what is alternative to ffmpeg for generating thumbnails - php

Currently I am using ffmpeg to generate thumbnails from the uploaded video. Its working fine. But, i guess there should be better option to this. So, i am looking for the alternative to generate thumbnail from ffmpeg.
Currently i am using PHP. So, any solution in php will be great. I was thinking about imagemagick but i am not sure about it.
Any help on this will be greatly appreciated. Any suggestions are welcome.
Hope this question is clear.

Maybe you can grab the frame at 100% using ffmpeg and then downsize / edit it with either GD or ImageMagick

Ive never tried it befoe, but I think MEncoder is generally regarded as the alternative to FFMPEG. Niggles' statement about resizing is probably your best for resizing the thumbnails

Related

FFmpeg/avconv rotate video with watermark adding using PHP-FFmpeg

I've got problem with rotating video and adding watermark during the same request. My system can get video from mobile devices and has to reformat it for HTML5. so I'm making mp4,webm and ogv formats. Everything works fine, I've figured out how to get video rotation using Mediainfo. I have only one problem. When I want add watermark and rotation to video during the same request I've got only video with watermark (in proper resolution and format) but without rotation. I've read that it is possible to achieve using complex-filter. Has anyone expirience how to make it possible using PHP-ffmpeg? It is very simple to use library, and works for me so it would be really cool if it will start to work.
Ok I've found the solution working well with PHP-ffmpeg wrapper. The solution was building from sources ffmpeg according to manual which is available on ffmpeg website. After this operation everything is working like a charm :)

Imagemagick exec and convert

I recently started using imagemagick with php and
I'm relatively new with both of these, IM and PHP.
So, I'm here to ask for some help/suggestion(s).
First
If lets say a user uploads a gif or a png image on
my site and I want it converted to jpg, is there any
command like for example.$image->convert($file,'.jpg)
or the convert command is accesible only thru exec() ?
like for example exec(convert picture.png to picture.jpg)
Second
What if for again, the user uploads gif/png on the site
and I resize the image to a specified width/height and
write the image, with the writeImage function of IM like this:
$image->writeImage(basename.$ext) where $ext = jpg.
Will this work properly,is this a good practice? I assume this will
only rename it but still, I don't see a problem in this... o.O
Oh sorry one more question, I'm not very familiar with exec,
is it better using imagemagick using exec(), does it improve
speed, load etc?
I can't answer your questions directly but thought I point you to a few resources:
Regarding which is better, exec or the PHP extension, I asked this same question a few months ago:
Should I use a PHP extension for ImageMagick or just use PHP's Exec() function to run the terminal commands?
For all Image Magick PHP functions you should look up the official guide:
http://www.php.net/manual/en/book.imagick.php
I switched from Image Magick to Graphics Magick as I heard it has better performance. It is a fork of Image Magick with an emphasis on performance. Large sites like Flickr and Etsy use it:
http://www.graphicsmagick.org/
This guide got me started:
http://devzone.zend.com/1559/manipulating-images-with-php-and-graphicsmagick/
And they have their own manual on php.net:
http://php.net/manual/en/book.gmagick.php (most of the commands are identical to Image Magick's)
I prefer using exec() as it is supported a lot better than Imagick ( the example code you posted ), easier to use and supports all the operators ( depending on your version ) which again Imagick does not.
Some of the Imagick code works differntly in the different versions; there are a lot more Imagick examples around than there were a couple of years ago when I first started looking at it.
Saying that Imagick can be faster and is/can be? built into php although some people have trouble installing it.
I belive that this site http://valokuva.org/?cat=1 belongs to a Imagick developer and has lots of examples.
My site www.rubblewebs.co.uk/imagemagick has lots of examples of php with exec( )
As to your other two questions yes you can change the file type with Imagick and I am not sure about basename.$ext - why not try it? As long as basename does not have an extension it may work but you might need to include basename.$ext in quotes.
As to speed it dpends sometimes GD is faster other times Imagick or Imagemagick. You can always do some tests. I did some a year or so ago and you can try the code on your server. http://www.rubblewebs.co.uk/imagemagick/speed/Speed_tests_1.pdf

PHP rotate video

I have my own video sharing app,
My question is... is there any library,script or something else, to help me in rotating videos whatever their file extension is?
Many peoples are uploading videos but sometimes i found video (guessing shared with iphones or mobile phones) and i see them horizontally instead of vertically...
Does anyone have any ideas how to rotate them dynamically?
Im not familiar with any "libraries" that will do that. I think your better bet would be to find a command-prompt-enabled video software package (like Any Video Converter [See Q7]) that PHP can execute via command prompt on the fly.
PHP doesn't do that, and there are no extensions that I know off, made for that purpose.
You can use ffmpeg to manipulate videos, by calling it from your scripts (see shell_execute() and such functions). Reading the ffmpeg documentation will help you figure what can (and can't) be done with that powerful tool.

Get the dimensions of a H.264 MP4

Does anybody know a ready-made, reliable way to tell the dimensions (width x height) of a MP4 encoded using the H.264 codec without ffmpeg or similar extensions, in pure PHP?
Thanks for all the answers folks. The bounty is running out and I will not have time to check the offered solutions before it does. I will accept the solution that I feel has the greatest likelihood to work.
getID3 is pure php and extracts an amazing amount of information from media files of all sorts. It will depend on what encoded your file in the first place as to what metadata is available and how reliable it is. getID3 has a nice demo page with lots of different file types. I tried to post more links but as a newbie I only get one.
It sounds like http://code.google.com/p/php-mp4info/ might be your answer. It reads MP4's but it doesn't mention anything about H.264.
also, what OS are you using?
What comes to mind:
mediainfo a huge project with GUI, but also has a CLI
mp4info (part of the seemingly defunct mp4mpeg project) is almost perfect for this
ffmpeg although this is overkill for the task. then again, you very well may need it for other tasks
ffmpeg and php: http://www.lampdeveloper.co.uk/linux/detecting-a-videos-dimensions-using-php-and-ffmpeg.html
php-reader is a full implementation of the ISO 14496 done in pure PHP. You can use this library to read all of the boxes which the mp4 consist of, like the moov atom containing metadata about the file.
Native PHP does not support anything like this, ffmpeg is only one library that come on my mind.

Work with PSDs in PHP

I was recently asked to come up with a script that will allow the end user to upload a PSD (Photoshop) file, and split it up and create images from each of the layers.
I would love to stay with PHP for this, but I am open to Python or Perl as well.
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.
Using GraphicsMagick or ImageMagick along with Magick++, you can then use imagick.
imagick has all of the calls necessary to convert PSDs from layers, including doing masks.
You can try the PHP PSD Reader, which should at least get you started.

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