I'm running Max OS 10.7, MAMP (PHP 5.3.6), with FFMPEG installed. I want to convert videos from one format to another. The following entered into Terminal works fine:
ffmpeg -i /path/video.wmv /path/video.flv
The file video.wmv is converted to video.flv. Great! Now, this PHP line DOESN'T work:
exec('ffmpeg -i /path/video.wmv /path/video.flv');
Why? I've spent many hours reading up on this and I still can't figure out what is wrong. I have read the other discussions on this topic and there is no clear answer. Any help would be greatly appreciated! (PHP safe_mode is off).
I would double check that the path to ffmpeg is correct. Also, take a look at the output to see if has anything useful, like this:
exec("/usr/bin/ffmpeg -i $srcFile $destFile 2>&1", $output);
var_dump($output);
Related
I am working on a simple video upload and compression system and I am currently using the following process.
First Step
I use a multipart/form-data to upload the original video file, which I store in /var/www/site/videos_pre/video.mp4. My public folder is var/www/site/public_html/. I store an entry in my database with the video information.
Second step
I have a converter process which is very basic, but does the job (at least in CLI).
It has the following code:
public function converter($content_id)
{
$content = $this->videos_m->get($content_id);
$id = uniqid();
$name_mp4 = $content->name_slug.'_'.$id.'.mp4';
$name_webm = $content->name_slug.'_'.$id.'.webm';
$command_mp4 = 'ffmpeg -i ../videos_pre/'.$content->original_file.' -b:v 1500k -bufsize 1500k ./videos/'.$name_mp4;
system($command_mp4);
$command_webm = 'ffmpeg -i ./videos/'.$name_mp4.' -c:v vp9 -c:a libvorbis ./videos/'.$name_webm;
system($command_webm);
$update_video = new stdClass();
$update_video->archivo_mp4 = $name_mp4;
$update_video->archivo_webm = $name_webm;
$this->db->where('content_id', $content_id);
$this->db->update('Videos', $update_video);
}
Third step - where the problem occurs
I have tested this on Windows 10 and Ubuntu 18.04. The code works on Windows 10 in both php and cli. The code on Ubuntu only works with cli.
The resulting commands are something like this:
// First command to reduce the bitrate of the mp4
ffmpeg -i /var/www/site/videos_pre/video.mp4 -b:v 1500k -bufsize 1500k /var/www/site/public_html/videos/video_5e757d3e0d762.mp4
// Second command to convert the mp4 to a webm to get both types
ffmpeg -i /var/www/site/public_html/videos/video_5e757d3e0d762.mp4 -c:v vp9 -c:a libvorbis /var/www/site/public_html/videos/video_5e757d3e0d762.webm
If I execute those commands they work perfectly. If I run the php script, be it in the browser or via CLI, literally nothing happens. No error messages nothing.
I am not sure if it's a permission issue, if there's something specific for php to run this, or some module I've not activated. I have enough execution time, I have it at 600 seconds, but as I said it doesn't even take time, it just does nothing.
I can even echo the commands and they appear. So, basically the problem is I need to be able to run those commands from PHP. I did it on Windows, but Ubuntu 18.04 won't let me. Both OSs have ffmpeg recently installed and I've been able to convert on both of them.
I tried changing paths from absolute to relative, no difference at all.
So, I managed to solve it, and it turns out it was a permission problem.
I had my /var/www/site folder with permissions like this: myuser:www-data. After checking this answer on a similar issue, I changed the folder permission to www-data:root and it worked instantly.
I hope that permission change doesn't affect the rest of things, but for now everything's working fine.
I am using FFMpeg to convert videos and it is working fine from the command line. I am using the following command:
ffmpeg -i input.avi -ab 56 -ar 44100 -b 200 -r 15 -s 320x240 -f flv output.flv
However, when I run the command using PHP script, the output video is not encoded.
exec("ffmpeg -i input.avi -ab 56 -ar 44100 -b 200 -r 15 -s 320x240 -f flv output.flv",$output, $returnvalue);
$returnvalue = 127;
FFMPEG installed path :
[root#localhost ~]# which ffmpeg
/root/bin/ffmpeg
My Script Path :
www.domainname.com/core/foldername/ffmpeg.php
Please provide me solution for the same ASAP.
