1 \input texinfo @c -*- texinfo -*-
3 @settitle Video Hook Documentation
6 @center @titlefont{Video Hook Documentation}
13 @var{Please be aware that vhook is deprecated, and hence its development is
14 frozen (bug fixes are still accepted).
15 The substitute will be 'libavfilter', the result of our 'Video Filter API'
16 Google Summer of Code project. You may monitor its progress by subscribing to
17 the ffmpeg-soc mailing list at
18 @url{http://lists.mplayerhq.hu/mailman/listinfo/ffmpeg-soc}.}
20 The video hook functionality is designed (mostly) for live video. It allows
21 the video to be modified or examined between the decoder and the encoder.
23 Any number of hook modules can be placed inline, and they are run in the
24 order that they were specified on the ffmpeg command line.
26 The video hook modules are provided for use as a base for your own modules,
27 and are described below.
29 Modules are loaded using the -vhook option to ffmpeg. The value of this parameter
30 is a space separated list of arguments. The first is the module name, and the rest
31 are passed as arguments to the Configure function of the module.
33 The modules are dynamic libraries: They have different suffixes (.so, .dll, .dylib)
34 depending on your platform. And your platform dictates if they need to be
35 somewhere in your PATH, or in your LD_LIBRARY_PATH. Otherwise you will need to
36 specify the full path of the vhook file that you are using.
40 This does nothing. Actually it converts the input image to RGB24 and then converts
41 it back again. This is meant as a sample that you can use to test your setup.
45 This implements a 'fish detector'. Essentially it converts the image into HSV
46 space and tests whether more than a certain percentage of the pixels fall into
47 a specific HSV cuboid. If so, then the image is saved into a file for processing
48 by other bits of code.
50 Why use HSV? It turns out that HSV cuboids represent a more compact range of
51 colors than would an RGB cuboid.
55 This module implements a text overlay for a video image. Currently it
56 supports a fixed overlay or reading the text from a file. The string
57 is passed through strftime() so that it is easy to imprint the date and
60 This module depends on the external library imlib2, available on
61 Sourceforge, among other places, if it is not already installed on
64 You may also overlay an image (even semi-transparent) like TV stations do.
65 You may move either the text or the image around your video to create
66 scrolling credits, for example.
68 The font file used is looked for in a FONTPATH environment variable, and
69 prepended to the point size as a command line option and can be specified
70 with the full path to the font file, as in:
72 -F /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/TTF/VeraBd.ttf/20
74 where 20 is the point size.
76 You can specify the filename to read RGB color names from. If it is not
77 specified, these defaults are used: @file{/usr/share/X11/rgb.txt} and
78 @file{/usr/lib/X11/rgb.txt}
81 @multitable @columnfractions .2 .8
82 @item @option{-C <rgb.txt>} @tab The filename to read RGB color names from
83 @item @option{-c <color>} @tab The color of the text
84 @item @option{-F <fontname>} @tab The font face and size
85 @item @option{-t <text>} @tab The text
86 @item @option{-f <filename>} @tab The filename to read text from
87 @item @option{-x <expression>}@tab x coordinate of text or image
88 @item @option{-y <expression>}@tab y coordinate of text or image
89 @item @option{-i <filename>} @tab The filename to read a image from
90 @item @option{-R <expression>}@tab Value for R color
91 @item @option{-G <expression>}@tab Value for G color
92 @item @option{-B <expression>}@tab Value for B color
93 @item @option{-A <expression>}@tab Value for Alpha channel
96 Expressions are functions of these variables:
97 @multitable @columnfractions .2 .8
98 @item @var{N} @tab frame number (starting at zero)
99 @item @var{H} @tab frame height
100 @item @var{W} @tab frame width
101 @item @var{h} @tab image height
102 @item @var{w} @tab image width
103 @item @var{X} @tab previous x coordinate of text or image
104 @item @var{Y} @tab previous y coordinate of text or image
107 You may also use the constants @var{PI}, @var{E}, and the math functions available at the
108 FFmpeg formula evaluator at (@url{ffmpeg-doc.html#SEC13}), except @var{bits2qp(bits)}
109 and @var{qp2bits(qp)}.
114 # Remember to set the path to your fonts
115 FONTPATH="/cygdrive/c/WINDOWS/Fonts/"
116 FONTPATH="$FONTPATH:/usr/share/imlib2/data/fonts/"
117 FONTPATH="$FONTPATH:/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/TTF/"
120 # Bulb dancing in a Lissajous pattern
121 ffmpeg -i input.avi -vhook \
122 'vhook/imlib2.dll -x W*(0.5+0.25*sin(N/47*PI))-w/2 -y H*(0.5+0.50*cos(N/97*PI))-h/2 -i /usr/share/imlib2/data/images/bulb.png' \
123 -acodec copy -sameq output.avi
126 ffmpeg -i input.avi -vhook \
127 'vhook/imlib2.dll -c red -F Vera.ttf/20 -x 150+0.5*N -y 70+0.25*N -t Hello' \
128 -acodec copy -sameq output.avi
130 # Date and time stamp, security-camera style:
131 ffmpeg -r 29.97 -s 320x256 -f video4linux -i /dev/video0 \
132 -vhook 'vhook/imlib2.so -x 0 -y 0 -i black-260x20.png' \
133 -vhook 'vhook/imlib2.so -c white -F VeraBd.ttf/12 -x 0 -y 0 -t %A-%D-%T' \
136 In this example the video is captured from the first video capture card as a
137 320x256 AVI, and a black 260 by 20 pixel PNG image is placed in the upper
138 left corner, with the day, date and time overlaid on it in Vera Bold 12
139 point font. A simple black PNG file 260 pixels wide and 20 pixels tall
140 was created in the GIMP for this purpose.
