How To Get Video Duration With FFMPEG and PHP

First, you should change the script to:passthru("ffmpeg -i \"{$videofile}\" 2>&1");

Then try ffmpeg from the command line in the directory where the script is, to confirm that it works:ffmpeg -i /path/path/videofile.flv

sadhu

Nice code it runnung fine.
Thanks

What "ob_start();" do ?

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=PHP+ob_start%28%29&aq=f&oq=

muchas gracias!!

This one worked for me:

<?php
$videofile="/var/video/user_videos/partofvideo.avi";
ob_start();
passthru("/usr/bin/ffmpeg -i \"{$videofile}\" 2>&1");
$duration = ob_get_contents();
ob_end_clean();

$search='/Duration: (.*?),/';
$duration=preg_match($search, $duration, $matches, PREG_OFFSET_CAPTURE, 3);
//TEST ECHO
echo $matches[1][0];
?>

thanks as i will try to implement this into my php code..

as users were having issue ffmpeg-php..

anyone have any other experience on any other ways to the duration with any other php files.. ID3Tag, etc

<?php

$file= ".../movie.flv"

//ffmpeg-php method without the same output as mine:
//$movie = new ffmpeg_movie($file);
//echo $movie->getDuration();

ob_start();
//$whereis ffmpeg: change with /usr/local/bin/ffmpeg
passthru("/usr/local/bin/ffmpeg -i ".$file." 2>&1");
$duration = ob_get_contents();
ob_end_clean();

//the full output:
//echo $duration."<br/>";

$search='/Duration: (.*?)[.]/';
$duration=preg_match($search, $duration, $matches, PREG_OFFSET_CAPTURE);
$duration = $matches[1][0];

//i suppose that our video hasn't duration of a day+ :
list($hours, $mins, $secs) = split('[:]', $duration);

echo "Hours: ".$hours." Minutes: ".$mins." Seconds: ".$secs;

?>

hy,

when i convert any media file into flv through ffmpeg.
orignal file have metadata but the converted flv file have not complete metadata which some information lost.
such as duration.which i need.
for copy metadata input file to output file this command is used (-map_meta_data output file:input file) but this parameter does not work.
which always movie file duration show 00:00:00.
please help me.
thanks

Rana Muhammad Saleem

hy,
when i used this code
ob_start();
passthru("ffmpeg-9260.exe -i \"". $videofile . "\" 2>&1");
$duration = ob_get_contents();
ob_end_clean();

preg_match('/Duration: (.*?),/', $duration, $matches);
$duration = $matches[1];

in which movie file duration show different from the orignal file duration which is showing by any player.
please help me why this code show wrong different file duration.
i have experienced with multiple file.
please help
thanks
Rana muhammad Saleem

hay,

when i convert any media file into flv through ffmpeg.
orignal file have metadata but the converted flv file have not complete metadata which some information lost.
such as duration.which i need.
for copy metadata input file to output file this command is used (-map_meta_data output file:input file) but this parameter does not work.
which always movie file duration show 00:00:00.
please help me.
thanks

i am using this commang

exec("ffmpeg -i $fileToFlv -ar 44100 -sameq -an $fileFlv");

after conversion, size of file increase too large and duration metadata missing.
Please help me

Somebody knows how obtain the duration with vb6.0 thanks...

There's a Ruby tool that manipulates metadata; ffmpeg is a powerful tool, but it's a bit of overkill just to get the duration of an flv no?

http://rubyforge.org/frs/?group_id=1096&release_id=9694

It will even output the data as xml, very useful.

 
ffmpeg is lightining fast!

That's why it's the best tool to use for video.

Not that it's needed here, but ffmpeg will transcode at 3~4 times the framerate, making real-time transcoding very usable.

ffmpeg will also serve "chunks" of FLV video without regard to keyframes.

It's the best tool there is.

Ok so how do i parse this into the player (script) then ?

for example, my player script has :-

<?php
ob_start();
//$whereis ffmpeg: change with /usr/local/bin/ffmpeg
passthru("/usr/local/bin/ffmpeg -i ".$file." 2>&1");
$duration = ob_get_contents();
ob_end_clean();

//the full output:
//echo $duration."<br/>";

$search='/Duration: (.*?)[.]/';
$duration=preg_match($search, $duration, $matches, PREG_OFFSET_CAPTURE);
$duration = $matches[1][0];

//i suppose that our video hasn't duration of a day+ :
list($hours, $mins, $secs) = split('[:]', $duration);

echo $duration;
?>

then in the java script section (to invoke the player), i have

so.addVariable('duration','<?php echo $duration; ?>');

Since the duration string is derived from the first bit of php script it should work but it does not.

How do i get this to work ?

Thanks Rich

at the moment to get my non flv videos to work with some sort of progress bar i have to cheat with :-

so.addVariable('duration','10800');

basic say that my media files are 3 hours long.

