FFmpeg for React Native

React Native FFmpeg

FFmpeg for react-native.

1. Features

• Based on MobileFFmpeg

• Supports

  • Both Android and IOS

  • FFmpeg v4.1 and v4.2-dev-x (master) releases

  • arm-v7a, arm-v7a-neon, arm64-v8a, x86 and x86_64 architectures on Android

  • armv7, armv7s, arm64, arm64e, i386 and x86_64 architectures on IOS

  • 24 external libraries

    fontconfig, freetype, fribidi, gmp, gnutls, kvazaar, lame, libaom, libass, libiconv, libilbc, libtheora, libvorbis, libvpx, libwebp, libxml2, opencore-amr, opus, shine, snappy, soxr, speex, twolame, wavpack

  • 4 external libraries with GPL license

    vid.stab, x264, x265, xvidcore

  • zlib and MediaCodec Android system libraries

  • bzip2, zlib IOS system libraries and AudioToolbox, CoreImage, VideoToolbox, AVFoundation IOS system frameworks

• Licensed under LGPL 3.0, can be customized to support GPL v3.0

• Includes eight different packages with different external libraries enabled in FFmpeg

2. Installation

$ yarn add react-native-ffmpeg

2.1 Android

$ react-native link react-native-ffmpeg

2.2 iOS

2.2.1 Basic

• Add react-native-ffmpeg pod to your Podfile and run pod install

  pod 'react-native-ffmpeg', :podspec => '../node_modules/react-native-ffmpeg/ios/react-native-ffmpeg.podspec'
  

• DO NOT USE react-native link on IOS. react-native link breaks Cocoapods dependencies.

2.2.2 Advanced

• See react-native-ffmpeg-test for linking alternatives

2.3 Packages

Installation of react-native-ffmpeg using instructions in 2.1 and 2.2 enables the default package, which is based
on https package. It is possible to enable other installed packages using the following steps.

2.3.1 Android

• Edit android/settings.gradle file and modify projectDir for react-native-ffmpeg by appending package name at
  the end of the path.

  project(':react-native-ffmpeg').projectDir = new File(rootProject.projectDir, '../node_modules/react-native-ffmpeg/android/<package name>')
  

2.3.2 IOS

• Edit ios/Podfile file and modify podspec path for react-native-ffmpeg by appending package name at the end of
  the name. After that run pod install again.

  pod 'react-native-ffmpeg-<package name>', :podspec => '../node_modules/react-native-ffmpeg/ios/react-native-ffmpeg-<package name>.podspec'
  

3. Using

1. Execute commands.

   • Use execute() method with a single command line and an argument delimiter

   import { LogLevel, RNFFmpeg } from 'react-native-ffmpeg';
   
   RNFFmpeg.execute('-i file1.mp4 -c:v mpeg4 file2.mp4', ' ').then(result => console.log("FFmpeg process exited with rc " + result.rc));
   

   • Use executeWithArguments() method with an array of arguments

   import { LogLevel, RNFFmpeg } from 'react-native-ffmpeg';
   
   RNFFmpeg.executeWithArguments(["-i", "file1.mp4", "-c:v", "mpeg4", "file2.mp4"]).then(result => console.log("FFmpeg process exited with rc " + result.rc));
   

2. Check execution output. Zero represents successful execution, non-zero values represent failure.

   RNFFmpeg.getLastReturnCode().then(result => {
       console.log("Last return code: " + result.lastRc);
   });
   
   RNFFmpeg.getLastCommandOutput().then(result => {
       console.log("Last command output: " + result.lastCommandOutput);
   });
   

3. Stop an ongoing operation. Note that this function does not wait for termination to complete and returns immediately.

   RNFFmpeg.cancel();
   

4. Get media information for a file.

   • Print all fields

   RNFFmpeg.getMediaInformation('<file path or uri>').then(info => {
       console.log('Result: ' + JSON.stringify(info));
   });
   

