Configuring Remote Video Encoding

The Open Media Globe

Encoding on an external LAMP server setup with FFmpeg can be accommodated via the FFmpeg Wrapper Remote module. Steps are as follows:

  1. Mount the sites/default/files folder from the primary web server on your encoding box. On Ubuntu you will typically do this by setting up a samba share on your primary web server, and then mounting this share on your remote encoding box. You need to be careful that permissions are setup correctly, and that the encoding box has all of the necessary privileges to read/write to the share. This can get complicated in a hurry if you are already dealing with an external RAID which is mounted by your web server which is mounted by your encoding box..... good luck!
  2. Enable the FFmpeg Wrapper Remote Module on the primary web server
  3. On the encoding boxes web root, add encode.php available from the Open Media Project repository: http://openmediaproject.org/code/encodephp-installed-when-using-ffmpeg-w.... This is a simple script that accepts http commands from the ffmpeg wrapper module on your primary web server.  When correctly configured, your remote encoder should be accessible from the main Drupal box and display a page like the following image.

    If your server doesn't have a graphic interface and/or browser, you can check this from the commandline using wget http://[YOURSERVER]/encode.php

  4. Go to the FFmpeg Wrapper configuration page via the normal Drupal admin area in the Site Configuration section.  Check the Use FFMPEG Wrapper Remote option (requires patch to FFMPEG Wrapper)

  5. Go to the FFmpeg Wrapper Remote configuration page via the normal Drupal admin area in the Site Configuration section. Fill in all of the fields on this configuration page, defaults are provided as examples in each field.
  6. Once this page is saved with the correct settings, the two fieldsets at bottom should be expandable and should show valid information returned by FFmpeg on the remote server. If this is the case, you're done. If not, keep checking paths and permissions until it works.