Converting , extracting preview image in asp.net via ffmpeg

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Introduction

Well in this article I’ll talk about how using ffmpeg with asp.net , for converting video , extracting preview image and ….

There are three way to using ffmpeg in your website:

Using sharpffmpeg ( http://sourceforge.net/projects/sharpffmpeg/ )

Using ffmpeg dll

Using ffmpeg execution

The last one is easiest one and in this article I’ll explain this way.

Why ffmpeg

First of all I dunno any other way for extracting a preview frame of 3gp files. ( but there are other ways for converting videos)

And Also ffmpeg support following formats :

2.1 File Formats

FFmpeg supports the following file formats through the libavformat library:

X means that encoding (resp. decoding) is supported.

2.2 Image Formats

FFmpeg can read and write images for each frame of a video sequence. The following image formats are supported:

X means that encoding (resp. decoding) is supported.

2.3 Video Codecs

X means that encoding (resp. decoding) is supported.

2.4 Audio Codecs

X means that encoding (resp. decoding) is supported. I means that an integer-only version is available, too (ensures high performance on systems without hardware floating point support).

Using the code

First of all go to this url ( http://arrozcru.no-ip.org/ffmpeg_builds/ ) and download latest ffmpeg builds.

For using sample of this article you’ll need to download ffmpeg from above link and put

“ffmpeg.exe” , “pthreadGC2.dll” , “SDL.dll” in sample project folder .

notice : you have to put a 3gp video and you must rename it to first.3gp in project folder or also you can change code for using other videos instead of first.3gp .

Code analyze

enclosed sample is straightforward and simple but we cover some part of it.

First of all you need to add System.Diagnostics name space to your project ( for accessing to process class )

         // preview frame



Process ffmpeg; // creating process


string video;
string thumb;
video = Page.MapPath("first.3gp"); // setting video input name with path


thumb = Page.MapPath("") +"\\frame.jpg"; // thumb name with path !


ffmpeg = new Process();

ffmpeg.StartInfo.Arguments = " -i \""+video+"\" -s 108*80  -vframes 1 -f image2 -vcodec mjpeg \""+thumb+"\""; // arguments !


ffmpeg.StartInfo.FileName = Page.MapPath("ffmpeg.exe");
ffmpeg.Start(); // start ! 

The code above is used to extracting a preview image from 3gp video.

You see that we have 2 variables , video and thumb that name of both is clear

Video variable hold video which we want to extracting preview thumbnail or image from ( usually the video which user uploaded )

And thumb hold the name that we want to call the output file.

We combine them and send them as arguments to ffmpeg. these special arguments tell ffmpeg create image with 180*80 resolution , you can change each part of it .

Now let’s look at the code behind convert button in our project :

C#

//converting video 



        Process ffmpeg; // creating process


        string video;
        string mpg;
        video = Page.MapPath("first.3gp"); // setting video input name with path


        mpg = Page.MapPath("") + "\\video.mpg"; // thumb name with path !


        ffmpeg = new Process();

        ffmpeg.StartInfo.Arguments = " -i \"" + video + "\" -target vcd \"" + mpg + "\""; // arguments !


        ffmpeg.StartInfo.FileName = Page.MapPath("ffmpeg.exe");
        ffmpeg.Start(); // start ! 

You see that all thing are the same just the name of variable of output file changed and now we call it mpg and the arguments of ffmpeg also changed.

You see it’s really easy. But please consider that converting videos is so heavy process, you must have good reason to letting user to converting video on your web site.

Conclusion

Thats all, I hope you enjoyed of reading this article and find it useful and please consider that it was my first article.

If you have your own server you don’t have problem and surely you have permission for executing file

But if you use shared web server ( like me ! ) coz ffmpeg is well know open source project you can talk to your host manager and giving information about ffmpeg and its usage or giving its url

Maybe in future I write about other way.