VidGear v0.1.9

New Features

• StreamGear API:
  • New API that automates transcoding workflow for generating Ultra-Low Latency, High-Quality, Dynamic & Adaptive Streaming Formats.
  • Implemented multi-platform , standalone, highly extensible and flexible wrapper around FFmpeg for generating chunked-encoded media segments of the media, and easily accessing almost all of its parameters.
  • API automatically transcodes videos/audio files & real-time frames into a sequence of multiple smaller chunks/segments and also creates a Manifest file.
  • Added initial support for MPEG-DASH (Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP, ISO/IEC 23009-1).
  • Constructed default behavior in StreamGear, for auto-creating a Primary Stream of same resolution and framerate as source.
  • Added TQDM progress bar in non-debugged output for visual representation of internal processes.
  • Implemented several internal methods for preprocessing FFmpeg and internal parameters for producing streams.
  • Several standalone internal checks to ensure robust performance.
  • New terminate() function to terminate StremGear Safely.
  • New StreamGear Dual Modes of Operation:
    • Implemented Single-Source and Real-time Frames like independent Transcoding Modes.
    • Linked -video_source attribute for activating these modes
    • Single-Source Mode, transcodes entire video/audio file (as opposed to frames by frame) into a sequence of multiple smaller segments for streaming
    • Real-time Frames Mode, directly transcodes video-frames (as opposed to a entire file), into a sequence of multiple smaller segments for streaming
    • Added separate functions, stream() for Real-time Frame Mode and transcode_source() for Single-Source Mode for easy transcoding.
    • Included auto-colorspace detection and RGB Mode like features (extracted from WriteGear), into StreamGear.
  • New StreamGear Parameters:
    • Developed several new parameters such as:
      • output: handles assets directory
      • formats: handles adaptive HTTP streaming format.
      • custom_ffmpeg: handles custom FFmpeg location.
      • stream_params: handles internal and FFmpeg parameter seamlessly.
      • logging: turns logging on or off.
    • New stream_params parameter allows us to exploit almost all FFmpeg parameters and flexibly change its internal settings, and seamlessly generating high-quality streams with its attributes:
      • -streams (list of dictionaries) for building additional streams with -resolution, -video_bitrate & -framerate like sub-attributes.
      • -audio for specifying external audio.
      • -video_source for specifying Single-Source Mode source.
      • -input_framerate for handling input framerate in Real-time Frames Mode.
      • -bpp attribute for handling bits-per-pixels used to auto-calculate video-bitrate.
      • -gop to manually specify GOP length.
      • -ffmpeg_download_path to handle custom FFmpeg download path on windows.
      • -clear_prev_assets to remove any previous copies of SteamGear Assets.
  • New StreamGear docs, MPEG-DASH demo, and recommended DASH players list:
    • Added new StreamGear docs, usage examples, parameters, references, new FAQs.
    • Added Several StreamGear usage examples w.r.t Mode of Operation.
    • Implemented Clappr based on Shaka-Player, as Demo Player.
    • Added Adaptive-dimensional behavior for Demo-player, purely in css.
    • Hosted StreamGear generated DASH chunks on GitHub and served with raw.githack.com.
    • Introduced variable quality level-selector plugin for Clapper Player.
    • Provide various required javascripts and implemented additional functionality for player in extra.js.
    • Recommended tested Online, Command-line and GUI Adaptive Stream players.
    • Implemented separate FFmpeg installation doc for StreamGear API.
    • Reduced rebufferingGoal for faster response.
  • New StreamGear CI tests:
