fluxbitc

A burn-in timecode and video conversion utility for post-production proxy makers

See the Examples section for usage guides and screenshots.

Features

• Automatic timecode detection from timecode stream embedded in the source video file
• Configurable burn-in timecode styling in config.json
• Included preset for the "hurry" users
• Extensible, create your own preset and save it for later uses
• Video converter/encoder built in, powered by the ffmpeg library (defaults to ProRes 422)
• Automatic framerate detection, overridable
• You can easily set your own timecode start and frame count start
• Automatically burn-in information from metadata of the file (color space, resolution, framerates) without human input
• Ability to discard or convert embedded audio to other codecs (see examples)
• Scale your media up/down to 1920x1080 or 1280x720 for easier handling in post-production [To be implemented]

Installation

Download

Clone this repository or get the latest zipped release here.

Dependencies

You will need these software installed on your computer to run fluxbitc:

• python3
• ffmpeg
• ffprobe

Fortunately on macOS, you can run:

./install.sh

in your terminal to automatically install the required dependencies.

Examples

To burn-in the timecode using the default preset, use:

./fluxbitc.py -i input.mp4 output.mov

To add additional info along with the timecode, use:

./fluxbitc.py -i input.mp4 output.mov --data timecode_start=00:59:52:00 heading_title="My new film" heading_sub="FOR SOUND ONLY"

fluxbitc also has a verbose preset, to activate it, use:

./fluxbitc.py -p verbose -i input.mp4 output.mov

All the settings are customizable, too!

./fluxbitc.py -p verbose -i input.mp4 output.mov \
    --data timecode_start=00:59:52:00 frame_start=740 \
           heading_title="My new film" heading_sub="Final Draft v9" \
           info_1="property of some studio" info_2="note: definitely not color graded"

To encode the output file to a different video and audio codec at some specified bitrates, use:

./fluxbitc.py -i input.mp4 -vc hevc_videotoolbox -vb 5M -ac aac_at -ab 128k output.mov

See the list of avaliable video and audio codecs at the ffmpeg codecs documentation.

To discard the audio completely, use:

./fluxbitc.py -i input.mp4 -ac off output.mov

To force an output file container format, use:

./fluxbitc.py -i input.mp4 --container mpegts output.ts

Frequent Usages

To encode into other ProRes variants, use:

# This will output ProRes Proxy
./fluxbitc.py -i input.mp4 -vp 0 output.mov

# This will output ProRes LT
./fluxbitc.py -i input.mp4 -vp 1 output.mov

# This will output ProRes 422 (Standard)
./fluxbitc.py -i input.mp4 -vp 2 output.mov

# This will output ProRes 422 HQ
./fluxbitc.py -i input.mp4 -vp 3 output.mov

# This will output ProRes 4444
./fluxbitc.py -i input.mp4 -vp 4 output.mov

# This will output ProRes 4444 XQ
./fluxbitc.py -i input.mp4 -vp 5 output.mov

To encode into H.264 codec, with the bitrate of 3 Mbps, use:

./fluxbitc.py -i input.mp4 -vc libx264 -vb 3M output.mov

In newer Macs, you can encode to H.264 using the hardware encoder for faster encode speed:

./fluxbitc.py -i input.mp4 -vc h264_videotoolbox -vb 5M output.mov

To encode only range 00:00:05:00 to 00:01:00:00, use:

./fluxbitc.py -i input.mp4 output.mov --flags '-ss 00:00:05 -to 00:01:00'

To force the output audio to PCM 24-bit for sound post-production:

./fluxbitc.py -i input.mp4 -ac pcm_s24le output.mov

Feel free to play around! Consult the Usage section and the config.json file for more info :)

Usage

For usage guide and help messages, use:

./fluxbitc.py --help

The usage guide should appear:

usage: fluxbitc.py [-h] -i FILENAME [-p PRESET] [-vc CODEC] [-vb BITRATE] [-vp PROFILE] [--scale {off,1080p,720p}] [-ac AUDIO_CODEC]
                   [-ab AUDIO_BITRATE] [-d DATA [DATA ...]] [--flags FLAGS [FLAGS ...]] [--container CONTAINER] [--config CONFIG] [-y]
                   output

fluxbitc burn-in timecode and video conversion utility

positional arguments:
  output                output filename

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -i FILENAME           input filename
  -p PRESET, --preset PRESET
                        processing preset name (default: default)
  -vc CODEC, --codec CODEC
                        output video codec (default: prores_ks)
  -vb BITRATE, --bitrate BITRATE
                        output video bitrate (default: auto)
  -vp PROFILE, --profile PROFILE
                        output video profile
  --scale {off,1080p,720p}
                        scale the video to one of the predefined standard (default: off)
  -ac AUDIO_CODEC, --audio-codec AUDIO_CODEC
                        output audio codec (default: auto)
  -ab AUDIO_BITRATE, --audio-bitrate AUDIO_BITRATE
                        output audio bitrate (default: auto)
  -d DATA [DATA ...], --data DATA [DATA ...]
                        custom user data in KEY=VALUE format
  --flags FLAGS [FLAGS ...]
                        additional ffmpeg flags
  --container CONTAINER
                        output container format (default: auto)
  --config CONFIG       config filename (default: config.json)
  -y                    override existing file check, will replace output file without asking!

---

© 2021 fluxth. Released under the GNU GPL v3.