ffplayout-engine

The purpose with ffplayout is to provide a 24/7 broadcasting solution that plays a json playlist for every day, while keeping the current playlist editable.

Check ffplayout-gui: web-based GUI for ffplayout.

Features

have all values in a separate config file
dynamic playlist
replace missing playlist or clip with a dummy clip
playing clips from watched folder
send emails with error message
overlay a logo
overlay scrolling text
trim and fade the last clip, to get full 24 hours
when playlist is not 24 hours long, loop filler clip until time is full
set custom day start, so you can have playlist for example: from 6am to 6am, instate of 0am to 12pm
normal system requirements and no special tools
no GPU power is needed
stream to server or play on desktop
add filters to input, if is necessary to match output stream:
- yadif (deinterlacing)
- pad (letterbox or pillarbox to fit aspect)
- framerate (change fps)
- scale (fit target resolution)
- aevalsrc (if video have no audio)
- apad (add silence if audio duration is to short)
- tpad (add black frames if video duration is to short)

Requirements

python version 3.6+
python module watchdog (only when playlist_mode = False)
ffmpeg v4.2+ and ffprobe (ffplay if you want to play on desktop)
RAM and CPU depends on video resolution, minimum 4 threads and 3GB RAM for 720p are recommend

JSON Playlist Example

{
    "channel": "Test 1",
    "date": "2019-03-05",
    "length": "24:00:00.000",
    "program": [{
            "in": 0,
            "out": 647.68,
            "duration": 647.68,
            "source": "/Media/clip1.mp4"
        }, {
            "in": 0,
            "out": 149,
            "duration": 149,
            "source": "/Media/clip2.mp4"
        }, {
            "in": 0,
            "out": 114.72,
            "duration": 114.72,
            "source": "/Media/clip3.mp4",
            "category": "advertisement"
        }, {
            "in": 0,
            "out": 2531.36,
            "duration": 2531.36,
            "source": "/Media/clip4.mp4",
            "category": ""
        }
    ]
}

"length" are optional, when you leave it blank, there will be no check if real playlist length is correct.

Warning:

(Endless) streaming over multiple days will only work when config have day_start value and the length value of the playlist is 24 hours. If you need only some hours for every day, use a cron job, or something similar.

Source from URL / Live Stream

You can use sources from url or live stream in that way:

...
        {
            "in": 0,
            "out": 149,
            "duration": 149,
            "source": "https://example.org/big_buck_bunny.webm"
        },
...
        {
            "in": 0,
            "out": 2531.36,
            "duration": 0,
            "source": "rtmp://example.org/live/stream"
        }
...

But be careful with it, better test it multiple times!

More informations in Wiki

Installation

install ffmpeg, ffprobe (and ffplay if you need the preview mode)
copy ffplayout.py to /usr/local/bin/
copy ffplayout.conf to /etc/ffplayout/
create folder with correct permissions for logging (check config)
copy ffplayout.service to /etc/systemd/system/
change user in /etc/systemd/system/ffplayout.service
create playlists folder, in that format: /playlists/year/month
set variables in config file to your needs
use gen_playlist_from_subfolders.sh /path/to/mp4s/ as a starting point for your playlists (path in script needs to change)
activate service and start it: sudo systemctl enable ffplayout && sudo systemctl start ffplayout

Start with Arguments

ffplayout also allows the passing of parameters:

-c, --config use given config file
-f, --folder use folder for playing
-l, --log for user-defined log file
-p, --playlist for playlist file

You can run the command like:

python3 ffplayout.py -l ~/ffplayout.log -p ~/playlist.json

Preview Mode on Desktop

For playing on desktop set preview = True in config under [OUT].

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