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Author Topic: NANY 2019 - FFFilterGUI  (Read 5918 times)

worstje

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NANY 2019 - FFFilterGUI
« on: December 31, 2018, 07:42 PM »
NANY 2019 Entry Information

Application Name FFFilterGUI
Version v0.1 codenamed ItMetMyNeedsSoWhoNeedsPolish (2019-01-01)
Short Description Make bulk file operations with ffMpeg complex filters a bit more reusable.
Supported OSes Windows XP+ (probably)
Web Page None. You are reading it.
Download Link See the bottom of this post.
System Requirements
  • Windows XP+ (probably)
  • a folder with the ffmpeg.exe binary in it
Version History
  • v0.1 codenamed ItMetMyNeedsSoWhoNeedsPolish (2019-01-01)
Author I'm already posting under my own name, do I need to draw even more attention to myself? PleaseSayNo.


Description
First of all, a super-duper-uber warning: this is pre-alpha and it might just kill you or your computer merely by reading this post.

And I am not liable for any of it.  8)

More seriously, I want to apologize for the very minimal nature and the fact it only barely gets done what I needed it to do. As the application design may betray, I had intended to put in a lot more polish to make it more usable for others, but that didn't really happen... and because I felt bad about not releasing an application for NANY for the last couple of years, I decided to just release it as it is.

This does not mean I am not interested in updating it if there's people with feature requests or bugs that were noted, but because it met my own needs, the pressure kind of disappeared.

So what does it do?! you might ask. Well then.

Roughly put, it aims to make it FFmpeg (complex) filters manageable by GUI.

I had a few reasons for this.

  • FFmpeg is a super-flexible tool, but most GUIs only expose a fraction. FFFilterGUI doesn't even expose a fraction.. but it aims at things I couldn't find in other tools based a few simple search queries... which then led me down the dark path of more-or-less learning how ffMPEG worked in those regards.
  • FFmpeg is does not have Windows as its primary audience. It works, but at the same time, it does not work as easily on the commandline.
  • My usecase involved a huge amount of input files that vary a lot. (Specifically the concatenation of an unknown amount of files.) Between the maximum path lengths and the ungodly amount of configuration options, I did not enjoy knowing I could be skirting against the limitations of the command line whenever I needed to do stuff. I needed the physical limits of the commandline to no longer be any of my worries.
  • The syntax for concatenation filters is awkward; it involves connecting different streams together and numbering the total amount of entries fed to the application... all information that I had but in practice had to manually adjust whenever I wanted to deal with a batch of videos. I wanted to automate that away.

So basically I had already worked out how I needed to run FFmpeg, but the practicalities made it a pain in the ass and a task I always kept postponing because it was so damn finnicky and prone to error.

Features
  • The basics of a configurable template system to 'remember' FFmpeg workflows.
  • A basic templating system using DotLiquid to customize the creation of complex filters.
  • Breaking through the limitations of the FFmpeg command line caused by having excessive amounts of input files. (This is achieved by having the filter graph load them instead.)
  • Drag & drop of your input files.
  • The capacity to filter out duplicate input files.
  • The ability to automatically sort your input files by name.
  • Utterly untested beyond the default template which matches what I needed to get done...

(If nothing else, at least the default template will let you concatenate endless amounts of video files together without a problem...)

Planned Features
I have absolutely no plans except to try and cater to possible feature requests if they pop up... which I doubt because I don't think many people have a need for the very specific flexibility I did.

Screenshots
fffiltergui-1.pngNANY 2019 - FFFilterGUI

Usage
Installation
Extract the files in the archive to a folder and run it.
Settings and stored templates will be stored in the same folder.
And temporary files used during the encoding process will never leave your temporary directory.

Using the Application
To use the application, you first need to put the path containing the ffmpeg binaries in the box designated for it.
The automatically created 'Default' template is configured to concatenate all the files you put in the bottom list into a singular whole using the FFmpeg concatenation filter.
Just drag & drop a couple of video files in the bottom list.
Then click the \[Encode...\] button, and choose the name you wish to save the resulting file as.
At this point, FFmpeg should kick into action according to the configuration specified by the selected template.

Uninstallation
Assuming you've unzipped the files to their own folder, you can just delete that folder.
If you for some reason put it in a place with a bunch of other files... you'll want to delete the original files (FFFilterGUI.exe and DotLiquid.dll) as well as settings.xml and any templates, which are files that have the .fffilter extension. Default.fffilter is the most likely suspect.

Tips
Don't. Just.... don't. It is a new year, spring will be here soon, and trying this application is not worth the potential loss of life.

Known Issues
It is utterly and completely unpolished. I had wanted to do way more with it, but it didn't happen because time is limited and my own needs were met. It does the bare basics, but that is about it.
« Last Edit: December 31, 2018, 07:53 PM by worstje, Reason: Attachments. Nuff said. »