    • Added IO and API initialization CI tests for its Modes.
    • Added various mode Streaming check CI tests.
• NetGear_Async API:
  • Added new send_terminate_signal internal method.
  • Added WindowsSelectorEventLoopPolicy() for windows 3.8+ envs.
  • Moved Client auto-termination to separate method.
  • Implemented graceful termination with signal API on UNIX machines.
  • Added new timeout attribute for controlling Timeout in Connections.
  • Added missing termination optimizer (linger=0) flag.
  • Several ZMQ Optimizer Flags added to boost performance.
• WriteGear API:
  • Added support for adding duplicate FFmpeg parameters to output_params:
    • Added new -clones attribute in output_params parameter for handing this behavior..
    • Support to pass FFmpeg parameters as list, while maintaining the exact order it was specified.
    • Built support for zmq.REQ/zmq.REP and zmq.PUB/zmq.SUB patterns in this mode.
    • Added new CI tests debugging this behavior.
    • Updated docs accordingly.
  • Added support for Networks URLs in Compression Mode:
    • output_filename parameter supports Networks URLs in compression modes only
    • Added automated handling of non path/file Networks URLs as input.
    • Implemented new is_valid_url helper method to easily validate assigned URLs value.
    • Validates whether the given URL value has scheme/protocol supported by assigned/installed ffmpeg or not.
    • WriteGear will throw ValueError if -output_filename is not supported.
    • Added related CI tests and docs.
  • Added disable_force_termination attribute in WriteGear to disable force-termination.
• NetGear API:
  • Added option to completely disable Native Frame-Compression:
    • Checks if any Incorrect/Invalid value is assigned on compression_format attribute.
    • Completely disables Native Frame-Compression.
    • Updated docs accordingly.
• CamGear API:
  • Added new and robust regex for identifying YouTube URLs.
  • Moved youtube_url_validator to Helper.
• New helper.py methods:
  • Added validate_video function to validate video_source.
  • Added extract_time Extract time from give string value.
  • Added get_video_bitrate to caliculate video birate from resolution, framerate, bits-per-pixels values.
  • Added delete_safe to safely delete files of given extension.
  • Added validate_audio to validate audio source.
  • Added new Helper CI tests.
    • Added new check_valid_mpd function to test MPD files validity.
    • Added mpegdash library to CI requirements.
• Deployed New Docs Upgrades:
  • Added new assets like images, gifs, custom scripts, javascripts fonts etc. for achieving better visual graphics in docs.
  • Added clappr.min.js, dash-shaka-playback.js, clappr-level-selector.min.js third-party javascripts locally.
  • Extended Overview docs Hyperlinks to include all major sub-pages (such as Usage Examples, Reference, FAQs etc.).
  • Replaced GIF with interactive MPEG-DASH Video Example in Stabilizer Docs.
  • Added new pymdownx.keys to replace [Ctrl+C]/[⌘+C] formats.
  • Added new custom.css stylescripts variables for fluid animations in docs.
  • Overridden announce bar and added donation button.
  • Lossless WEBP compressed all PNG assets for faster loading.
  • Enabled lazy-loading for GIFS and Images for performance.
  • Reimplemented Admonitions contexts and added new ones.
  • Added StreamGear and its different modes Docs Assets.
  • Added patch for images & unicodes for PiP flavored markdown in setup.py.
• Added Request Info and Welcome GitHub Apps to automate PR and issue workflow
  • Added new config.yml for customizations.
  • Added various suitable configurations.
• Added new -clones attribute to handle FFmpeg parameter clones in StreamGear and WriteGear API.
• Added new Video-only and Audio-Only sources in bash script.
• Added new paths in bash script for storing StreamGear & WriteGear assets temporarily.

