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• How to encode a video from several images generated in a C++ program without writing the separate frame images to disk?

  29 January 2016, by ksb496

  I am writing a C++ code where a sequence of N different frames is generated after performing some operations implemented therein. After each frame is completed, I write it on the disk as IMG_%d.png, and finally I encode them to a video through ffmpeg using the x264 codec.

  The summarized pseudocode of the main part of the program is the following one:

  std::vector<int> B(width*height*3);
  
  for (i=0; i/ void generateframe(std::vector<int> &amp;, int)
  
    generateframe(B, i); // Returns different images for different i values.
  
    sprintf(s, "IMG_%d.png", i+1);
  
    WriteToDisk(B, s); // void WriteToDisk(std::vector<int>, char[])
  
  }
  
  </int></int></int>

  The problem of this implementation is that the number of desired frames, N, is usually high (N 100000) as well as the resolution of the pictures (1920x1080), resulting into an overload of the disk, producing write cycles of dozens of GB after each execution.

  In order to avoid this, I have been trying to find documentation about parsing directly each image stored in the vector B to an encoder such as x264 (without having to write the intermediate image files to the disk). Albeit some interesting topics were found, none of them solved specifically what I exactly want to, as many of them concern the execution of the encoder with existing images files on the disk, whilst others provide solutions for other programming languages such as Python (here you can find a fully satisfactory solution for that platform).

  The pseudocode of what I would like to obtain is something similar to this:

  std::vector<int> B(width*height*3);
  
  video_file=open_video("Generated_Video.mp4", ...[encoder options]...);
  
  for (i=0; icode></int>

  According to what I have read on related topics, the x264 C++ API might be able to do this, but, as stated above, I did not find a satisfactory answer for my specific question. I tried learning and using directly the ffmpeg source code, but both its low ease of use and compilation issues forced me to discard this possibility as a mere non-professional programmer I am (I take it as just as a hobby and unluckily I cannot waste that many time learning something so demanding).

  Another possible solution that came to my mind is to find a way to call the ffmpeg binary file in the C++ code, and somehow manage to transfer the image data of each iteration (stored in B) to the encoder, letting the addition of each frame (that is, not "closing" the video file to write) until the last frame, so that more frames can be added until reaching the N-th one, where the video file will be "closed". In other words, call ffmpeg.exe through the C++ program to write the first frame to a video, but make the encoder "wait" for more frames. Then call again ffmpeg to add the second frame and make the encoder "wait" again for more frames, and so on until reaching the last frame, where the video will be finished. However, I do not know how to proceed or if it is actually possible.

  Edit 1:

  As suggested in the replies, I have been documenting about named pipes and tried to use them in my code. First of all, it should be remarked that I am working with Cygwin, so my named pipes are created as they would be created under Linux. The modified pseudocode I used (including the corresponding system libraries) is the following one:

  FILE *fd;
  
  mkfifo("myfifo", 0666);
  
  
  
  for (i=0; i/ void WriteToPipe(std::vector<int>, FILE *&amp;fd)
  
    fflush(fd);
  
    fd=fclose("myfifo");
  
  }
  
  unlink("myfifo");
  
  </int>

  WriteToPipe is a slight modification of the previous WriteToFile function, where I made sure that the write buffer to send the image data is small enough to fit the pipe buffering limitations.

  Then I compile and write the following command in the Cygwin terminal:

  ./myprogram | ffmpeg -i pipe:myfifo -c:v libx264 -preset slow -crf 20 Video.mp4

  However, it remains stuck at the loop when i=0 at the "fopen" line (that is, the first fopen call). If I had not called ffmpeg it would be natural as the server (my program) would be waiting for a client program to connect to the "other side" of the pipe, but it is not the case. It looks like they cannot be connected through the pipe somehow, but I have not been able to find further documentation in order to overcome this issue. Any suggestion?

• The neutering of Google Code-In 2011

  23 October 2011, by Dark Shikari — development, GCI, google, x264

  Posting this from the Google Summer of Code Mentor Summit, at a session about Google Code-In!

  Google Code-In is the most innovative open-source program I’ve ever seen. It provided a way for students who had never done open source — or never even done programming — to get involved in open source work. It made it easy for people who weren’t sure of their ability, who didn’t know whether they could do open source, to get involved and realize that yes, they too could do amazing work — whether code useful to millions of people, documentation to make the code useful, translations to make it accessible, and more. Hundreds of students had a great experience, learned new things, and many stayed around in open source projects afterwards because they enjoyed it so much!

  x264 benefitted greatly from Google Code-In. Most of the high bit depth assembly code was written through GCI — literally man-weeks of work by an professional developer, done by high-schoolers who had never written assembly before! Furthermore, we got loads of bugs fixed in ffmpeg/libav, a regression test tool, and more. And best of all, we gained a new developer: Daniel Kang, who is now a student at MIT, an x264 and libav developer, and has gotten paid work applying the skills he learned in Google Code-In!

