Automating encoding of videos (and creation of reference movie) for iOS - ios

Question

My iPad app gives users the ability to watch a few hundred videos. Currently the iPad app points them to an MP4 file. However, I would like to point them to a QuickTime Reference Movie instead. (This allows the app to send a lower-bitrate version of the video if the user is connected via 3G vs. wifi.)
Right now, I create the various versions, plus the reference file, in QuickTime by going to File -> Export to Web. However, this process (1) only lets me do one file at a time, and (2) generates lots of useless stuff like HTML and JavaScript.
How can I automate the process? Does anyone know of existing scripts / tools to do this work? I'm sure other devs have had to do it before.

Answer 1

I wrote (and cobbled together from other stuff on the web) this AppleScript to do the job:
--property exportFolder : (path to documents folder as Unicode text) & "Your Folder:"
property QTExportPath : (path to movies folder from user domain)
property completedFolderName : "completion" -- this folder must already exist
property referenceFiles : {}
property encodeCount : 0
on run
choose folder with prompt "Choose folder with video files:" -- with multiple selections allowed
open (result)
end run
on open droppedItems
tell application "Finder"
set allFiles to every file of entire contents of droppedItems as alias list
end tell
-- Error checking
repeat with testFile in allFiles
set myChars to characters of basename(testFile)
if count_matches(myChars, ".") > 1 then
display dialog "ERROR: The file " & basename(testFile) & " has too many periods."
return
end if
end repeat
-- Made it past error checking, let's get started
tell application "QuickTime Player"
activate
close every window
end tell
repeat with thisItem in allFiles
tell application "QuickTime Player"
close every window
open thisItem as alias
end tell
activate application "QuickTime Player"
tell application "System Events"
tell process "QuickTime Player"
keystroke "E" using command down
repeat until exists sheet 1 of window 1
delay 0.2
end repeat
click button "Export" of sheet 1 of window 1
end tell
end tell
tell application "Finder"
set fileExt to name extension of thisItem
end tell
set fileBaseName to basename(thisItem)
set lengthWithoutExtension to (count of fileBaseName) - (count of fileExt) - 1
set fileBaseNameWithoutExtension to text 1 thru lengthWithoutExtension of fileBaseName
set end of referenceFiles to fileBaseNameWithoutExtension
repeat until startedExporting(fileBaseNameWithoutExtension)
-- wait for this file to start exporting before beginning another
end repeat
end repeat
repeat until doneExporting(referenceFiles)
-- wait for exporting to finish
end repeat
cleanUpGarbage(referenceFiles)
tell application "QuickTime Player"
activate
close every window
quit
end tell
display alert "finished exporting"
end open
on basename(thePath) -- Returns basename of alias
set thePOSIXPath to the POSIX path of thePath
if thePOSIXPath ends with "/" then
set nameIndex to -2
else
set nameIndex to -1
end if
set ASTID to AppleScript's text item delimiters
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "/"
set thePOSIXPath to text item nameIndex of thePOSIXPath
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ASTID
return thePOSIXPath
end basename
on startedExporting(fileBaseNameWithoutExtension) -- Checks if QuickTime began exporting a file
set moviesPath to QTExportPath as text
set fileToTest to ((the POSIX path of moviesPath) & fileBaseNameWithoutExtension & "/Resources/" & fileBaseNameWithoutExtension & ".mov")
if FileExists(fileToTest) then
-- do nothing
else
return false
end if
end startedExporting
on doneExporting(referenceFiles) -- Checks if QuickTime is done exporting everything
set moviesPath to QTExportPath as text
repeat with thisItem in referenceFiles
set fileToTest to ((the POSIX path of moviesPath) & thisItem & "/Resources/" & thisItem & ".mov")
if FileExists(fileToTest) then
-- do nothing
else
return false
end if
end repeat
end doneExporting
on FileExists(theFile) -- (String) as Boolean
tell application "System Events"
if exists file theFile then
return true
else
if exists folder theFile then
return true
else
return false
end if
end if
end tell
end FileExists
on cleanUpGarbage(referenceFiles)
set moviesPath to QTExportPath as text
set donePath to (QTExportPath as text) & completedFolderName as text
set POSIXMovies to the POSIX path of moviesPath
set POSIXDone to the POSIX path of donePath
repeat with thisItem in referenceFiles
set directoryToClean to (POSIXMovies & thisItem & "/")
set m4vcommand to "find '" & directoryToClean & "' -type f -iname '*m4v' -exec cp -n {} '" & POSIXDone & "' \\;"
set movcommand to "find '" & directoryToClean & "' -type f -iname '*mov' -exec cp -n {} '" & POSIXDone & "' \\;"
do shell script m4vcommand
do shell script movcommand
set thefolder to POSIX file directoryToClean
tell application "Finder"
delete thefolder
end tell
end repeat
end cleanUpGarbage
on count_matches(this_list, this_item)
set the match_counter to 0
repeat with i from 1 to the count of this_list
if item i of this_list is this_item then ¬
set the match_counter to the match_counter + 1
end repeat
return the match_counter
end count_matches
It assumes:
the folder you're starting from has ONLY movie files, AND you want to convert ALL of them.
you have already set up whatever export settings you want in QuickTime by doing one manual export to web
It will export them one at a time. If you want to convert multiple simultaneously, modify the startedExporting method to only check for a folder instead of the .mov file (the .mov file is the last one to generate.)