m-conv

m-conv watches a directory and converts media files according to rules defined in a m-conv-tasks.json file. It's supposed to be used on a server where the users can copy their media files onto a network share and then receive their converted files in the output folder.

It allows the user to paste a whole directory tree and will keep that structure in the output directory to be as user-friendly as possible.

Demo

Example Task

The example task converts videos to 720p using ffmpeg.

{
  "tasks": [
    {
      "group": "videos",
      "command": "ffmpeg -i \"{{input}}\" -y {{flags}} \"{{output}}\"",
      "matched_ext": [
        "mp4",
        "mpg",
        "mpeg",
        "wmv",
        "flv",
        "avi",
        "mov"
      ],
      "jobs": [
        {
          "name": "720p_H264_medium",
          "flags": "-vf scale=1280:-2 -c:v libx264 -crf 20",
          "out_ext": "mp4"
        },
        {
          "name": "720p_H264_high",
          "flags": "-vf scale=1280:-2 -c:v libx264 -crf 15",
          "out_ext": "mp4"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Keys

group

Name of the group, must be unique among tasks.

command

Template string for the command that will be executed. You can use the following variables:

• {{input}}: Absolute path to the input file, e.g. /var/media/file 1.jpg
• {{output}}: Absolute path to the output file, e.g. /var/media/out/file 1.jpg
• {{flags}}: Flags that are defined in each job

Careful: Make sure to always escape input and output variables with quotation marks as demonstrated in the example task.

matched_ext

Array of file extensions that you want to execute this task on. Do not include a dot in front of the extension.

jobs

Array of jobs you want to execute for each file. The name of a job is going to be the name of the output directory. out_ext is the extension that will be added to the final output path in the template variable {{output}}.

Environment Variables

• CONVERT_WATCH_DIR: Directory to watch, should be a relative path like ./share/input
• CONVERT_OUT_DIR: Directory for the output files, should be a relative path like ./share/output

Both variables default to ./input and ./output.

Clearing Directories

You should setup a cronjob to empty the directories every now and then:

0 0 * * 0       rm -rf /var/mediaconverter/share/input/*
0 0 * * 0       rm -rf /var/mediaconverter/share/output/*