  Some students in GCI complained about the system being “unfair”. Task difficulties were inconsistent and there were many ways to game the system to get lots of points. Some people complained about Daniel — he was completing a staggering number of tasks, so they must be too easy. Yet many of the other students considered these tasks too hard. I mean, I’m asking high school students to write hundreds of lines of complicated assembly code in one of the world’s most complicated instruction sets, and optimize it to meet extremely strict code-review standards! Of course, there may have been valid complaints about other projects: I did hear from many students talking about gaming the system and finding the easiest, most “profitable” tasks. Though, with the payout capped at $500, the only prize for gaming the system is a high rank on the points list.

  According to people at the session, in an effort to make GCI more “fair”, Google has decided to change the system. There are two big changes they’re making.

  Firstly, Google is requiring projects to submit tasks on only two dates: the start, and the halfway point. But in Google Code-In, we certainly had no idea at the start what types of tasks would be the most popular — or new ideas that came up over time. Often students would come up with ideas for tasks, which we could then add! A waterfall-style plan-everything-in-advance model does not work for real-world coding. The halfway point addition may solve this somewhat, but this is still going to dramatically reduce the number of ideas that can be proposed as tasks.

  Secondly, Google is requiring projects to submit at least 5 tasks of each category just to apply. Quality assurance, translation, documentation, coding, outreach, training, user interface, and research. For large projects like Gnome, this is easy: they can certainly come up with 5 for each on such a large, general project. But often for a small, focused project, some of these are completely irrelevant. This rules out a huge number of smaller projects that just don’t have relevant work in all these categories. x264 may be saved here: as we work under the Videolan umbrella, we’ll likely be able to fudge enough tasks from Videolan to cover the gaps. But for hundreds of other organizations, they are going to be out of luck. It would make more sense to require, say, 5 out of 8 of the categories, to allow some flexibility, while still encouraging interesting non-coding tasks.

  For example, what’s “user interface” for a software library with a stable API, say, a libc? Can you make 5 tasks out of it that are actually useful?

  If x264 applied on its own, could you come up with 5 real, meaningful tasks in each category for it? It might be possible, but it’d require a lot of stretching.

  How many smaller or more-focused projects do you think are going to give up and not apply because of this?

  Is GCI supposed to be something for everyone, or just or Gnome, KDE, and other megaprojects?

• The ultimate solution to knowing how your business is performing overall

  8 January 2018, by InnoCraft — Community, Plugins

  Would you like to know how your business is performing overall at a glance? Guess what, you can now do this easily with Roll-Up Reporting.

  What is Roll-Up Reporting about?

  Roll-Up Reporting is a premium feature which you can acquire through the Piwik Marketplace. Developed by InnoCraft, the professional company behind Piwik, this plugin will:

  1. Save you heaps of time and gives you completely new insights
  2. Make this process easy as pie
  3. Reflect the structure of your business or organization

  1 – Roll-Up Reporting does the maths for you

  Yes, you read it right. Compared to having to sum reports of multiple websites manually, you can get aggregated results for your business or departments instantly with a single click directly in Piwik. Not only does this save you heaps of time compared to doing this complicated work in a spreadsheet, you also avoid human errors. With this feature, you get a clear overview over all your websites, apps, and shops performances.

  For example, if you want to know which referrers bring you the most value across all websites, then you will get the answer in a report. Same results for e-commerce reports, actions, and other metrics.

  2 – Easy as pie, no tracking code involved

  The best part of this feature is that you do not need to push data through additional tracking code. The setup is simple and made through the UI of the plugin.

  3 – Roll-Up Reporting meets even the hardest requirements

  You can also create “nested roll-ups”. This feature allows you to create a roll-up consisting of several other roll-ups. With a nested roll-up, you can create a roll-up for each department in your company (and assign all the websites of a department to that roll-up), then group several departments easily into a new roll-up simply by assigning several department roll-ups to this new roll-up.

  

  For example, a company with multiple brands can assign multiple websites to each brand, and then get aggregated results for each brand and for the business overall. As a roll-up is basically the same as a website, you can give users access to a roll-up without having to give them access to each site, and the other way around.

  How does it work?

  As with all premium features, this plugin is straightforward to use. Once activated in your Piwik administrator panel, you will notice that when you add a website, you have the choice between two possibilities:

  

  When you select the “Roll-Up” option, a new window will appear asking you which websites and mobile apps you would like to aggregate into a roll-up:

  

  The created roll-up will then be shown just like any other website that you have in Piwik. You can create as many roll-up entities as you want.

  

  Features, such as custom alerts, segments, and e-mail reports work for a roll-up just like for any website.

  Real-Time reports

  One of the most interesting features of Roll-Up Reporting is, that you can view all the Real-Time reports, such as the “Visitors in Real-Time” widget, the “Real-Time Map”, and the “Visitor Log” across several websites making it much easier to keep an eye on your business:

  

  How to get the Roll-up reporting plugin?

  Developed by InnoCraft, the makers of Piwik, Roll-Up Reporting is a premium feature which you can purchase on the Piwik Marketplace. You can also try it for free on the Piwik Cloud for 30 days.

  Learn more about the Roll-Up Reporting feature