I managed to fix my own issue

now what ever video format ffmpeg supports, on file selection the player file will then interogate the file for duration then parse this out the the jw player under $duration_in_seconds string

code -

<?php
$path = '/mnt/data/video/films/';
$filename = htmlspecialchars($_GET["file"]);
$ext=strrchr($filename, ".");
$file = $path . $filename;

ob_start();
passthru("/usr/local/bin/ffmpeg -i \"". $file . "\" 2>&1");
$duration = ob_get_contents();
ob_end_clean();

preg_match('/Duration: (.*?),/', $duration, $matches);
$duration = $matches[1];
list($hr,$m,$s) = explode(':', $duration);
$duration_in_seconds = ( (int)$hr*3600 ) + ( (int)$m*60 ) + (int)$s;

// a work around for now - need to remove when above works
//$duration_in_seconds = 10800
//}
?>

then further down the same php script i have the players code -

<script type='text/javascript'>
var so = new SWFObject('player-viral.swf','ply','640','360','9','#ffffff');
so.addParam('allowfullscreen','true');
so.addVariable('smoothing','false');
so.addVariable('deblocking','0');
so.addParam('allowscriptaccess','always');
so.addParam('wmode','opaque');
so.addVariable('frontcolor','EEEEEE');
so.addVariable('backcolor','333333');
so.addVariable('provider','video');
so.addVariable('bufferlength','20');
so.addVariable('duration','<?php echo $duration_in_seconds; ?>');
so.addVariable('stretching','exactfit');
so.addVariable('autostart','true');
so.addVariable('file','/filmstreamencoder.php?file=<?php echo $_GET["file"]; ?>&position=0');
so.write('mediaspace');
</script>

well happy i finally nailed it.

Try this to get the width and height too (there's probably a swisher way!):

ob_start();
passthru("/usr/bin/ffmpeg -i \"{$videofile}\" 2>&1");
$resolution = ob_get_contents();
ob_end_clean();
$search='/Video: (.*?),(.*?),(.*?),/';
$resolution=preg_match($search, $resolution, $durmatches, PREG_OFFSET_CAPTURE, 3);
$resolution= $durmatches[3][0];
$resolutionsplit=array();

$resolutionsplit=explode("x",$resolution);
$videowidth=$resolutionsplit[0];
$videoheight=$resolutionsplit[1];

here's an example that works on windows well and returns the seconds instead of the 00:00:00 format:

i want get duration video a use ffmpeg java ?
who can help me... please?

hello, my friends

I am new to PHP. I use xampp and Window XP. I want to know how to convert video files to flv file type using ffmpeg. I find this information everywhere. But I can not find. Now here I find. Your
informations are so cool. So can you guide me how to convert movies to flv file type using ffmpeg on XAMPP.

You should really go to the FFmpeg site for that info. It's a bit too serverside/technical for the kind of support we provide here.

Just in case anyone was wondering .. you can also get the video width and height if you wanted to set the video to its original width and height or work out if its widescreen so you can set the video settings to show widescreen. (I am new to PHP by the way)

<?php
$videofile="http://localhost/spadesocial/code/ch_videos/2843business_video.flv";

ob_start();

passthru("/usr/bin/ffmpeg -i \"{$videofile}\" 2>&1");

$duration = ob_get_contents();

print_r($duration);
ob_end_clean();

$search='/Duration: (.*?),/';
print_r($search);
$duration=preg_match($search, $duration, $matches, PREG_OFFSET_CAPTURE, 3);

print_r($duration);

//TEST ECHO
//echo $matches[1][0];
?>
please confirm me

<?php
$videofile="http://localhost/spadesocial/code/ch_videos/2843business_video.flv";

ob_start();

passthru("/usr/bin/ffmpeg -i \"{$videofile}\" 2>&1");

$duration = ob_get_contents();

print_r($duration);
ob_end_clean();

$search='/Duration: (.*?),/';
print_r($search);
$duration=preg_match($search, $duration, $matches, PREG_OFFSET_CAPTURE, 3);

print_r($duration);

//TEST ECHO
//echo $matches[1][0];
?>
please confirm me

Confirm what?

 
This seems to work fine for me. This script is most useful when you can call it with the filename of a video file and it returns the duration.

If you have full access to bash app you could use the following script:
$ /usr/bin/ffmpeg -i /path/to/file.flv 2>&1 |grep Duration |awk '{print $2}' |awk -F: '{print ($1 * 3600) + ($2 * 60 ) + $3}'

This command will return the time in seconds with milli precision.
If you like, you could replace the math formula and do what you want (eg return the time expressed in hh:mm:ss)

Cheers

Why not use ffprobe(1) to obtain this kind of metadata?

When you compile ffmpeg, ffprobe gets compiled along with it. Here's some sample output from a small test mp4:

The container format, displayed in json:
[~] ffprobe -show_format -pretty -print_format json -v quiet t1.mp4

That gives us the duration and bit rate.

The frame rate comes from the stream info:
[~] ffprobe -show_streams -pretty -print_format json -v quiet t1.mp4

Note that you also get an "average" bit rate as well as a "real" frame rate (along with all sorts of neat stuff) but that it needs to be computed. In this case the real frame rate (r_frame_rate) comes out to 29.97 fps.

The "pretty" options formats the numbers in a way that makes sense; the "-v quiet" drops the debug info that you've been using with ffmpeg -i. There are other "print_formats" available.

T.

Thank you for sharing this.