Mplayer module - Hacking ffmpeg module to use mplayer for thumb creation

This is a continuation of this thread.

http://gallery.menalto.com/node/32698

We had gradually changed from talking about G1 to G2 so I figured we had better start this on the G2 side of the house. Any and all help would be appreciated. Please read the above metioned post to see where we are at.

Edit 5/13/2006 Here is the most current version of this module if you do not wish to read the topic or scroll to the end to find the module.

Hey Valiant
Actually I wasnt looking to develop the mplayer module as that is way over my head and I wll leave that to the big boys. I was just looking for a quick fix that would in the end have the same result for me and if anyone wanted to use it, them to. I chose that arbitrary directory so that I wouldnt have to keep changing the directory via ftp to see if my code was working. That is by no way what my finished code would look like nor am I any where near finishing it. Anyways, thanks for the help. I hope you or someone else does finish the mplayer module, so I wont have to use my hacked version, but it wont be me.

Thanks again

Mattyb

actually i not that familiar with mplayer either. I dont recall where i got the original commands i used in the G1 mod but I believe it was on the gallery website. The new incarnation was from the original post, from a reply by asspalmer. I am going to change back to my original version of uising both mencoder and mplayer so that I can use the affset.
I can apply my hack to your version of the module which I will upload as soon as I get it working. I dont how much time i will have to do it today, as the family is coming over. I am going away for the weekend so i wont get to work on it this weekend either. I think i am progressing fairly well on my hack so as soon as I can sit down for a few hours i think I will be able to finish it. I solved my earlier problem and am working on the next.
Sorry i cant help you on a way to get any supported formats, codecs, or such.

As far as watermarking, I hadnt really looked into that as I dont use watermarking, but does that watermark the thumbnail or the actual movie playing. If it only watermarks the thumb, for my hack, I dont think it will be a problem. Let me know.

Mattyb

i just talked to mplayer devs on #mplayerdev irc.freenode.net.

we can use:

mplayer $inputFilename -ss $timeOffsetInSeconds -nosound -vo jpeg:outdir=$outDir -frames 1

to directly generate thumbnails at a certain offset.

note it will always generate 2 thumbnails. 1 for the first frame and the second at the specified time offset! (that's what the dev said)

we also need to identify (dimensions, length) a movie. we can use:
mplayer -identify $inputFileName -nosound -vc dummy -vo null
and then parse for (always showing example output (whole line):
- filetype: ASF file format detected.
- dimensions and format: VIDEO: [MP43] 320x240 24bpp 1000.000 fps 0.0 kbps ( 0.0 kbyte/s)
- video format: ID_VIDEO_FORMAT=MP43
- width (dimensions): ID_VIDEO_WIDTH=320
- height (dimensions): ID_VIDEO_HEIGHT=240
- length in seconds: ID_LENGTH=98.00

i compliled the current cvs version of mplayer. we can get a list of supported filetypes with:
mplayer -demuxer help

Hello Boys and Girls,

Well I have hacked the ffmpeg module to support thumbnail generation using mplayer. I will post it later in the post but first.

Valiant

It looks as though you have been busy this weekend. You have come up with a lot of good material to start with the creation of a new mplayer module. Since my purpose was to create thumbs for all of my movies, specifically my wmv9's, I really don't have any motivation to create a whole new module for mplayer, other than the giving something back to the gallery community for use of such great program like Gallery. That being said if you would like my help in creating a whole new module I will give what help I can. Please be aware of the following though.

1. I think you are probably overestimating what I can and can't do. Maybe I'm underestinmating me as well, but I don't have the greatest knowledge of Php or of the built in functions of gallery. I am willing to try though.
2. It takes me hours to get something to work the way I intend it to. So in the long run it could be a very long time before we can actually put out something that works.
3. I don't have a whole lot of spare time to do this, so it will be when I can, which again adds to the time it will take for the whole project to be completed.

To everyone else
The following is a replacement file of ffmpegtoolkit.class . I have modified this file to use mplayer for the thumb generation of movie files. What the file specifically does is recreate the thumbs. When a movie is added to the gallery the ffmpeg module steps in and tries to create a thumb. If the format is one that ffmpeg doesnt support, specifically wmv9 it will fail. Well even if it doesnt fail immediately mplayer steps in and recreates the thumb. This obviously adds a little extra server load, but how often do you really create thumbs for movies. You will then end up with a good thumb of you movie.
To create thumbs for movies already on your server you will need to click on the link to edit album. You then need to click on the second tab entitled Album. Scoll down and check the box recreate thumbnails. Click save and the thumbs should be recreated. When you go back to the album I have noticed that not all of the time are the thumbs recreated. First try refreshing your browser. This usually does the trick. If it does not and you still have a movie that does not have a thumb, or has a broken link you can do the following to solve this problem. Below the movie, in the drop down box you should see a link to edit movie. Click on this and you will be brought to the edit movie screen. Click on the third tab entitled thumbnail. You can then change the offset of the thumb if you would like. Click save and the thumb will be created.
I have done a lot of testing on my server and it seems to do what it is supposed to. That being said please back up your files as I dont want anyone blaming me if something goes horriblly wrong. (very unlikely)
Here are the steps to install this mod. You will need ftp access to your server and a text editor.

