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Show HN: Fileshifter – Easily convert files and videos between different formats

fileshifter.io

11–20 of 37 posts

Re: Show HN: Fileshifter – Easily convert files and videos between different formats

#11
post #9

Will this be open-sourced? I'd like the idea of a self-hosted version of this. Good work!

Just curious, why would you want to self-host it?

For me, often, it's just a bandwidth issue. If a colleague has a 12 GB movie they'd like to transmute, a local app might be a possibility, but an hour long upload followed by a 20 minute long download won't be.

Re: Show HN: Fileshifter – Easily convert files and videos between different formats

#12
post #9

Will this be open-sourced? I'd like the idea of a self-hosted version of this. Good work!

Just curious, why would you want to self-host it?

Many reasons. Primarily because of security and control of my information. Secondly because services like these tend to be short-lived and unreliable, if i host it myself i can trust it's there when i need it. And i hadn't considered the uploading time issue mentioned in a previous comment, but that is actually a very good point that self-hosting would solve as well.

I also just want to see the code because i think it's cool

Re: Show HN: Fileshifter – Easily convert files and videos between different formats

#13

Structurally, the service is hosted online as a website, this means one must upload a copy of their data to be converted. Naturally that raises questions because there's a lot we don't know about this site: who runs it, what are the terms of service (I saw none on the site), what are users granting the site owners to do with uploaded data? Answers to these are almost certainly guesses as this information is not readi…

- I appreciate these posts that promote software freedom.

- The tools `convert` and `ffmpeg` should cover your criteria and the functionality of the site.

Re: Show HN: Fileshifter – Easily convert files and videos between different formats

#14

Will this be open-sourced? I'd like the idea of a self-hosted version of this. Good work!

If you run Linux, you can use `ffmpeg` and `convert` to duplicate the functionality of this site locally. For example

    $ convert input-file.jpg output-file.pdf
    $ ffmpeg -i input-file.mov output-file.mp4

Re: Show HN: Fileshifter – Easily convert files and videos between different formats

#15
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just curious, why would you want to self-host it?

Many reasons. Primarily because of security and control of my information. Secondly because services like these tend to be short-lived and unreliable, if i host it myself i can trust it's there when i need it. And i hadn't considered the uploading time issue mentioned in a previous comment, but that is actually a very good point that self-hosting would solve as well. I also just want to see the code because i think i…

>I also just want to see the code because i think it's cool

This is not "the" code but here's a script. I can't take credit for it... I don't remember but I probably cobbled it together by taking stack overflow code and making it more friendly. First, you need ffmpeg (ymmv.. this assumes macOS, for others installing ffmpeg is also possible but left as an exercise for the reader):

    $ brew install ffmpeg
Then:

[edit: fixed some typos]

    #!/bin/bash

    export OLD_IFS=$IFS
    export IFS=''

    mkdir -p converted
    for a in *.{webm,mkv,ts} 
    do
        ffmpeg -i "$a" -c:v libx264 -preset slow -crf 20 -c:a libvo_aacenc -b:a 128k "$a.mp4"
        if [[ $? == 0 ]]; then
            mv "$a.mp4" converted
        fi
    done
    export IFS=$OLD_IFS
Save as convert-to-mp4.sh then run it in a directory containing files of undesirable types like .webm

Not saying this is perfect. Take it as a proof of concept. And there's no web UI, nor would I want one. Suggestions for tweaks welcome.

Re: Show HN: Fileshifter – Easily convert files and videos between different formats

#16
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just curious, why would you want to self-host it?

For me, often, it's just a bandwidth issue. If a colleague has a 12 GB movie they'd like to transmute, a local app might be a possibility, but an hour long upload followed by a 20 minute long download won't be.

Well, that, plus whatever the conversion time would be.

Re: Show HN: Fileshifter – Easily convert files and videos between different formats

#17
post #14

Will this be open-sourced? I'd like the idea of a self-hosted version of this. Good work!

If you run Linux, you can use `ffmpeg` and `convert` to duplicate the functionality of this site locally. For example $ convert input-file.jpg output-file.pdf $ ffmpeg -i input-file.mov output-file.mp4

I've seen you mention those tools a couple times. I'm familiar with ffmpeg. Does convert also cover the MS Office file formats, as this tool purports to?

Re: Show HN: Fileshifter – Easily convert files and videos between different formats

#18
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many reasons. Primarily because of security and control of my information. Secondly because services like these tend to be short-lived and unreliable, if i host it myself i can trust it's there when i need it. And i hadn't considered the uploading time issue mentioned in a previous comment, but that is actually a very good point that self-hosting would solve as well. I also just want to see the code because i think i…

>I also just want to see the code because i think it's cool This is not "the" code but here's a script. I can't take credit for it... I don't remember but I probably cobbled it together by taking stack overflow code and making it more friendly. First, you need ffmpeg (ymmv.. this assumes macOS, for others installing ffmpeg is also possible but left as an exercise for the reader): $ brew install ffmpeg Then: [edit: fi…

> First, you need ffmpeg (ymmv.. this assumes macOS, for others installing ffmpeg is also possible but left as an exercise for the reader):

> $ brew install ffmpeg

FWIW, there's a `brew` fork for linux: https://github.com/Linuxbrew/brew

It's not especially useful in this case as ffmpeg is available in linux package managers, but it's handy for tools that aren't.

Re: Show HN: Fileshifter – Easily convert files and videos between different formats

#19
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you run Linux, you can use `ffmpeg` and `convert` to duplicate the functionality of this site locally. For example $ convert input-file.jpg output-file.pdf $ ffmpeg -i input-file.mov output-file.mp4

I've seen you mention those tools a couple times. I'm familiar with ffmpeg. Does convert also cover the MS Office file formats, as this tool purports to?

The convert tool is part of imagemagick and only works on image formats as far as I know. I personally use pandoc to do similar conversions on documents and ssconvert for spreadsheets.

Re: Show HN: Fileshifter – Easily convert files and videos between different formats

#20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen you mention those tools a couple times. I'm familiar with ffmpeg. Does convert also cover the MS Office file formats, as this tool purports to?

The convert tool is part of imagemagick and only works on image formats as far as I know. I personally use pandoc to do similar conversions on documents and ssconvert for spreadsheets.

That's kind of what I thought. Although I'm aware of imagemagick itself, I didn't know that convert was provided by it. Thanks for the clarification.
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