3 replies to this topic

[ZealGamedev]

I am trying to figure out how to stream a video file (avi, wmv, ect...) into my app. I want to be able to manipulate each frame on a individual basis, send them through some cg shaders, then save the finished product to a output video (think windows movie maker). I am using OGRE for my rendering engine, and there are a couple video plugins, but none of them are being actively maintained (they are quite old). So I was wondering if you fine people might have some suggestions for me?

Thanks for any help!

[Krohm]

My experience with video manipulation is limited.
Are you targeting windows? Or a specific OS?

[ZealGamedev]

Multiplatform would be nice (at least mac and windows), but I am content with just starting on windows for now. You would think there would be a ton of libraries that let you pull video into an application (how complex can it be?). I just need to stream a video file one frame at a time, convert each frame to a directx/opengl texture, run my shader on it, then write it back out to a video file. But I am having trouble finding projects that will allow me to do all that...

[Cornstalks]

ZealGamedev, on 22 February 2012 - 12:47 PM, said:

You would think there would be a ton of libraries that let you pull video into an application

There are quite a few.

ZealGamedev, on 22 February 2012 - 12:47 PM, said:

(how complex can it be?).

Very complex, actually. Videos come in all sorts of pixel formats, container formats, video codecs, and audio codecs.

ZealGamedev, on 22 February 2012 - 12:47 PM, said:

I just need to stream a video file one frame at a time, convert each frame to a directx/opengl texture, run my shader on it, then write it back out to a video file. But I am having trouble finding projects that will allow me to do all that...

You could use FFmpeg do to this. It's LGPL and cross platform. It's got a bit of a learning curve, to be honest, but you could just write a wrapper around it and use your simplified wrapper. I wrote a blog post once about using FFmpeg to decode video in a Visual Studio 2010 project. I should probably write a couple follow up posts going into more detail and a post about how to encode video too. Anyway, check it out and let me know if there's any questions you've got that I might be able to help you with.