   • Print selected fields

   RNFFmpeg.getMediaInformation('<file path or uri>').then(info => {
       console.log('Result: ' + JSON.stringify(info));
       console.log('Media Information');
       console.log('Path: ' + info.path);
       console.log('Format: ' + info.format);
       console.log('Duration: ' + info.duration);
       console.log('Start time: ' + info.startTime);
       console.log('Bitrate: ' + info.bitrate);
       if (info.streams) {
           for (var i = 0; i < info.streams.length; i++) {
               console.log('Stream id: ' + info.streams[i].index);
               console.log('Stream type: ' + info.streams[i].type);
               console.log('Stream codec: ' + info.streams[i].codec);
               console.log('Stream full codec: ' + info.streams[i].fullCodec);
               console.log('Stream format: ' + info.streams[i].format);
               console.log('Stream full format: ' + info.streams[i].fullFormat);
               console.log('Stream width: ' + info.streams[i].width);
               console.log('Stream height: ' + info.streams[i].height);
               console.log('Stream bitrate: ' + info.streams[i].bitrate);
               console.log('Stream sample rate: ' + info.streams[i].sampleRate);
               console.log('Stream sample format: ' + info.streams[i].sampleFormat);
               console.log('Stream channel layout: ' + info.streams[i].channelLayout);
               console.log('Stream sar: ' + info.streams[i].sampleAspectRatio);
               console.log('Stream dar: ' + info.streams[i].displayAspectRatio);
               console.log('Stream average frame rate: ' + info.streams[i].averageFrameRate);
               console.log('Stream real frame rate: ' + info.streams[i].realFrameRate);
               console.log('Stream time base: ' + info.streams[i].timeBase);
               console.log('Stream codec time base: ' + info.streams[i].codecTimeBase);
           }
       }
   });
   

5. Enable log callback and redirect all FFmpeg logs to a console/file/widget.

   logCallback = (logData) => {
       console.log(logData.log);
   };
   ...
   RNFFmpeg.enableLogCallback(this.logCallback);
   

6. Enable statistics callback and follow the progress of an ongoing operation.

   statisticsCallback = (statisticsData) => {
       console.log('Statistics; frame: ' + statisticsData.videoFrameNumber.toFixed(1) + ', fps: ' + statisticsData.videoFps.toFixed(1) + ', quality: ' + statisticsData.videoQuality.toFixed(1) +
       ', size: ' + statisticsData.size + ', time: ' + statisticsData.time);
   };
   ...
   RNFFmpeg.enableStatisticsCallback(this.statisticsCallback);
   

7. Poll statistics without implementing statistics callback.

   RNFFmpeg.getLastReceivedStatistics().then(stats => console.log('Stats: ' + JSON.stringify(stats)));
   

8. Reset statistics before starting a new operation.

   RNFFmpeg.resetStatistics();
   

9. Set log level.

   RNFFmpeg.setLogLevel(LogLevel.AV_LOG_WARNING);
   

10. Register your own fonts by specifying a custom fonts directory, so they are available to use in FFmpeg filters. Please note that this function can not work on relative paths, you need to provide full file system path.

    • Without any font name mappings

    RNFFmpeg.setFontDirectory('<folder with fonts>', null);
    

    • Apply custom font name mappings. This functionality is very useful if your font name includes ' ' (space) characters in it.

    RNFFmpeg.setFontDirectory('<folder with fonts>', { my_easy_font_name: "my complex font name" });
    

11. Use your own fontconfig configuration.

    RNFFmpeg.setFontconfigConfigurationPath('<fontconfig configuration directory>');
    

12. Disable log functionality of the library. Logs will not be printed to console and log callback will be disabled.

    RNFFmpeg.disableLogs();
    

13. Disable statistics functionality of the library. Statistics callback will be disabled but the last received statistics data will be still available.

    RNFFmpeg.disableStatistics();
    

14. List enabled external libraries.

    RNFFmpeg.getExternalLibraries().then(externalLibraries => {
        console.log(externalLibraries);
    });
    

4. Versions

4.1 Releases

• 0.1.x releases are based on FFmpeg v4.0.2 and MobileFFmpeg v2.x
• 0.2.x releases are based on FFmpeg v4.1-dev and MobileFFmpeg v3.x
• 0.3.0 and 0.3.1 releases are based on FFmpeg v4.2-dev and MobileFFmpeg v4.2

4.2 Source Code

• master includes the latest released version v0.3.1
• development branch includes new features and unreleased fixes

5. MobileFFmpeg

react-native-ffmpeg uses MobileFFmpeg in its core.

