Monthly Archives: January 2018

The code below was used to generate the video countdown timers that are available in the following playlist using ffmpeg:

#This example will create a 3 second video, with 100 frames per second and it will print the elapsed and remaining times using a two second accuracy.
fps=100;
seconds=3;
mantissaDigits=2;
upperFont=600;
lowerFont=100;
ffmpeg -loop 1 -i ~/Pictures/Black-Background.png -c:v libx264 -r $fps -t $seconds -pix_fmt yuv420p -vf "fps=$fps,drawtext=fontfile='/usr/share/fonts/urw-base35/C059-Bold.otf':fontcolor=yellow:fontsize=$upperFont:x=(w-text_w)/2:y=(h-text_h)/2:text='%{eif\:($seconds-t)\:d}.%{eif\:(mod($seconds-t, 1)*pow(10,$mantissaDigits))\:d\:$mantissaDigits}',drawtext=fontfile='/usr/share/fonts/urw-base35/C059-Bold.otf':fontcolor=yellow:fontsize=$lowerFont:x=(w-text_w)/2:y=((h-text_h)/2)+$upperFont:text='Elapsed\: %{eif\:(t)\:d}.%{eif\:(mod(t, 1)*pow(10,$mantissaDigits))\:d\:$mantissaDigits}'" "$seconds seconds countdown timer.mp4";

Notes:

• We used a single black frame for the background that defined the size of the video frame as well.
• Using the fps variable we defined the number of Frames per Second for the video.
• The seconds variable defined the number of seconds the duration of the video should be.
• The mantissaDigits variable defines how many decimal digits should be shown after the dot.
• upperFont and lowerFont define the size of the fonts in the upper row and the lower one respectively.
• We used the drawtext directive twice to write to the frames.

Notes on the first drawtext:

• fontfile='/usr/share/fonts/urw-base35/C059-Bold.otf' defines the font to be used for the text.
• fontcolor=yellow defines the color of the font of the text.
• fontsize=$upperFont defines the size of the font of the text.
• x=(w-text_w)/2 defines the X-coordinate of the location for the text on the frame, here we center the text horizontally on the frame.
• y=(h-text_h)/2 defines the Y-coordinate of the location for the text on the frame, here we center the text vertically on the frame.
• text='%{eif\:($seconds-t)\:d}.%{eif\:(mod($seconds-t, 1)*pow(10,$mantissaDigits))\:d\:$mantissaDigits}' We print the remaining seconds for the video to finish with specific decimal digit accuracy.

Notes on the second drawtext:

• drawtext=fontfile='/usr/share/fonts/urw-base35/C059-Bold.otf' defines the font to be used for the text.
• fontcolor=yellow defines the color of the font of the text.
• fontsize=$lowerFont defines the size of the font of the text.
• x=(w-text_w)/2 defines the X-coordinate of the location for the text on the frame, here we center the text horizontally on the frame.
• y=((h-text_h)/2)+$upperFont defines the Y-coordinate of the location for the text on the frame, here shift the text from the vertical center  of the frame.
• text='Elapsed\: %{eif\:(t)\:d}.%{eif\:(mod(t, 1)*pow(10,$mantissaDigits))\:d\:$mantissaDigits}' We print the elapsed seconds since the video started with specific decimal digit accuracy.