Comfy Channel (UNICORN)

Comfy Channel is a 24/7 live video broadcast with automatic content selection and overlays using FFMPEG and Python!

This repository comes with some example content and configurations that can be used to set up Comfy Channel.

Differences from original

• Options to change some config options with command line args

• Forces English Audio when Dual Audio is detected (EN/JA only)

• Enforces 2 channel audio

• Introducesmode in the playout config. mode can be set to shuffle, tracker, sequential, single, or music.

• shuffle mode retains the original default behavior. Randomly selects videos from the directory.

• tracker mode will play files sequentially, in sorted order, and keep track of progress using comfy-tracker.json so that progress persists between runs/loops. The number displayed in comfy-tracker.json is the last file number played.

• sequential mode is functionally the same as tracker but won't keep track of progress between runs.

• single mode is self explanatory, where you just feed a single video file directly to the folder param and the files can be set to 1.

• music mode is functionally the same as shuffle but will also briefly display the video title at the bottom left corner when the video starts.

• Adds bump_chance, a float from 1.0 to 0.0 that reflects percent chance it'll play a random bump from the bumpers directory.

• Adds upnext_enabled, if you'd like it to play the upnext information clip or not before playing the videos. 1 for enabled, 0 for disabled.

• Adds subtitles to enable subtitles. If the file is an mkv itll try to play subtitles out of the mkv, if not itll try to load a subtitle file .srt or .ass from the same dir as the file. 1 for enabled, 0 for disabled.

• Uses SystemRandom

• Makes the overlay image outline file optional, since it seems largely unneccessary

How to run

Perform the steps outlined in Requirements first!!!

The main program is ComfyChannel.py. The following is an example command:

src/ComfyChannel.py -o "rtmp://localhost/live/stream"

The full list of arguments is as follows:

usage: ComfyChannel.py [-h] [-1] [-o OUTPUT] [-ua UPNEXT_AUDIO_DIR]
                       [-uv UPNEXT_VIDEO_DIR] [-uw UPNEXT_WISDOM_FILE]
                       [-b BUMPER_DIR] [-f FONT_FILE] [-p PLAYOUT_FILE]

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -1, --once            run playout only once
  -o OUTPUT, --output OUTPUT
                        output location (stream url)
  -ua UPNEXT_AUDIO_DIR, --upnext_audio_dir UPNEXT_AUDIO_DIR
                        directory for upnext audio files
  -uv UPNEXT_VIDEO_DIR, --upnext_video_DIR UPNEXT_VIDEO_DIR
                        directory for upnext video files
  -uw UPNEXT_WISDOM_FILE, --upnext_wisdom_file UPNEXT_WISDOM_FILE
                        file for wisdom text
  -b BUMPER_DIR, --bumper_dir BUMPER_DIR
                        directory for bumper video files
  -f FONT_FILE, --font_file FONT_FILE
                        font file for overlay text
  -p PLAYOUT_FILE, --playout_file PLAYOUT_FILE
                        config file for playout

Docker images

To make things easier, I have created two Docker images for quickly setting up Comfy Channel. Visit the following repositories for instruction on setting up the images:

mvarhola/comfy-channel: https://github.com/mvarhola/comfy-channel-docker

mvarhola/nginx-rtmp: https://hub.docker.com/r/mvarhola/nginx-rtmp/

Requirements

Comfy Channel requires FFMPEG to be compiled with libfreetype and libfdk_aac, which are not included in most distributed ffmpeg packages.

For Mac OS Homebrew users, install homebrew-ffmpeg, which will have the required libraries. To install ffmpeg with all available libraries, run the following command:

brew options ffmpeg

brew install ffmpeg \
--with-chromaprint \
--with-fdk-aac \
--with-fontconfig \
--with-freetype \
--with-frei0r \
--with-game-music-emu \
--with-libass \
--with-libbluray \
--with-libbs2b \
--with-libcaca \
--with-libgsm \
--with-libmodplug \
--with-libsoxr \
--with-libssh \
--with-libvidstab \
--with-libvorbis \
--with-libvpx \
--with-opencore-amr \
--with-openh264 \
--with-openjpeg \
--with-openssl \
--with-opus \
--with-rtmpdump \
--with-rubberband \
--with-sdl2 \
--with-snappy \
--with-speex \
--with-tesseract \
--with-theora \
--with-tools \
--with-two-lame \
--with-wavpack \
--with-webp \
--with-x265 \
--with-xz \
--with-zeromq \
--with-zimg

There are also modules that need to be installed by Python. To do so, run the follwing command:

pip install -r src/requirements.txt

The pymediainfo requires you have the package mediainfo installed on your machine (which it is not by default on Ubuntu 18).

Adding your own files

playout.ini contains the order of blocks that will be played by Comfy Channel. A block is a section of content that will be played from a single folder.

[Block1]
name = "Test Block 1"
folder = videos
files = 2
mode = shuffle
bump_chance = 0.2
upnext_enabled = 1
subtitles = 0

A Block contains the block name, the folder location for the files, the number of files to play, if the contents should be shuffled, and the chance that a bump will be played after each file.

To add a new block, copy and paste one of the example sections and change the name, folder, files, shuffle, bump_chance, and upnext_enabled.

Terminology

Playout: a sequence of blocks that Comfy Channel will play in order. The sequence is defined in playout.ini

Block: a section of content that will be played from a single folder.

Bump: a short video selected from the bumps folder that can include a brief announcement. For examples, check out [bumpworthy].

Upnext: a auto-generated video that gets played in between each block. Shows the upcoming videos, what time they will be played, and a short wisdom text. The video and audio files of the upnext can be different.

Wisdom: Comfy Channel will pick a random line from the wisdom file to insert into the upnext.

Inspiration

My main goal for Comfy Channel was to have the little clock in the top left corner like you see on Japanese TV

Included media

Videos: Various videos that I recorded

Font: HC Maru Gothic font

Upnext audio files from: Delroy Edwards - SLOWED DOWN FUNK