Thank you.
The natural way to run ffmpeg from PHP scripts is something like:
<?php
echo "Starting ffmpeg...\n\n";
echo shell_exec("ffmpeg -i input.avi output.avi &");
echo "Done.\n";
?>
There are several issues that need to be pointed out here. The first one is that, although we specified we want ffmpeg to be executed in the background (using the ampersand operator "&"), PHP script will not continue it's execution until ffmpeg has finished its execution. This is due to the fact, mentioned in one of the notes for the PHP's exec() function that says:
If a program is started with this function, in order for it to
continue running in the background, the output of the program must be
redirected to a file or another output stream. Failing to do so will
cause PHP to hang until the execution of the program ends.
Don't be confused about the example showing shell_exec() call instead of exec(). All of the PHP's Program execution functions share the similar code base and limitations.
So, to work around this issue, we need to do something like this:
<?php
echo "Starting ffmpeg...\n\n";
echo shell_exec("ffmpeg -i input.avi output.avi >/dev/null 2>/dev/null &");
echo "Done.\n";
?>
The part that says ">/dev/null" will redirect the standard OUTPUT (stdout) of the ffmpeg instance to /dev/null (effectively ignoring the output) and "2>/dev/null" will redirect the standard ERROR (stderr) to /dev/null (effectively ignoring any error log messages). These two can be combined into a shorter representation: ">/dev/null 2>&1". If you like, you can read more about I/O Redirection.
An important note should be mentioned here. The ffmpeg command-line tool uses stderr for output of error log messages and stdout is reserved for possible use of pipes (to redirect the output media stream generated from ffmpeg to some other command line tool). That being said, if you run your ffmpeg in the background, you'll most probably want to redirect the stderr to a log file, to be able to check it later.
One more thing to take care about is the standard INPUT (stdin). Command-line ffmpeg tool is designed as an interactive utility that accepts user's input (usually from keyboard) and reports the error log on the user's current screen/terminal. When we run ffmpeg in the background, we want to tell ffmpeg that no input should be accepted (nor waited for) from the stdin. We can tell this to ffmpeg, using I/O redirection again ** "ffmpeg command-line tool in the background would be similar to this:
<?php
echo "Starting ffmpeg...\n\n";
echo shell_exec("ffmpeg -y -i input.avi output.avi </dev/null >/dev/null 2>/var/log/ffmpeg.log &");
echo "Done.\n";
?>
The "-y" option is used to auto-overwrite the output file (output.avi) without asking for yes/no confirmation. If you need the opposite scenario, to auto-cancel the entire process if the output file already exists, then use "-n" option instead.
Wrapper Libraries
Some PHP libraries allow wrapping ffmpeg calls into PHP objects, and give you a nice syntax to work with if you don't like to use the command line. One of these is the actively maintained PHP-FFMpeg. It only requires you to download a recent ffmpeg and ffprobe build apart from installing the PHP components. Then you can run PHP code like this:
$ffmpeg = FFMpeg\FFMpeg::create();
$video = $ffmpeg->open('video.mpg');
$video
->filters()
->resize(new FFMpeg\Coordinate\Dimension(320, 240))
->synchronize();
$video
->save(new FFMpeg\Format\Video\X264(), 'export-x264.mp4')
Of course you need to take care of running such a task in the background. Libraries such as GearmanClient facilitate this.
Note: ffmpeg-php is an extension that is not developed since 2007 (and requires "ffmpeg-0.4.9_pre1 or higher"), which means that you are restricted to use a very old version of ffmpeg, without possibility to update it to the latest version. Since a lot of changes/improvements are being made, inside ffmpeg's code, every day, it makes ffmpeg-php incompatible with the latest ffmpeg.
Read the official documentation for more info.
I covered the solution that helps most people that I spoke to about this in another thread.
https://stackoverflow.com/a/38626752/2074077
Essentially, your user needs access to the public directories.
