazon Web Services for media storage and job queueing, through the ruby aws-sdk gem. The following mechanisms are available through configuration or job options:

• An S3 bucket can be a source for inputs or a destination for outputs
• An SQS queue can be polled and messages processed as jobs
• An access key id/secret can be passed to AWS.config for authentication
• Alternatively, environmental variables or an EC2 role can authenticate

Additionally, the Movie Masher AMI is launchable with OneClick in Marketplace as a deployment of all related projects and supporting applications. It includes an upstart task that executes rake moviemasher:init to merge any User Data supplied in JSON format into the configuration plus a cron job that continually executes rake moviemasher:process_queues, so it's possible to run in a headless mode polling an SQS queue for jobs. Without User Data, the instance will start up Apache and serve the angular-moviemasher project for demonstration - the instance id acts as a shared password.

Docker Usage

The moviemasher/moviemasher.rb image on docker.com is based off the official ruby image, adding builds of FFmpeg, Ecasound and supporting audio/visual libraries. It can be used to process jobs supplied directly on the command line, or to grab them from a directory/queue - either approach supports running in interractive or daemon mode. The Dockerfile contains a VOLUME instruction for each directory it works with, including queue_directory so that job files residing on the host can be easily processed.

• To display documentation of configuration options:

  docker run -it --rm moviemasher/moviemasher.rb moviemasher --help

• To process jobs directly from the command line:

  docker run -it --rm moviemasher/moviemasher.rb process "JOB" "JOB"

  JOB can be a JSON or YAML formatted string, or a path to one in the container.

• To process all jobs in directory 'my_jobs' residing on the host:

  docker run -it --rm -v my_jobs:/tmp/moviemasher/queue moviemasher/moviemasher.rb

  Files can be in JSON or YAML format.

• To continually process jobs from container's queue volume:

  docker run -d -t --name=moviemasher moviemasher/moviemasher.rb process_loop

  Note the t switch - it's required for Ecasound to function properly. You'll need to subsequently execute docker stop moviemasher and docker rm moviemasher to stop processing and remove the container created.

• To process a single job from an SQS queue:

  docker run -it --rm moviemasher/moviemasher.rb process_one --queue_url=[URL] --aws_access_key_id=[ID] --aws_secret_access_key=[SECRET]

  URL points to an existing SQS Queue that provides read/write access to the owner of the access key with ID and SECRET. Messages can be in JSON or YAML format.

The last example demonstrates overriding the configuration with command line arguments - all commands support this. The MOVIEMASHER_CONFIG environmental variable can also be set to a configuration file residing on the container in JSON/YAML format, though arguments take precedence.

When processing jobs in a directory or queue, the process_seconds configuration option ultimately controls how long polling continues and therefore how long the container runs. The following values are supported:

• [N]: poll for N seconds, then exit
• 0: do not poll, just exit
• -1: process a single job if found, then exit
• -2: poll until no jobs remain, then exit
• -3: poll until container stopped

The Dockerfile specifies an ENTRYPOINT that provides several convenience commands, but calls exec with any it doesn't recognize so that containers behave as expected. The following commands are supported:

• moviemasher (default): call MovieMasher.process_queues
• process_one: call MovieMasher.process_queues with process_seconds=-1
• process_all: call MovieMasher.process_queues with process_seconds=-2
• process_loop: call MovieMasher.process_queues with process_seconds=-3
• process: call MovieMasher.process for each supplied argument

Requirements

Tested in Ruby 1.9.3 and 2.1.5 (the dockerfile/ruby and ruby docker images) and on multiple UNIX flavors including OSX. Suggested audio/video libraries are only needed if you're decoding or encoding in their formats. Likewise, the aws-sdk gem is only needed when utilizing Amazon's services.

• Applications: FFmpeg, Ecasound, Sox
• Ruby Gems: aws-sdk, builder, mime-types, multipart-post, require_all, uuid
• Audio Libraries: mp3lame, ogg, opencore, samplerate, sndfile, speex, theora, vorbis
• Video Libraries: dirac, fontconfig, frei0r, fribidi, gd, openjpeg, vpx, xvidcore, x264

How to Install

Transcoding audio and video is extremely processor intensive, so while installation might be possible on most machines it isn't reccommended for all environments. In particular, running alongside a web server is only practical for demonstration purposes. Typically in production a pool of machines is deployed with each instance running a single process solely engaged in transcoding.

1. Review Dockerfile for commands that work on jessie

2. Install av libraries for supported formats and codecs

3. Install sox, ecasound and ffmpeg applications (in that order)

4. Install ruby and bundler gem

5. To install required gems cd to project directory and execute:

   bundle install --without test

6. Edit config/config.yml configuration file to match paths on system and configure logging/debugging options

7. To scan watch folder and/or queue for jobs cd to project directory and execute:

   rake moviemasher:process_queues

8. optionally add crontab entry from config/moviemasher.cron, after checking its binary paths

User Feedback

If any problems arise while utilizing this repository, a GitHub Issue Ticket should be filed. Please include the job description that's causing problems and any relevant log entries - issues with callbacks can typically be resolved faster after seeing entries from the receiving web server's log. Please post your issue ticket in the appropriate repository and refrain from cross posting - all projects are monitored with equal zeal.

Contributing

Please join in the shareable economy by gifting your efforts towards improving this project in any way you feel inclined. Pull requests for fixes, features and refactorings are always appreciated, as are documentation updates. Creative help with graphics, video and the web site is also needed. Please contact through MovieMasher.com to discuss your ideas.

Developer Setup

Several additional gems and applications that support them need to be installed in order to run the rspec tests in the spec directory:

• Ruby Gems: clientside_aws, rmagick, hiredis, rack-test, rspec
• Applications: imagemagick, redis

Addtionally, some tests utilize module descriptions from the angular-moviemasher project, which is expected to be cloned to the same directory as this project. Tests will still pass without the project being installed, but rendering of mash inputs will not actually be tested.

• Once applications are installed cd to project directory and execute:

  bundle install --without production

  rspec spec

Or if docker is being used, a helpful development version of the image can be built by uncommenting the last section in Dockerfile. These commands add the applications and gems to the image.

• To build development image cd to project directory and execute:

  sed -i '' 's/^## //' Dockerfile

  docker build --tag="moviemasher/moviemasher.rb:dev" .

• Place the angular-moviemasher project alongside this one in the same directory, then to run rspec tests in a container:

  docker run -it --rm -v $(pwd)/../angular-moviemasher:/mnt/angular-moviemasher -v $(pwd):/mnt/moviemasher.rb moviemasher/moviemasher.rb:dev rspec spec

Known issues in this version

• local/sqs import/export has not been thoroughly tested
• archiving of outputs not yet supported
• freeze frame not yet supported
• audio still being done in Ecasound
• audio spec tests not yet generating files from scratch

Migrating from Version 4.0.7

• The length key in clips has been renamed frames.
• The audio and video keys in mash tracks have been moved to mash.
• The tracks key in mashes has been removed.
• The fps key in outputs has been renamed video_rate.
• The audio_frequency key in outputs has been renamed audio_rate.
• The trim key in inputs has been renamed offset.
• The new mash key in mash inputs should be used for embedded mashes
• The source key in mash inputs should only contain a source object