1. Download the file and unzip.
2. Open the file in your text editor and search for the following $args2. When you find it you will see a path for mplayer. Make sure this is correct. If it isn't put in the proper path.
3. The next line will start $args3 and on that line you will see the following jpeg:outdir=/home/yourname/g2data/tmp. Make sure this path is the correct path for your gallery temp file storage. You will probably only have to change yourname.
4. Then search for $tFile. The path before 00000002.jpg should be the same as in step 3.
5. I run linux, but I would assume that if you have these paths correct then no matter what os your server runs you should be good to go.
6. Ftp your site and make a backup of the file you are going to replace. It is located in your gallery directory. It should be in /gallery2/modules/ffmpeg/classes/ . After you have backed up the file proceed.
7. Overwrite the new file onto your server.
8. Your done.

I hope you guys like the mod, and please let me know if you encounter any problems. You should be aware of the following limitations. The height, width and length of the movie are still generated by ffmpeg but I havent noticed any problems so far on that side of the house. Since mime types are registered with gallery2 via the install, if it is a file type that ffmpegg doesnt recognize at all then I would assume that this mod wont work at all. I made this mod to work on wmv9, and since ffmpeg recognizes wmv1 it therfore recognizes the extention .wmv, thus allthough it cant decode wmv9's to make the thumb, it still allows this backdoor method of thumnail creation. So without any further ado here's the file.

mattyb
ya, we'll definitely want a mplayer module.
i see that this mod was a lot easier than replacing the other ffmpeg calls too.

btw: you current mod calls mplayer on every operation, not only when ffmpeg fails... if you wanted that it only calls mplayer if ffmpeg fails, you'd have to add a if ($ret->isError()) { your 3 lines here } instead of just "your 3 lines here".

Work on it no but I'd be more than willing to test it out and run it through the loops. Just upload your incremental changes and I'll test right along with the development. I have not yet looked at mattyb's latest contribution (I will later tonight) but is the expected design to use ffmpeg as the primary tool for all movie files and automatically failover to mplayer in the case of WMV9 or any movie that it cannot read correctly? Administrative option to use mplayer for all movies?
Guess it might depend on thumbnail output quality.?
Output 5 or 10 thumbnails which displays them and gives you the option of choosing which one to use. Err, perhaps I'm thinking too far ahead, too much coding required, and how many folks would actually like (use) it.
As to the jpeg:outdir=, I assume this applies to whereis/your/g2data/tmp directory.
For me this would be /var/www/localhost/g2data/tmp.

Hello all

Swordfish

The new module will only use mplayer. We will be slowing creating a completely new module using the ffmpeg module as a guide. A whole new module is needed for many reasons. The main one that I see is the fact that when the module is activated the module registers which mime types are to be handled by that module. With mplayer it handles more than what ffmpeg handles. The only reason this mod works in the first place is because of the fact that ffmpeg handles .wmv . It just cant decode wmv9's. With the new module, whatever mplayer can handle will work. If you are willing to do some testing, that's great. Often times I could use another set of eyes to help see what Im doing wrong. What usually takes me the most time is trying to figure out my syntax problems, not the programming direction, so any help would be greatly appreciated.

That being said, Valiant, if you don't have any problems with it I will begin on changing over ffmpegtoolkit over to mplayertoolkit. I have looked at it so much over the past few days, that I think i have a pretty good idea, along with your suggestions, on what to do with it. I realize that when a new module is created from scratch, you basically have to create the whole thing, get it to install and then go from there. If I took that approach I don't think I would ever finish. What I plan on doing is just slowly converting ffmpegtoolkit and ffmpegtoolkithelper over to mplayer versions. Sound good?

Valiant you just posted as I am writing this and I see that you are looking to offer a whole lot of advice. Just from looking at the inc files I know that I will need a whole lot of help on those.

Ok so here is where I need help right now, as I couldnt figure it out when I made this hack and it is something that needs figuring out for the module.

