Voyeur

Voyeur is a ruby library that will take your video and audio files and convert them to common HTML5 formats exposing an easy to use API. Seriously it's like falling out of a tree then climbing back.

Installation

The gem is easily installed by including the following line in your Gemfile (if you role that way). This version is compatible with ruby-1.9.x only, however there is a branch for ruby-1.8.7

gem 'voyeur'

or on the command line

gem install voyeur
require 'voyeur'

Setup

This gem requires ffmpeg to be installed. If you require assistance there is a basic guide included in the wiki page. Feel free to add more! You can also try out automated setup scripts (at the moment we only have for ubuntu):

Usage

Simple conversions may be done by simply:

Voyeur::Media.new( filename: path_to_file ).convert( to: :mp4 )

This will convert the video into Mp4 and save it in the same directory as the original video.

This will also work for audio using the same API by simply:

Voyeur::Media.new( filename: path_to_file ).convert( to: :acc )

This will convert the sound file into acc and save it in the same directory as the original video

You can call convert with a block, this will return a MediaTime object.

Voyeur::Media.new( filename: path_to_file ).convert( to: :mp4 ) do |time|
  puts time.to_seconds
end

This will output how far along the video the conversion process is, it can be used to display percentage completed. See bin/voyuer.rb for an example.

Alternatively you can convert to all 3 types at once:

Voyeur::Media.new( filename: path_to_file ).convert_to_html5

This will convert the video into 3 formats. Mp4, Ogv and Webm and place them in the same folder as the parent.

I have allowed the user to specify an output filename. (Note: if no output filename the file is just named after the original file):

Voyeur::Media.new( filename: path_to_file ).convert( to: :mp4, output_filename: "my_cool_video" )

This will give you a converted video called "my_cool_video.mp4".

You can also convert to all with the following:

Voyeur::Media.new( filename: path_to_file ).convert_to_html5( output_filename: "my_cool_video" )

It is also possible to place the formatted video in a custom folder:

Voyeur::Media.new( filename: path_to_file ).convert( to: :mp4, output_path: "my/cool/file/path" )

Voyeur::Media.new( filename: path_to_file ).convert_to_html5( output_path: "my/cool/file/path" )

Extendibility

I've designed this in the hopes that others will be able to add other formats / conversion options (haven't quite gone that far yet). Right now it's as simple as creating a file similar to this:

module Voyeur
  class Mp4 < Converter

    def file_extension
      "mp4"
    end

    def convert_options
      "-b 1500k -vcodec libx264 -g 30"
    end
  end
end

The two methods file_extension and convert options are mandatory.

Todo

Spawn processes simultaniously so more than one video can be converted at once.
Add functionality so that users can use more specific convert options

Authors

Peter Garbers

Hendrik Louw

License

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the “Software”), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

voyeur

Development

Runtime