<?php
exec('whoami'); // Gives you the running user; often it's www-data
?>
Then change your public ownership to the whoami user.
sudo chown -R www-data:root /var/www
This happened to me, I found this on another forum; the trick inside of PHP is to give the absolute path to FFMPEG. Try running it like this..
exec("/root/bin/ffmpeg -i input.avi -ab 56 -ar 44100 -b 200 -r 15 -s 320x240 -f flv output.flv",$output, $returnvalue);
Something about the fact that php is a different user than you are when typing straight into the command line. I guess it doesn't have the same shortcut list or whatever it is.
Not sure exactly why but it worked for me!
Good luck.
and am wanting to use ffmpeg as command line direct on windows 7 x64, I tried adding the extension, but unfortunately it did not work for some unknown reason, but the executable worked perfectly, I'm using the exec command, the only problem is that does not work with direct lines, I have to create a file. bat to run the program. this is my doubt.
$a = exec('\b.bat');
if ($a)
{
echo "Success"."\n";
print $a;
}else {
echo "No good"."\n";
print $a;
}
b.bat
ffmpeg -i video.flv -an -ss 00:00:16 -an -r 1 -vframes 1 -y %a.jpg
already tried several alternatives but the only one that worked was with the. bat
$a = exec('\windows/system32/ffmpeg.exe ffmpeg -i video.flv -an -ss 00:00:16 -an -r 1 -vframes 1 -y %a.jpg');
Make sure you include the full path to your .bat file and also make sure to include the full path to ffmpeg.exe in your .bat file.
Well, I am also working on this ffmpeg file to convert my movies and stuff my idea is for people to watch movies for free anyway here is what I use to convert my movies, have a note that when the ffmpeg.exe is not in the same folder than the movies then you will need to give a full path or use of ../ to go up a folder and / to a folder for example:
$input_path= $_FILES["file"]["tmp_name"];
$output_result= "movies/" . basename($_FILES["file"]["name"]).".flv";
exec("FFMPEG.EXE -i '$input_path' -s 900x400 -r 29.97 -b 1024k -ar 22050 -ab 50k -ac 1 '$output_result'");
there I am using scale and rateframe as well as bitrate and sound quality so my input and output I gave them in a variable basically that command you can use as is just give a value to those variables $input and $output. Please note that I am barely working out the idea too so far this is what I have come out with please do not expect excellent results since we are using microsoft windows the results may vary from version to version and you may have to use the command in administrator mode I hope this helps you my email is support#web2021.com if anything let me know man.
I'm a bit of a beginner when it comes to PHP, and I'm trying to create a simple(ish) system where files are input, and then converted to html5 video in various resolutions.
I've sorted out how to handle multiple file uploads etc, but now I'm having a problem.
I can't seem to get exec to execute FFMPEG in PHP.
For example, if I type this into my command line (Terminal on Mac OSX 10.8), It converts the video correctly:
ffmpeg -i /Users/charlieryan/Desktop/MOV01785.MPG websample.mov
This correctly outputs the converted video file into my home directory.
However if I run this in PHP as follows:
exec('ffmpeg -i /Users/charlieryan/Desktop/MOV01785.MPG websample.mov');
Absolutely nothing happens ... my stat monitor doesn't register any change in processor use, and I can't find the output file anywhere on my system.
Since I'm a bit of a noob at this, I'm assuming I'm doing something wrong, but what is it?
Thanks,
Charlie
After alot of help from birgire and a lot of fiddling around I've sorted it.
This problem comes from an incompatibility with the MAMP sandbox. Which can be solved as follows:
Go to Terminal and type:
sudo nano /Applications/MAMP/Library/bin/envvars
Then comment out the following lines with a hash (#)
# DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH="/Applications/MAMP/Library/lib:$DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH"
# export DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH
And then add the following line to the file
export PATH="$PATH:/opt/local/bin"
Then, go back to MAMP and restart your servers, navigate back to the page, and you'll be good to go.