1. In the g1 Mod i was able to use variables in the arguments of mplayer. I could not get it to work with this g2 hack. I asssume because rather than passing the value of the variable it was sending the variable itself. I am assuming it was because in g1 I used $gallery->use_mplayer,(which I am assuming is a function of G1) and in this mod I used the Php function exec. Am I correct? If so how do I work around for this? Here is why I need a workaround. jpeg:outdir=$tmpFiledir needs to be all one word no spaces. To use variables in my args of the G2 hack i used array_merge. If I use array_merge like this array_merge('jpeg:outdir=', $tmpFiledir); I would end up with something like jpeg:outdir= /home/yourname/g2data/tmp , and with that space it doesnt work. So like I said I need some suggestions.

Anyways I'll start on it, and shut up. I have a tendency to write too much.

Laterz

Mattyb

Thanks for the details guys!
Mattyb,
I tried out your latest FfmpegToolkit on a WMV9 video and it worked great for me . Afterward, I then attempted to change the thumbnail by increasing the time offset to 15 seconds. I got an error,

Warning: rename(/var/www/localhost/g2data/tmp/00000002.jpg,/var/www/localhost/g2data/tmp/fmpg_ye6FEe): No such file or directory in /var/www/localhost/htdocs/gallery2/modules/core/classes/GalleryPlatform.class on line 485

which then I get a blank thumbnail. Change the offset to 3 seconds and no errors occured.
The 00000001.jpg is left in the tmp dir. What's wierd is that time offsets from 0 - 13 seconds work but 14 or more seconds produces the above error.

Anyways, you've already made me happy!

ok here is the first step done. This file is set up to be used with the mplayer module not the ffpmeg module. You would have to rename it and change a few references within the file to make it work in the ffmpeg module. Valiant take a look and let me know what you think. I must be getting better as this only took a couple of hours to do and to troubleshoot. I have tested it and it works.

Mattyb

Ok
I didnt see any of that except for the unknown format which I forgot to ask you about. I have impimented all except the last line of code. It all makes sense why we needed to to do it, I just didn't think of it. I have not tested the changes yet but will probably do that later tonight. I have gone over module.inc. Other than a few changes, like only checking for mplayer and commenting out the part about watermarks I think it is done but I cant test it until mplayertoolkithelper.class is done. Same with adminmplayer.inc and adminmplayer.tpl. What do we do about the language packs? Do we just delete them? So I need to finish up mplayertoolkit.class and then I can continue on mplayertoolkithelper.class which I will need some help on.

Going back to mplayertoolkit
maybe I dont understand why we need to worry about "dim and duration" producing an output? The original ffmpegtoolkit didnt worry about it other than the following line of code in the function _getMovieDimensions

if ($ret->isError() && !($ret->getErrorCode() & ERROR_TOOLKIT_FAILURE)) {
	    return array($ret->wrap(__FILE__, __LINE__), null, null, null);
	}

we currently have this in it's place

if ($ret->isError()) {
	    return array($ret->wrap(__FILE__, __LINE__), null, null, null);
	}

should we and will it fix what youre talking about if we just do that?

also in thinking about this I thought of something else. I will assume the following are possible outcomes of the function _mplayer
1. The function is called to produce the thumbs. mplayer works and the thumbs are generated. --- we are set up to handle this.
2. The function is called to produce thumbs. mplayer works but the thumbs are not generated for what ever reason. ----- currently we will get a broken link, I have placed the old(G1) standard movie thumb in the images folder. Should we assign this instead of allowing a broken link in function _mplayer through the nested ifs?
3. The function is called for dim and duration. Mplayer works and the results are returned ( i still see no need for an object to be created. --- We are set up to handle this.
4. The function is called for either reason and mplayer fails --- we are set up to handle this, but should we assign the generic thumb in this case as well?

Anyways let me know your thoughts.

Mattyb

Here is the mplayertoolkit.class for your review. I believe this is the final version. Let me know if you see anything hinky.

I will go ahead and add that feature request, but first I am going to start on the gallerytoolkithelper.

