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 text, controllable through messenger over libzmq
• EBU R128 loudness normalization (single pass) (experimental)
• loop clip in playlist which out value is higher then its duration, see also Loop Clip
• 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
• on posix systems ffplayout can reload config with SIGHUP
• 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)
  • 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)
• python module colorama if you are on windows
• ffmpeg v4.2+ and ffprobe (ffplay if you want to play on desktop)
• if you want to overlay text, ffmpeg needs to have libzmq
• 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": ""
        }
    ]
}

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

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
• -d, --desktop preview on desktop
• -f, --folder use folder for playing
• -l, --log for user-defined log path, none for console output
• -i, --loop loop playlist infinitely
• -p, --playlist for playlist file
• -s, --start set start time in hh:mm:ss, now for start with first'
• -t, --length set length in hh:mm:ss, none for no length check

You can run the command like:

python3 ffplayout.py -l ~/ -p ~/playlist.json -d -s now -t none

Play on Desktop

For playing on desktop use -d argument or set preview = True in config under [OUT].