You should first try to see if exec() is allowed:
<?php echo exec('echo "exec() is working"');?>
if it's working you should get
exec() is working
If it works you should try
exec('/full/path/to/ffmpeg -i /Users/charlieryan/Desktop/MOV01785.MPG websample.mov');
I had the same problem, If you use MAMP, the problem is because mamp's php can't find the correct library, I don't know why!, so.. here's the trick.
- You should use system's php to execute the php which will call to ffmpeg
In your php code (ex: lib.php | index.php):
function callToSysPHP ($videoName) {
// $cmd = '/path to php/php <your php script> args';
// In my case
$cmd = '/usr/bin/php myffmpeg.php ' . $videoName;
shell_exec($cmd);
}
In myffmpeg.php:
$videoName = $argv[1];
//$cmd = 'path to your ffmpeg/your ffmpeg command';
// In my case my ffmpeg cmd looks like
$cmd = '/usr/sbin/' . 'ffmpeg -f image2 -framerate 25 -i ./files/pngs/%1d.png -vf scale=480:640 -vcodec libx264 -refs 16 -preset ultrafast ./files/pngs/'. $videoName .'.mp4 2>&1';
echo '<pre>'; print_r(shell_exec($cmd)); echo '</pre>';
Basically from your mamp php, call a system php to execute a php file wich calls a ffmpeg throught shell_exec();
I hope this can help you.
have you ffmpeg installed on windows machine? what happens if you run the same command from command line without php, does it work? If it doesn't, it hasn't to do anything with PHP.
If '/usr/local/bin/' is the directory where you can find the ffmepg executable try this one:
<?php
$cmd = 'PATH="/usr/local/bin/"; ffmpeg -i /your/file/destination/batman.mp4 2>&1';
echo "<pre>".shell_exec($cmd)."</pre>";
?>
I'm attempting to run the following command in PHP (on Ubuntu):
<?php
if (exec("/home/johnboy/ffmpeg/ffmpeg -i test1.mp4 -acodec aac -ab 128kb -vcodec mpeg4 -b 1220kb -mbd 1 -s 320x180 final_video.mov"))
{ echo "Success"; }
else { echo "No good"; }
And I always get "No good" echoed back, and no file created.
Interestingly, if I run the same exact command in Shell, it works, no problems.
Also, when I run the same code above, but subsitute "whoami" instead of the ffmpeg stuff, it works. (It echoes back "Success")
Any ideas on why this wouldn't be working? Thanks.
get the stderr will give the result
try
ffmpeg -i inputfile [more_params] 2>&1
Can the apache/web user reach /home/johnboy/ffmpeg/ffmpeg? That is, perhaps /home/johnboy is 0700 instead of 0755?
Perhaps there are resource limits affecting loading of such a large program and all its libraries?
If you run the script to the php cli sapi, does it behave correctly? Even when running as the apache user?
What does strace -ff show when the apache web user runs the php script through the php cli?
Use this
$ffmpeg = "ffmpeg Installed path";
$flvfile = "source video file with root path";
$png_path " "Destination video file with root path and file type";
exec("$ffmpeg -y -i $flvfile -vframes 1 -ss 00:01:60
-an -vcodec png -f rawvideo -s 110x90 $png_path");
You are using relative paths to the file names. Are you sure you are executing the command in the right directory?
There would be some issues if you want to execute something that way.
1. Maybe you have some permission issue, the webserver have limitation to handle some execution to the system.
2. Maybe your path file is incorrect.
3. you can try to use shell_exec to perform the execution to the system.
Anyway, what I would do to make my execution would go smoothly are,
I will write 2 programs with message passing included between them, for example client server program.
The server would wait some messages from the client to execute some command (all of the command, it would be no permission issues). All you have to do in you web is to call your client application.
What I emphasize is to build some interface from web and the system. It would solve a lot of problem with permission issues.
hope this help.
The function exec() only returns the last line of output, I suspect that the last line of that command is blank. if you want the entire contents of the command you should use shell_exec().
Also keep track of where the command is executing, try: print(shell_exec("pwd"));
Enable safemode and it will work
$output = shell_exec('/home/person/www/ffmpeg 2>&1');
echo "<pre>$output</pre>";
Notice the 2>&1 part ...