Mattyb

review:

the following code doesn't make a lot of sense:

	$tmpDir = $platform->tempnam($gallery->getConfig('data.gallery.tmp'), 'mplr_');
	$platform->unlink($tmpDir);       
	$platform->mkdir($tmpDir);
	list ($success) = GalleryUtilities::guaranteeDirExists($tmpDir);
	if (!$success) {
	    return array(GalleryStatus::error(ERROR_PLATFORM_FAILURE, __FILE__, __LINE__), null, null);	
	}
	$tmpFilename = $platform->tempnam($tmpDir, 'mplr_');
	if (empty($tmpFilename)) {
	    /* This can happen if the $tmpDir path is bad */
	    return array(GalleryStatus::error(ERROR_BAD_PATH, __FILE__, __LINE__), null, null);
	}

the unlink isn't required. why did you add it? and guaranteeDirExists includes a mkdir. the code i posted in my last messages was complete...
and you don't have to assume that the tmpDir was bad...no need to check empty($tmpFilename).
it should be:

	$tmpDir = $platform->tempnam($gallery->getConfig('data.gallery.tmp'), 'mplr_');
	list ($success) = GalleryUtilities::guaranteeDirExists($tmpDir);
	if (!$success) {
	    return array(GalleryStatus::error(ERROR_PLATFORM_FAILURE, __FILE__, __LINE__), null, null);	
	}
	$tmpFilename = $platform->tempnam($tmpDir, 'mplr_');
	}

$jpegoutdir = "jpeg:outdir=";
	    $jpegoutdir .= $tmpDir;

i'm quite pedantic right now, but that's just the easiest way to teach our coding guidelines. for variables, we use camel-case. so it should be:

$jpegOutDir = "jpeg:outdir=";
	    $jpegOutDir .= $tmpDir;

and please add:

	/* Remove our tmp dir with all files in it */
$platform->recursiveRmdir($tmpDir);
	}

before each return ...; in function performOperation.
purpose: when we encounter an error, we should first try to clean up (and ignore if the cleaning failed, since we're already dealing with another error).

in function _mplayer:
you're still not checking if any file has been generated at all. i discussed this in a prior post.
after

if (file_exists($tmpjpegfilename3)) {
		$platform->rename($tmpjpegfilename3, $tmpFilename);
		unlink($tmpjpegfilename2);
		unlink($tmpjpegfilename);
	}else if (file_exists($tmpjpegfilename2)) {
		$platform->rename($tmpjpegfilename2, $tmpFilename);
		unlink($tmpjpegfilename);
	}else if (file_exists($tmpjpegfilename)) {
		$platform->rename($tmpjpegfilename, $tmpFilename);
	}

there should be a else if ($outputFileExpected) {
$success = false;
}[/code]
change function _mplayer(..., ..., ...) to function _mplayer(..., ..., ..., $outputFileExpected) {
case. and you should call $this->_mplayer(...., ..., ..., true); when calling it to generate thumbnails.
and call it with ... ,..., ..., false when calling it to get the dimensions and length.

@guaranteedirexists:
we're already using the exact same pattern in modules/zipcart/classes/ZipCartHelper.class so it's known to work. no mkdir/unlink required.
that's the code that is used there:

$zipBase = $platform->tempnam($gallery->getConfig('data.gallery.tmp'), 'zip_');
	$zipDir = $zipBase . '.dir';
	$zipFile = $zipBase . '.zip';
	list ($success) = GalleryUtilities::guaranteeDirExists($zipDir);

maybe you need to change to a mpl_ prefix (4 letter instead of 5). the .dir shouldn't be necessary. that's added in zipcart for another reason.
what's the error you get? it must have another reason.

@cleanup:
before the last return with error checking (as you have it right now.
additionally before every other return in function performOperation without error checking (a single line).

@outputCheckExpected:
no, i mant something else when we discussed whether is important if an output file is generated. i was referring to operations as get dimensions.
well, of course it's important. if we are told to generate a thumbnail and we don't generate a thumb, then:
1. the function that calls _mplayer still expects a tempfile / a thumbnail and it tries to rename it to the dest filename
2. if we don't tell the caller that we failed, noone knows that there's no real thumbnail for this item.
so let me second this: we must return an error in case mplayer did not even generate a single thumbnail.

Well im stuck
As long as you dont have any further problems with mplayertoolkit it is done. As far as I can tell the module.inc
, adminmplayer.inc, and adminmplayer.tpl are more gallery specific in their operations than mplayer specific. They just call functions
and set paths and so forth. The big change within them is to change ffmpeg to mplayer. This has been done.
The mplayertoolkithelper.class file needed to be changed only as far as changing ffmpeg to mplayer and to change the mime type detection.
so the top part where parameters are set is done. The bottom part where offset detection appears to work the same as with ffmpeg, so it
is done. Now for the mime detection. Looking at the original code it appeared, at least to me, that the third if statement would do
basically what we wanted to do with the output of mplayer -vc help. I dont fully understand all of the expressions so I could be wrong
I changed the preg_match search term and deleted the first 2 if sections. I would assume that the module would then be done, but I cant
install it. There are a ton of errors, but I cant figure it out. Here is the error codes I get. Can you help? Here is the module so far.

