ffplayout-rs

Attention: Soon this code willbe merged in ffplayout_engine

The main purpose of 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-frontend: 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 text, controllable through messenger or ffplayout-frontend (needs ffmpeg with libzmq)
• EBU R128 loudness normalization (single pass)
• loop playlist infinitely
• 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
• logging to files, or colored output to console
• add filters to input, if is necessary to match output stream:
  • yadif (deinterlacing)
  • pad (letterbox or pillarbox to fit aspect)
  • fps (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)
• output:
  • stream
  • desktop
  • HLS
• JSON RPC server, for getting infos about current playing and controlling.

Requirements

• 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",
    "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": ""
        }
    ]
}

If you need a simple playlist generator check: playlist-generator

Warning

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

Remote source from URL

You can use sources from remote URL in that way:

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

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

More informations in Wiki

HLS output

For outputting to HLS, output parameters should look like:

out:
    ...

    output_param: >-
        ...

        -flags +cgop
        -f hls
        -hls_time 6
        -hls_list_size 600
        -hls_flags append_list+delete_segments+omit_endlist+program_date_time
        -hls_segment_filename /var/www/html/live/stream-%09d.ts /var/www/html/live/stream.m3u8        

JSON RPC

The ffplayout engine can run a JSON RPC server. A request show look like:

curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -H "Authorization: ---auth-key---" \
    -d '{"jsonrpc": "2.0", "method": "player", "params":{"control":"next"}, "id":1 }' \
    127.0.0.1:7070

At the moment this comments are possible:

'{"jsonrpc": "2.0", "method": "player", "params":{"media":"current"}, "id":1 }'  # get infos about current clip
'{"jsonrpc": "2.0", "method": "player", "params":{"control":"next"}, "id":1 }'   # jump to next clip
'{"jsonrpc": "2.0", "method": "player", "params":{"control":"back"}, "id":1 }'   # jump to last clip
'{"jsonrpc": "2.0", "method": "player", "params":{"control":"reset"}, "id":1 }'  # reset playlist to old state

Output from {"media":"current"} show:

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "result": {
    "current_media": {
      "category": "",
      "duration": 154.2,
      "out": 154.2,
      "seek": 0.0,
      "source": "/opt/tv-media/clip.mp4"
    },
    "index": 39,
    "play_mode": "playlist",
    "played_sec": 67.80771999300123,
    "remaining_sec": 86.39228000699876,
    "start_sec": 24713.631999999998,
    "start_time": "06:51:53.631"
  },
  "id": 1
}

Installation

Copy the binary to /usr/local/bin/

Start with Arguments

ffplayout also allows the passing of parameters:

• -c, --config <CONFIG> file path to ffplayout.conf
• -f, --folder <FOLDER> play folder content
• -h, --help Print help information
• -i, --infinit loop playlist infinitely
• -l, --log <LOG> file path for logging
• -m, --play-mode <PLAY_MODE> playing mode: folder, playlist
• -o, --output <OUTPUT> set output mode: desktop, hls, stream
• -p, --playlist <PLAYLIST> path from playlist
• -s, --start <START> start time in 'hh:mm:ss', 'now' for start with first
• -t, --length <LENGTH> set length in 'hh:mm:ss', 'none' for no length check
• -v, --volume <VOLUME> set audio volume
• -V, --version Print version information

You can run the command like:

./ffplayout.py -l none -p ~/playlist.json -o desktop