Ffmpeg

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1

hi guys,

I was recently using flowplayer for a project when I noticed that they recommend using a software product called ffmpeg on their site in order to extract thumbails in image format from video files. I visited the ffmpeg page and was confronted by a lot of technical doc which I had a quick read of but a few things are a mystery to me,

Is this a program which must run on your local hard-drive in order to make the thumbs before you upload to a server?
OR
Is it a program that can be installed on your server and called as a script (maybe php or asp) ?

If I wanted a user to be able to upload a video , save a thumbnail using ffmeg after upload and display it as a hyperlink to the newly uploaded video, is this straightforward?

kind regards

Silversurfer

2

The easy way is with an application like this: http://winff.org

If you want to make a PHP script…you’ll want a compiled build of ffmpeg for windows (if you’re using a windows PHP server), or run through an install procedure for linux. Googling should bring up the relevant procedure for your flavor of linux, or ask your hosting provider to perform the installation.

Windows builds: http://ffmpeg.zeranoe.com/builds/

Then, use exec() to issue the command to the ffmpeg executable through PHP.

3

Thanks very much thats very helpful :wink: