histv - Honey, I Shrunk The Vids
An overengineered PowerShell frontend for FFMPEG
screenshots
I was doing a lot of manual re-encoding down from insane source bitrates with FFMPEG, and I wondered if I could put it into a nice GUI. Then I wondered if I could make it hardware-agnostic. Then I wondered if I could give it a dark theme… and on and on and on… until finally I had it working how I wanted and I wondered if I could put it into a single executable file.
So all up I spent a little while on this today and I think I finally have something worth shipping. The executable will probably trigger your antivirus because it boostraps the powershell script, and the script will always throw a warning asking if you’re sure you want to run it. But it works and it’s safe, read the full source and readme in the codeberg if you want to be sure.
I hope this might be helpful for anyone else transcoding videos on Windows! I’d love feedback, but please be gentle, it’s my first project like this and I have no idea what I’m actually doing.
It’s good in principle, and it’s good you’re learning to build and control your own software, but Windows is a dead end at this point. Start planning your escape to Linux before the cage door starts closing.
This is pure delusion.
Windows is a dead end at this point. Start planning your escape to Linux before the cage door starts closing
That sounds ominous. What cage door is closing? I mean, you and a majority of people here, would agree with you. But I don’t see Windows going away…at least not in the foreseeable future. In as much as Linux has made some great strides, I don’t see it being a Windows replacement for a global population, in the foreseeable future either.
Literally the only thing missing is the fact that developers still go out of their way to support windows. If windows’ proliferation taught you anything, it should be that the people will follow the tools, wherever they happen to be.
It’s being built inch by inch. You won’t even know it’s there until you realize you can’t squeeze through it anymore. The trend is extremely obvious: TPM, Secure boot, Windows Store UWP applications, forced updates without consent, or intentional opt-outs that conveniently get ignored or forgotten when it’s convenient for Microsoft to force something. They are intent on taking full control of PCs and locking them down exactly the same way Android phones are locked down, they will follow a few footsteps behind what Android is doing now by preventing third-party apps and app stores, but it’s obviously coming, because they are on exactly the same path for exactly the same reasons.
I don’t imagine we can save everybody either. But that doesn’t mean it’s not worth trying. The more they tighten their grip, the more will slip through their fingers, and all I care about is that the rebellion against Windows grows large enough to survive indefinitely, if not thrive.
That’s exactly what this is part of! HISTV is the fruit of one of my many explorations, and that genesis is part of why I posted this in a selfhosting comm.
As to escaping Windows entirely, thanks to Valve’s work on the Proton layer I can feasibly switch to daily driving some flavour of Linux. Soon. I just need to metaphorically get off my ass and trial it out for a few days on a live boot USB to work out any bugbears before making the actual switch (for personal reasons, I’m going to be starting from scratch and setting my environment up right, so it has to go smoothly).
Good luck, although I’d caution you with the general principle of “Don’t let perfect become the enemy of good”. Sometimes good enough is good enough.
It’s not that I need it to be perfect, it’s that I need to make sure I can get my environment running for work on Monday 😅 But thanks, I’m excited that it’s even a feasible option!
Does Handbrake not work on Windows?
Yep. I didn’t scope out and build that one though. Also I didn’t get to name it, which in hindsight was obviously a terrible mistake.
It does—portable app too.
Seems like a good middle ground for people who don’t want to run Tdarr and who don’t want to learn longass commands.
Thanks! Yeah, I can’t run the transcode on my server for various reasons so I have to do it on my local machine. Dunno if tdarr supports that. Probably should have found out before rolling my own, but I wanted to see if I could do it 😅
Tdarr can distribute compute to other nodes, so you could set it up on your server and have your workstation do the actual transcoding.
TIL, cheers! That’s pretty awesome. Now that this is working, I’ll probably drop it entirely and move on to learning Tdarr, I’m really curious how the network compute works 😅
What makes this better than Handbrake?
This isn’t better than Handbrake. It’s simpler, though. Also, as I said in another comment, I wanted to see if I could get it to work - it was as much personal challenge as anything.
And I got it working, and I’m proud of my dumb little first project, so I posted about it. There seem to be some people think I shouldn’t have done that last bit, though.
To be clear, I’m not trying to discourage you from posting about your project and I think you should always pursue such personal challenges.
I also think it helps others better contextualize your project if you include a bit in your post about your motivation (like in your reply).
To me, it’s also very nice to mention alternatives you are aware of and how your project compares to them. “It’s doesn’t do as much as Handbrake but it’s simpler” is a selling point for some people.
Oh! Apologies, I wasn’t directing that at you. I see how it came off that way though; my tone was meant to be self-deprecating. By the last bit I just meant I saw a downvote or two. Could be any reason for those, or none at all.
There seem to be some people think I shouldn’t have done that last bit, though.
Do your thing man, fuck what they lookin’ at.
Lol cheers bru, appreciate the solidarity 🙌