Error Detail - 
Error (ERROR_BAD_PARAMETER) : /var/www/html/gallery2/modules/core/classes/helpers/../../../../modules/Mplayer/module.inc
in modules/core/classes/helpers/GalleryPluginHelper_simple.class at line 105 (gallerystatus::error) 
in modules/core/classes/helpers/GalleryPluginHelper_simple.class at line 99 (gallerypluginhelper_simple::loadplugin) 
in modules/core/classes/GalleryCoreApi.class at line 187 (gallerypluginhelper_simple::loadplugin) 
in modules/core/AdminModules.inc at line 55 (gallerycoreapi::loadplugin) 
in main.php at line 174 (adminmodulescontroller::handlerequest) 
in main.php at line 87
in modules/core/classes/GalleryEmbed.class at line 153
in /var/www/html/components/com_gallery2/pages/main.php at line 65 (galleryembed::handlerequest) 
in /var/www/html/components/com_gallery2/gallery2.php at line 39
in /var/www/html/index.php at line 182

Mattyb

Error (ERROR_BAD_PARAMETER) : /var/www/html/gallery2/modules/core/classes/helpers/../../../../modules/Mplayer/module.inc

all module folder names must be lower case
all pluginId must be lower case.

well I really didnt want to upgrade mplayer as I had a helluva time doing it last time. My host had to get
involved because of permissions and it took their slow butts about 2 weeks to accomplish the install. They were
reluctant to change the permissions and do the install as well. I decided to try and install the latest version anyway.
I go to the site and download the tar but everyone I download appears to be corrupted. I cant untar on my server or
my home pc. Do you have a good tar that you could send me? Thanks

Mattyb

that didn't work

Mattyb

swordfish
not gallery, mplayer

Mattyb

kinda lookin for the newest source to compile on my server.
Valiant wants me to use a new argument only in the newest mplayer.
mplayer -demuxer help

The more I think about it the more I think checking for mime
types is stupid as we already know it handles all five or so that gallery even allows you to have.
mpeg, avi, asf, mov, wmv. In fact what we check mplayer against is a hardcoded list of those five. I think if I
can figure out how to hardcode assign those mimetypes to mplayer i wont even need the new version of mplayer.

Thanks

Mattyb

Valiant
I started thinking really hard, yeah I know it' bad for me. Anyways I have come to a couple of conclusions.
The mimetype module is it's own module and is unaffected by the mplayer module. currently ther are only eight mimetypes that are video. They are mpeg, asf, avi, mov, mxu, mj2, movie and wmv. With the ffmpeg module they only cared about avi, wmv, mpeg, mov, and asf. These were hardcoded in. The ffmpeg module registered those types so that their thumbs would be handled by ffmpeg. The part of the code that did this was basically nothing more than a whole lot of preg matchs (basically they searched the output of ffmpeg -formats for the following terms, avi, mpeg, asf, wmv1, and mov) If they came across those terms the registered the corresponding mimetype in gallery. I am assuming they did this whole process because earlier versions of ffmpeg didnt support all five. That being said mplayer does support all five and probably all eight. I see no need to do an ellaborate amount of code to check since we know beforehand that these work. Maybe if the search terms(types) had been dynamic I could understand it but since they are not I see no reason to do so. I have coded MplayerToolkitHelper to register those types without checking.
So here is the newly born mplayer module for you to critique and offer suggestions. It is tested and works. I realize that it probably is not up to your standards so I look forward to your suggestions on improvement. You had faith in me while I did not. You were right. Thanks

Mattyb

do u need ffampeg for this thing to work?

if not

how do u go about adding the videos?

my host does not allow the ffmpeg

You do not need ffmpeg but your host will need the mplayer binary.
Change the Toolkit Priority in Site Admin.
You simply add videos the same as you would add photo's.
Mplayer does the same function as ffmpeg. The difference is that mplayer supports video's encoded with WMV9 codec whereas ffmpeg does not.

yep, only if you have ffmpeg AND mplayer installed, only then you'll see them in the toolkit priority view.

I would think that if your server wont install ffmpegg for you then they probably wont install mplayer either.

no they ar two complete independant modules that both do the same job.
If you use the ffmpeg module you need ffmpeg. If you use the mplayer module you need to have mplayer.
The mplayer module just supports more codecs, specifically the wmv9 codec. They both do the same thing, create thumbnails
for video files. What I was syaing is that if your webhost wont allow you to install ffmpeg then the odds are that they wont
allow you to install mplayer either. Hope this helps you understand.

Mattyb