def runFFmpeg(commands): if n(commands).returncode = 0: print ('FFmpeg Script Ran Successfully') else: print ('There was an error running your FFmpeg script') runFFmpeg(buildFFmpegCommand()) Then I simply call the runFFmpeg() function to run the script.

This is a great feature of subprocess in that it lets you check the exit status of your shell command. I added in an extra message that gets printed when FFmpeg runs successfully, or when it errors out. def buildFFmpegCommand(): final_user_input = grabUserInput() commands_list = ] return commands_listįinally I created a function called runFFmpeg that takes in a list of commands and runs those commands with subprocess. Ideally each flag and command should be separated into their own list element. To run a shell command with subprocess you must provide it with a list of strings. The buildFFmpegCommand() function is responsible to take the returned user input from grabUserInput() and formatting it properly for the subprocess module. def grabUserInput(): def filterInput(message, default): user_input = input (message) if user_input = '': user_input = default return user_input print('Hit enter for default values ') user_input_dict = user_input_dict = filterInput('Input File: ', ''). Within that function I defined a nested function called filterInput() which is responsible for formatting the input message the user will see and setting a default value so the user can simply hit enter if they don’t wish to change the default value. I created a function grabUserInput() which prompts a user for input, stores that input in a dictionary, and returns that dictionary to be used in another function. import subprocess ffmpeg = '/usr/local/bin/ffmpeg' Then I setup a variable to define where the ffmpeg binary is located. More info about subprocess can be found here. The first thing I do is import the subprocess module which allows me to run shell commands from Python. I’ll go through the process of how I created the script and break down each section.

To help with this I decided to create a Python script to help automate the common task of taking a video file and encoding it to an MP4 encoded with x264.

Running FFmpeg commands from a Python ScriptįFmpeg is one of my favorite tools for encoding video files, but even as someone who has used it for a few years the syntax can still be pretty tricky.

Ffmpeg python documentation