Starting from v4.2, MobileFFmpeg binaries are published in two different variants: Main Release and LTS Release.

• Main releases include complete functionality of the library and support the latest SDK/API features

• LTS releases are customized to support a wide range of devices. They are built using older API/SDK versions, so some features are not available for them

By default, react-native-ffmpeg releases depend on LTS releases, to be backward compatible with its earlier versions. But you can change MobileFFmpeg variant and/or version used to support a specific feature/architecture.

• To do that on Android, set a different value to mobileFFmpegVersion variable inside build.gradle file imported, under ../node_modules/react-native-ffmpeg/android path.

• On IOS, specify a different version for mobile-ffmpeg dependency inside imported .podspec file under ../node_modules/react-native-ffmpeg/ios path.

5.1 Main Release vs LTS Release

6. Tips

Apply provided solutions if you encounter one of the following issues.

• You should not use double quotes (") to define your complex filters or map definitions.

   -filter_complex [0:v]scale=1280:-1[v] -map [v]
  

• If your commands include unnecessary quotes or space characters your command will fail with No such filter: ' ' errors. Please check your command and remove them.

• Enabling ProGuard on Android causes linking errors. Please add the following rule inside your proguard-rules.pro file to preserve necessary method names and prevent linking errors.

  -keep class com.arthenica.mobileffmpeg.Config {
      native <methods>;
      void log(int, byte[]);
      void statistics(int, float, float, long , int, double, double);
  }
  
  

• By default, Xcode compresses PNG files during packaging. If you use .png files in your commands make sure you set the following two settings to NO. If one of them is set to YES, your operations may fail with Error while decoding stream #0:0: Generic error in an external library error.

  

• Sometimes react-native run-ios fails with weird build errors. Execute the following commands and try again.

  rm -rf ios/Pods ios/build ios/Podfile.lock
  cd ios
  pod install
  

• Add "postinstall": "sed -i '' 's\/#import <RCTAnimation\\/RCTValueAnimatedNode.h>\/#import \"RCTValueAnimatedNode.h\"\/' ./node_modules/react-native/Libraries/NativeAnimation/RCTNativeAnimatedNodesManager.h"
  line to the scripts section of your package.json as recommended in react-native issue # 13198,
  if your build receives the following error for IOS.

  ../node_modules/react-native/Libraries/NativeAnimation/RCTNativeAnimatedNodesManager.h:10:9: fatal error: 'RCTAnimation/RCTValueAnimatedNode.h' file not found
  #import <RCTAnimation/RCTValueAnimatedNode.h>
          ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  1 error generated.
  

• When pod install is not successful with the following message, delete Podfile.lock file and run pod install again.

  [!] Unable to find a specification for 'react-native-ffmpeg'.
  

• If react-native link is used for IOS linking, building may fail with this error. Running pod install again
  fixes this issue.

  ../node_modules/react-native-ffmpeg/ios/Pods/Target Support Files/Pods-ReactNativeFFmpeg/Pods-ReactNativeFFmpeg.debug.xcconfig: unable to open file (in target "ReactNativeFFmpeg" in project "ReactNativeFFmpeg") (in target 'ReactNativeFFmpeg')
  

• Using cocoapods for IOS dependency management may produce duplicate symbols for libReact.a and libyoga.a.
  Add the following block to your Podfile and run pod install again.

  post_install do |installer|
      installer.pods_project.targets.each do |target|
        targets_to_ignore = %w(React yoga)
        if targets_to_ignore.include? target.name
          target.remove_from_project
        end
      end
  end
  
  

7. Test Application

You can see how React Native FFmpeg is used inside an application by running test applications provided under react-native-ffmpeg-test repository.

GitHub