editly

Editly is a tool and framework for declarative NLE (non-linear video editing) using Node.js and ffmpeg. It allows you to easily and programmatically create a video from set of clips, images and titles, with smooth transitions between.

There is a simple command line for quickly assembling a video from a set of clips or images, or you can use it from Javascript!

Inspired by ffmpeg-concat. The problem with that project is that it is quite slow and uses an extreme amount of disk space, especially for HD/4K videos. This projects solves that by doing streaming editing, so it doesn't store any temporary files.

This GIF/youtube was created with this command: "editly commonFeatures.json5"

See more examples here

Features

• Edit videos with code! Declarative API with fun defaults
• Create colorful videos with random colors generated from aesthetically pleasing pallettes and random effects
• Supports any size like 4K video and DSLR photos
• Can output to any dimensions, like Instagram post (1:1), Instagram story (9:16), YouTube (16:9), or any other dimensions you like.
• Content will be scaled and letterboxed automatically, even if input aspect ratio is not same, and framerate will be converted.
• Speeds up / slow down videos automatically to match cutFrom/cutTo segment length with each clip's duration
• Overlay text and subtitles on videos, images or backgrounds
• Accepts custom HTML5 Canvas / Fabric.js Javascript code for custom screens or dynamic overlays
• Render custom GL shaders (for example from shadertoy)
• Output GIF

Use cases

• Create a slideshow from a set of pictures with text overlay
• Create a fast paced trailer or promo video
• Create a tutorial video with help text
• Simply convert a video to a GIF
• Resize video to any size or framerate and with automatic letterbox/crop (e.g. if you need to upload a video somewhere and the site complains video dimensions must be 1337x1000

See examples

Requirements

• Node.js installed (Recommended to use newest stable version)
• Should work on Windows, MacOS and Linux. Needs at least Node.js v12.16.2 on MacOS (see issue). See also https://github.com/stackgl/headless-gl#system-dependencies

Make sure you have ffmpeg and ffprobe installed and available in PATH

Installing

npm i -g editly

Usage: Command line video editor

Run editly --help for usage

Create a simple randomized video edit from videos, images and text with an audio track:

editly \
  title:'My video' \
  clip1.mov \
  clip2.mov \
  title:'My slideshow' \
  img1.jpg \
  img2.jpg \
  title:'THE END' \
  --audio-file-path /path/to/music.mp3

Or create an MP4 (or GIF) from a JSON or JSON5 edit spec (JSON5 is just a more friendly JSON format):

editly my-editly.json5 --out output.gif

For examples of how to make an JSON edit spec, see below or https://github.com/mifi/editly/tree/master/examples

By default it will use the width, height and frame rate from the first input video. all other clips will be converted to these dimensions You can override these parameters however. If none are specified, it will use defaults.

TIP 1: Run with --fast or fast: true first to improve speed while testing your edit ⏩

TIP 2: Use this tool in conjunction with LosslessCut

Javascript library

const editly = require('editly');

// See editSpec documentation
await editly(editSpec)
  .catch(console.error);

Edit spec

Edit specs are Javascript / JSON ojects describing the whole edit operation.

{
  outPath,
  width,
  height,
  fps,
  defaults: {
    duration = 4,
    transition: {
      duration = 0.5,
      name = 'random',
    },
    layer: {
      fontPath,
      // ...more layer defaults
    }
  },
  audioFilePath,
  clips: [
    {
      transition,
      duration,
      layers: [
        {
          type,
          // ...more layer specific options
        }
        // ...more layers
      ],
    }
    // ...more clips
  ],

  // Testing options:
  enableFfmpegLog = false,
  verbose = false,
  fast = false,
}

Parameters

Parameter	CLI equivalent	Description	Default
outPath	--out	Out path (mp4, mkv), can also be a GIF
width	--width	Width which all media will be converted to	640
height	--height	Height which all media will be converted to	auto based on width and aspect ratio of first video
fps	--fps	FPS which all videos will be converted to	First video FPS or 25
audioFilePath	--audio-file-path	Set an audio track to the whole output video
fast	--fast, -f	Fast mode (low resolution and FPS, useful for getting a quick preview)	false
defaults.layer.fontPath	--font-path	Set default font to a .ttf	System font
defaults.layer.*		Set any layer value that all layers will inherit
defaults.duration		Set default clip duration for clips that don't have an own duration	4	sec
defaults.transition		An object { name, duration } describing the transition. Set to null to disable transition
defaults.transition.duration	--transition-duration	Set default transition duration	0.5	sec
defaults.transition.name	--transition-name	Set default transition type. See Transition types	random
clips[]		List of clips that will be concatenated in sequence
clips[].duration		Clip duration. See defaults.duration	defaults.duration
clips[].transition		Specify transition at the end of this clip. See defaults.transition	defaults.duration
clips[].layers[]		List of layers within the current clip that will be overlayed in their natural order (last layer on top)
clips[].layers[].type		Layer type, see below

Transition types

transition.name can be any of gl-transitions, in addition to: directional-left, directional-right, directional-up, directional-down and random.

Layer types

See examples and commonFeatures.json5

Layer type 'video'

For video layers, if parent clip.duration is specified, the video will be slowed/sped-up to match the clip.duration. If cutFrom/cutTo is set, the resulting segment will be slowed/sped-up to match the clip.duration.

Parameter	Description	Default
path	Path to video file
resizeMode	One of cover, contain, stretch
cutFrom	Time value to cut from	0	sec
cutTo	Time value to cut from	video duration	sec
backgroundColor	Background of letterboxing	#000000

Layer type 'image'

Parameter	Description	Default
path	Path to image file
zoomDirection	Zoom direction for Ken Burns effect: in or out	in
zoomAmount	Zoom amount for Ken Burns effect	0.1

Layer type 'title'

• fontPath - See defaults.layer.fontPath
• text - Title text to show, keep it short
• textColor - default #ffffff
• position - Vertical position: top, bottom or center

Layer type 'subtitle'

• fontPath - See defaults.layer.fontPath
• text - Subtitle text to show
• textColor - default #ffffff

Layer type 'title-background'

Title with background

• text - See type title
• textColor - See type title
• background - { type, ... } - See type radial-gradient, linear-gradient or fill-color
• fontPath - See type title

Layer type 'fill-color', 'pause'

• color - Color to fill background, default: randomize

Layer type 'radial-gradient'

• colors - Array of two colors, default: randomize

Layer type 'linear-gradient'

• colors - Array of two colors, default: randomize

Layer type 'rainbow-colors'

🌈🌈🌈

Layer type 'canvas'

See customCanvas.js

• func - Custom Javascript function

Layer type 'fabric'

See customFabric.js

• func - Custom Javascript function

Layer type 'gl'

Loads a GLSL shader. See gl.json5 and rainbow-colors.frag

• fragmentPath
• vertexPath (optional)

Troubleshooting

• If you get Error: The specified module could not be found., try: npm un -g editly && npm i -g --build-from-source editly (see #15)

See also

• https://github.com/transitive-bullshit/awesome-ffmpeg
• https://github.com/h2non/videoshow
• https://github.com/transitive-bullshit/ffmpeg-concat
• https://github.com/sjfricke/awesome-webgl
• https://www.mltframework.org/docs/melt/