gatsby-transformer-video

Convert videos via FFMPEG. Easily convert & host small videos on your own.

This is a beta plugin and supports Gatsby v4.1.4 only. The videos will work fine on your website, we are working hard on improving the implementation code and to provide new features.

:warning::warning::warning: Converting videos might take a lot of time. Make sure to have an effective caching mechanism in place. See caching

Features

• Source: Works with nodes from gatsby-source-filesystem and gatsby-source-contentful
• Defaults optimized for small files with decent quality and quick and seamless streaming
• Supported codecs: h264, h265, VP9, WebP & gif
• Several parameters to tweak the output: maxWidth/maxHeight, overlay, saturation, duration, fps, ...
• Create video conversion profiles. Create a converter function using fluent-ffmpeg to unlock all FFMPEG features.
• Take screenshots at any position of the video

Usage example

https://github.com/hashbite/gatsby-transformer-video/tree/main/packages/example

Installation

npm i gatsby-transformer-video gatsby-plugin-sharp gatsby-source-filesystem

Prerequisites

To properly convert and analyze videos, this relies on ffmpeg and ffprobe. If these are not available for your node process, they will be downloaded automatically and cached to your disk.

If you want to use your own version of ffmpeg and ffprobe, it should be compiled with at least the following flags enabled:

--enable-gpl --enable-nonfree --enable-libx264 --enable-libx265 --enable-libvpx --enable-libwebp --enable-libopus

Some operating systems may provide these FFMPEG via a package manager. Some may not include ffprobe when installing ffmpeg.

If you can't find a way to get ffmpeg with all requirements for your system, you can always compile it on your own: https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/CompilationGuide

How to link your custom binaries to this plugin

• Provide the path to ffmpeg && ffprobe via GatsbyJS plugin configuration
• Or set an environment variable -> https://github.com/fluent-ffmpeg/node-fluent-ffmpeg#ffmpeg-and-ffprobe
• Or add the static binaries to any folder in your $PATH

Linux

Linux/Debian users might be able to: sudo apt-get install ffmpeg

Make sure you have ffprobe installed as well.

OSX

If you got brew installed, you can get FFMPEG including FFPROBE via:

brew tap homebrew-ffmpeg/ffmpeg
brew install homebrew-ffmpeg/ffmpeg/ffmpeg --with-fdk-aac --with-webp

(Source: https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/CompilationGuide/macOS#ffmpegthroughHomebrew)

Usage

Configuration via gatsby-config.js

The plugin works fine in most cases without any configuration options set.

Here is a full list of available, optional, options:

const { resolve } = require(`path`)
const { platform } = require(`os`)
module.exports = {
  plugins: [
    {
      resolve: `gatsby-transformer-video`,
      options: {
        /**
         * Alternative directory for the video cache
         * Default: '.cache-video'
         */
        cacheDirectory: resolve('node_modules', '.cache-video'),

        /**
         * Alternative directory for the ffmpeg binaries
         * Default: resolve(`.bin`, `gatsby-transformer-video`)
         */
        cacheDirectoryBin: resolve('node_modules', '.cache-video-bin'),

        /**
         * Set if FFMPEG & FFPROBE should be downloaded if they are not found locally
         *
         * Downloaded binaries are stored in `.bin/gatsby-transformer-video/`
         *
         * Default: true
         */
        downloadBinaries: false,

        /**
         * Pass your own FFMPEG && FFPROBE binaries
         *
         * Assumes you store your binaries in the following pattern:
         * ./bin/darwin/ffmpeg
         * ./bin/darwin/ffprobe
         * ./bin/linux/ffmpeg
         * ./bin/linux/ffprobe
         * ...
         *
         * Default: null
         */
        ffmpegPath: resolve(__dirname, 'bin', platform(), 'ffmpeg'),
        ffprobePath: resolve(__dirname, 'bin', platform(), 'ffprobe'),

        /**
         * Define custom profiles to convert videos with full fluent-ffmpeg access
         *
         * Learn more: https://github.com/fluent-ffmpeg/node-fluent-ffmpeg
         */
        profiles: {
          sepia: {
            extension: `mp4`,
            converter: function({ ffmpegSession, videoStreamMetadata }) {
              // Example:
              // https://github.com/hashbite/gatsby-transformer-video/blob/main/packages/example/gatsby-config.js#L24-L55
            },
          },
        },
      },
    },
  ],
}

GraphQL Query

Check out your GraphiQL interface for all available options: http://localhost:8000/___graphql

query {
  allFile {
    edges {
      node {
        id
        videoGif(duration: 2, fps: 3, maxWidth: 300) {
          path
        }
        videoH264(
          overlay: "gatsby.png"
          overlayX: "end"
          overlayY: "start"
          overlayPadding: 25
          screenshots: "0,50%" (See: https://github.com/fluent-ffmpeg/node-fluent-ffmpeg#screenshotsoptions-dirname-generate-thumbnails)
        ) {
          path #String
          absolutePath #String
          name #String
          ext #String
          formatName #String
          formatLongName #String
          startTime #Float
          duration #Float
          size #Int
          bitRate #Int
          width #Int
          height #Int
          aspectRatio #Float
        }
        videoProfile(profile: "yourProfileName") {
          path
        }
      }
    }
  }
  allContentfulAsset {
    edges {
      node {
        # Same fields available as above
      }
    }
  }
}

Rendering your videos

• Plain implementation: https://github.com/hashbite/gatsby-transformer-video/blob/main/packages/example/src/pages/index.tsx
• We plan to prove a component for this: https://github.com/hashbite/gatsby-transformer-video/issues/8

Caching

Generating videos take time. A lot. You should cache your results. Otherwise, you might not even be able to publish on your hosting platform.

Our Rolling Cache implementation will avoid extra video conversions even when you clear your GatsbyJS cache. The cache will be regenerated regularly to ensure stale files are removed from the cache.

You need to cache the cacheDirectory to make this work. Consider cachine the cacheDirectoryBin directory if your build platform does not provide FFMPEG & FFPROBE.

Building your website on Gatsby Cloud, Netlify and others

If your build setup does not allow you to cache additional folders, you can abuse their caching of the node_modules folder. To do so, tell the cache to store files in node_modules via cacheDirectory and cacheDirectoryBin:

const { resolve } = require(`path`)
const { platform } = require(`os`)
module.exports = {
  plugins: [
    {
      resolve: `gatsby-transformer-video`,
      options: {
        cacheDirectory: resolve('node_modules', '.cache-video'),
        cacheDirectoryBin: resolve('node_modules', '.cache-video-bin'),
      },
    },
  ],
}

Plugins that might help with caching:

• Netlify: https://www.gatsbyjs.org/packages/gatsby-plugin-netlify-cache/
• Via SFTP: https://www.gatsbyjs.org/packages/gatsby-plugin-sftp-cache/