Updates/Improvements

• Added patch for NotImplementedError in NetGear_Async API on Windows 3.8+ envs.
• Check for valid output file extension according to format selected in StreamGear.
• Completed migration to travis.com.
• Created new temp_write temp directory for WriteGear Assets in bash script.
• Deleted old Redundant assets and added new ones.
• Employed isort library to sort and group imports in Vidgear APIs.
• Enabled exception for list, tuple, int, float in WriteGear API's output_params dict.
• Enabled missing support for frame-compression in its primary Receive Mode.
• Enforced pixel formats for streams.
• Improved check for valid system path detection in WriteGear API.
• Overrided pytest-asyncio fixture in NetGear_Async API.
• Quoted Gear Headline for understanding each gear easily.
• Re-Positioned Gear's banner images in overview for better readability.
• Reduced redundant try-except blocks in NetGear Async.
• Reformatted and Simplified Docs context.
• Reimplemented return_testvideo_path CI function with variable streams.
• Reimplemented skip_loop in NetGear_Async to fix asyncio.CancelledError.
• Reimplemented buggy audio handler in StreamGear.
• Reimplemented images with <figure> and <figurecaption> like tags.
• Removed Python < 3.8 condition from all CI tests.
• Removed or Grouped redundant code for increasing codecov.
• Removed redundant code and simplified algorithmic complexities in Gears.
• Replaced ;nbsp with ;thinsp and ;emsp.
• Replaced IOError with more reliable RuntimeError in StreamGear Pipelines.
• Replaced del with pop in dicts.
• Replaced all Netgear CI tests with more reliable try-except-final blocks.
• Replaced simple lists with pymdownx.tasklist.
• Replaced subprocess call() with run() for better error handling in execute_ffmpeg_cmd function.
• Resized over-sized docs images.
• Simplified delete_safe Helper function.
• Simplified default audio-bitrate logic in StreamGear
• Updated CI tests and cleared redundant code from NetGear_Async API.
• Updated CI with new tests and Bumped Codecov.
• Updated Issue and PR templates.
• Updated Licenses for new files and shrink images dimensions.
• Updated Missing Helpful tips and increased logging.
• Updated PR guidelines for more clarity.
• Updated WebGear examples addresses from 0.0.0.0 to localhost.
• Updated WriteGear and StreamGear CI tests for not supporting temp directory.
• Updated README.md and changelog.md with new changes.
• Updated check_output and added force_retrieve_stderr support to **kwargs to extract stderr output even on FFmpeg error.
• Updated dicts2args to support internal repeated coreX FFmpeg parameters for StreamGear.
• Updated mkdocs.yml, changelog.md and README.md with latest changes.
• Updated validate_audio Helper function will now retrieve audio-bitrate for validation.
• Updated buggy mpegdash dependency with custom dev fork for Windows machines.
• Updated core parameters for audio handling.
• Updated logging for debugging selected eventloops in NetGear_Async API.
• Updated termination linger to zero at Server's end.

Breaking Updates/Changes

• ⚠️ Changed Webgear API default address to localhost for cross-compatibility between different platforms.
• In Netgear_Async API, source value can now be NoneType for a custom frame-generator at Server-end only.
• Temp (such as /tmp in linux) is now not a valid directory for WriteGear & StreamGear API outputs.
• Moved vidgear docs assets (i.e images, gifs, javascripts and stylescripts) to override directory.

Bug-fixes

• Added workaround for system path not handle correctly.
• Fixed Bug: URL Audio format not being handled properly.
• Fixed Critical Bug in NetGear_Async throwing ValueError with None-type Source.
• Fixed Critical StreamGear Bug: FFmpeg pipeline terminating prematurely in Single-Source Mode.
• Fixed Critical external audio handler bug: moved audio-input to input_parameters.
• Fixed Frozen-threads bug in CI tests.
• Fixed Mkdocs only accepting Relative paths.
• Fixed OSError in WriteGear's compression mode.
• Fixed StreamGear CI bugs for Windows and CI envs.
• Fixed Typos and Indentation bugs in NetGear API.
• Fixed ZMQ throwing error on termination if all max-tries exhausted.
• Fixed NameError bug in NetGear API.
• Fixed NameError bugs in StreamGear CI.
• Fixed NameError in CI functions and tests.
• Fixed TimeoutError bug in NetGear_Async CI tests.
• Fixed get_valid_ffmpeg_path throwing TypeError with non-string values.
• Fixed broken links in docs.
• Fixed critical duplicate logging bug.
• Fixed default gop value not handle correctly.
• Fixed handling of incorrect paths detection.
• Fixed incorrect definitions in NetGear_Async.
• Fixed left-over attribute bug in WriteGear.
• Fixed logic and indentation bugs in CI tests.
• Fixed logic for handling output parameters in WriteGear API.
• Fixed missing definitions and logic bug in StreamGear.
• Fixed missing import and incorrect CI definitions.
• Fixed missing source dimensions from extract_resolutions output in StreamGear API.
• Fixed missing support for compression parameters in Multi-Clients Mode.
• Fixed round off error in FPS.
• Fixed several CI bugs and updated extract_resolutions method.
• Fixed several bugs from CI Bidirectional Mode tests.
• Fixed several typos in docs usage examples.
• Fixed various AttributeError with wrong attribute names and definition in CI Helper functions.
• Fixed wrong and missing definitions in docs.
• Fixed wrong logic for extracting OpenCV frames.
• Fixed wrong type bug in StreamGear API.
• Fixed wrong type error bug in WriteGear API.
• Fixed wrong variable assignments bug in WriteGear API.
• Fixes to CLI tests and missing docs imports.
• Many minor typos and wrong definitions.

Pull Requests

• PR #129
• PR #130
• PR #155
• PR #157