dsmithson/ffmpeglooper repository overview

⁠FFmpeg Looper

This repository contains a Dockerized solution for continuously looping through and playing video files using FFmpeg. It's designed to play videos from a directory to a local display's framebuffer (e.g., a monitor connected to your server).

⁠How It Works

The process-videos.sh script runs in an infinite loop, scanning the /videos directory inside the container for video files. It will play each video file one by one to the framebuffer device (/dev/fb0). Once all videos have been played, it will start over from the beginning, creating a continuous loop.

⁠Getting Started

⁠Prerequisites

• Docker⁠ installed on your system.
• A display connected to your server with access to the framebuffer device (/dev/fb0).
• Your user must be in the video group on the host to access /dev/fb0.

⁠Building the Docker Image

To build the Docker image, clone this repository and run the following command in the root directory:

docker build -t dsmithson/ffmpeg-looper:latest .

⁠Running the Container

To run the container, you need to mount a directory from your host machine to the /videos directory inside the container, and also mount the framebuffer device.

docker run -d --rm \
  --device=/dev/fb0:/dev/fb0 \
  -v /path/to/your/videos:/videos \
  --name ffmpeg-looper \
  dsmithson/ffmpeg-looper:latest

• -d: Runs the container in detached mode.
• --rm: Automatically removes the container when it exits.
• --device=/dev/fb0:/dev/fb0: This passes the framebuffer device to the container so FFmpeg can play video to it.
• -v /path/to/your/videos:/videos: Mounts your local video directory to the /videos directory in the container. Replace /path/to/your/videos with the actual path to your videos.
• --name ffmpeg-looper: Assigns a name to the container.
• dsmithson/ffmpeg-looper:latest: The name of the image you built earlier.

⁠Customization

The FFmpeg command can be customized by editing the process-videos.sh script. Look for the following section in the script:

read fb_width fb_height < <(fbset | awk '/geometry/ {print $2, $3}')
ffmpeg -re -i "$file" -vf "scale=${fb_width}:${fb_height}" -pix_fmt bgra -f fbdev /dev/fb0

You can change the ffmpeg command to whatever you need. After modifying the script, you'll need to rebuild the Docker image.

⁠License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE⁠ file for details.