142 # Scrolling credits from a text file
143 ffmpeg -i input.avi -vhook \
144 'vhook/imlib2.so -c white -F VeraBd.ttf/16 -x 100 -y -1.0*N -f credits.txt' \
147 In this example, the text is stored in a file, and is positioned 100
148 pixels from the left hand edge of the video. The text is scrolled from the
149 bottom up. Making the y factor positive will scroll from the top down.
150 Increasing the magnitude of the y factor makes the text scroll faster,
151 decreasing it makes it scroll slower. Hint: Blank lines containing only
152 a newline are treated as end-of-file. To create blank lines, use lines
153 that consist of space characters only.
155 # Scrolling credits with custom color from a text file
156 ffmpeg -i input.avi -vhook \
157 'vhook/imlib2.so -C rgb.txt -c CustomColor1 -F VeraBd.ttf/16 -x 100 -y -1.0*N -f credits.txt' \
160 This example does the same as the one above, but specifies an rgb.txt file
161 to be used, which has a custom-made color in it.
164 ffmpeg -i input.avi -vhook \
165 'vhook/imlib2.so -t Hello -R abs(255*sin(N/47*PI)) -G abs(255*sin(N/47*PI)) -B abs(255*sin(N/47*PI))' \
168 In this example, the color for the text goes up and down from black to
172 ffmpeg -i input.avi -vhook \
173 'vhook/imlib2.so -t Hello -A max(0,255-exp(N/47))' \
176 In this example, the text fades out in about 10 seconds for a 25 fps input
179 # scrolling credits from a graphics file
180 ffmpeg -sameq -i input.avi \
181 -vhook 'vhook/imlib2.so -x 0 -y -1.0*N -i credits.png' output.avi
183 In this example, a transparent PNG file the same width as the video
184 (e.g. 320 pixels), but very long, (e.g. 3000 pixels), was created, and
185 text, graphics, brushstrokes, etc, were added to the image. The image
186 is then scrolled up, from the bottom of the frame.
192 It's basically a launch point for a PPM pipe, so you can use any
193 executable (or script) which consumes a PPM on stdin and produces a PPM
194 on stdout (and flushes each frame). The Netpbm utilities are a series of
197 A list of them is here:
199 @url{http://netpbm.sourceforge.net/doc/directory.html}
204 ffmpeg -i input -vhook "/path/to/ppm.so some-ppm-filter args" output
209 This module implements a text overlay for a video image. Currently it
210 supports a fixed overlay or reading the text from a file. The string
211 is passed through strftime() so that it is easy to imprint the date and
216 @item TrueType, Type1 and others via the FreeType2 library
217 @item Font kerning (better output)
218 @item Line Wrap (put the text that doesn't fit one line on the next line)
219 @item Background box (currently in development)
224 @multitable @columnfractions .2 .8
225 @item @option{-c <color>} @tab Foreground color of the text ('internet' way) <#RRGGBB> [default #FFFFFF]
226 @item @option{-C <color>} @tab Background color of the text ('internet' way) <#RRGGBB> [default #000000]
227 @item @option{-f <font-filename>} @tab font file to use
228 @item @option{-t <text>} @tab text to display
229 @item @option{-T <filename>} @tab file to read text from
230 @item @option{-x <pos>} @tab x coordinate of the start of the text
231 @item @option{-y <pos>} @tab y coordinate of the start of the text
234 Text fonts are being looked for in a FONTPATH environment variable.
235 If the FONTPATH environment variable is not available, or is not checked by
236 your target (i.e. Cygwin), then specify the full path to the font file as in:
238 -f /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/TTF/VeraBd.ttf
243 # Remember to set the path to your fonts
244 FONTPATH="/cygdrive/c/WINDOWS/Fonts/"
245 FONTPATH="$FONTPATH:/usr/share/imlib2/data/fonts/"
246 FONTPATH="$FONTPATH:/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/TTF/"
249 # Time and date display
250 ffmpeg -f video4linux2 -i /dev/video0 \
251 -vhook 'vhook/drawtext.so -f VeraBd.ttf -t %A-%D-%T' movie.mpg
253 This example grabs video from the first capture card and outputs it to an
254 MPEG video, and places "Weekday-dd/mm/yy-hh:mm:ss" at the top left of the
255 frame, updated every second, using the Vera Bold TrueType Font, which
256 should exist in: /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/TTF/
259 Check the man page for strftime() for all the various ways you can format
264 Command Line options:
265 @multitable @columnfractions .2 .8
266 @item @option{-m [0|1]} @tab Mode (default: 0, see below)
267 @item @option{-t 000000 - FFFFFF} @tab Threshold, six digit hex number
268 @item @option{-f <filename>} @tab Watermark image filename, must be specified!
272 The watermark picture works like this (assuming color intensities 0..0xFF):
274 If mask color is 0x80, no change to the original frame.
275 If mask color is < 0x80 the absolute difference is subtracted from the
276 frame. If result < 0, result = 0.
277 If mask color is > 0x80 the absolute difference is added to the
278 frame. If result > 0xFF, result = 0xFF.
280 You can override the 0x80 level with the -t flag. E.g. if threshold is
281 000000 the color value of watermark is added to the destination.
283 This way a mask that is visible both in light and dark pictures can be made
284 (e.g. by using a picture generated by the Gimp and the bump map tool).
286 An example watermark file is at:
287 @url{http://engene.se/ffmpeg_watermark.gif}
291 If mask color > threshold color then the watermark pixel is used.
295 ffmpeg -i infile -vhook '/path/watermark.so -f wm.gif' -an out.mov
296 ffmpeg -i infile -vhook '/path/watermark.so -f wm.gif -m 1 -t 222222' -an out.mov