go-transcode HTTP on-demand transcoding API

Why

Transcoding is expensive and resource consuming operation on CPU and GPU. For big companies with thousands of customers it is essential, to have a dedicated 24/7 transcoding servers which can store all the transcoded versions.

For the rest of us who don't have infinite resources and cannot have 3 times bigger media library because of transcoding, we should only transcode when it is needed. This tool is trying to solve this problem by offering transcoding on demand.

This feature is common in media centers (plex, jellyfin) but there was no simple transcoding server without all other media center features. Now there is one! go-transcode is simple and extensible, and will probably not add features unrelated to transcoding.

Features

Sources:

• Live streams
• Static files (basic support)
• Any codec/container supported by ffmpeg

Outputs:

• Basic MP4 over HTTP (h264+aac) : http://go-transcode/[profile]/[stream-id]
• Basic HLS over HTTP (h264+aac) : http://go-transcode/[profile]/[stream-id]/index.m3u8
• Demo HTML player (for HLS) : http://go-transcode/[profile]/[stream-id]/play.html

Features:

• Seeking for static files (index)
• Audio/Subtitles tracks
• Private mode (serve users authenticated by reverse proxy)

Config

Place your config file in ./config.yaml (or /etc/transcode/config.yaml). The streams are defined like this:

streams:
  <stream-id>: <stream-url>

Full configuration example:

# allow debug outputs
debug: true

# mount debug pprof endpoint at /debug/pprof/
pprof: true

# bind server to IP:PORT (use :8888 for all connections)
bind: localhost:8888

# serve static files from this directory (optional)
static: /var/www/html

# TODO: issue #4
proxy: true

streams:
  cam: rtmp://localhost/live/cam
  ch1_hd: http://192.168.1.34:9981/stream/channelid/85
  ch2_hd: http://192.168.1.34:9981/stream/channelid/43

Transcoding profiles

go-transcode supports any formats that ffmpeg likes. We provide profiles out-of-the-box for h264+aac (mp4 container) for 360p, 540p, 720p and 1080p resolutions: h264_360p, h264_540p, h264_720p and h264_1080p. Profiles can have any name, but must match regex: ^[0-9A-Za-z_-]+$

In these profile directories, actual profiles are located in hls/ and http/, depending on the output format requested. The profiles scripts detect hardware support by running ffmpeg. No special config needed to use hardware acceleration.

Install

Clone repository and build with go compiler:

$ git clone https://github.com/m1k1o/go-transcode
$ cd go-transcode
$ go build
$ ./go-transcode serve
3:58PM WRN preflight complete without config file debug=false
3:56PM INF starting main server service=main
3:56PM INF http listening on 127.0.0.1:8080 module=http
3:56PM INF serving streams from basedir /home/klahaha/go-transcode: map[] service=main
3:56PM INF main ready service=main

First line is warning and "serving streams" line says empty list (map[]) because we don't have config.yaml so there no stream configured. Make your config.yaml and try again.

Docker

Build

docker build -t go-transcode:latest .

Run

docker run --rm -d \
  --name="go-transcode" \
  -p "8080:8080" \
  -v "${PWD}/config.yaml:/app/config.yaml" go-transcode:latest

Nvidia GPU support (docker)

You will need to have nvidia-docker installed.

Build

First, you need to build previous container. Then, build Nvidia container.

docker build --build-arg "TRANSCODE_IMAGE=go-transcode:latest" -t go-transcode-nvidia:latest -f Dockerfile.nvidia .

Run

docker run --rm -d \
  --gpus=all \
  --name="go-transcode-nvidia" \
  -p "8080:8080" \
  -v "${PWD}/config.yaml:/app/config.yaml" go-transcode-nvidia:latest

Supported inputs

Input codec will be automatically determined from given stream. Please check your graphic card's supported codec and maximum concurrent sessions here.

Codec	CUVID	Codec Name
h264	h264_cuvid	H.264 / AVC / MPEG-4 AVC / MPEG-4 part 10
hevc	hevc_cuvid	H.265 / HEVC
mjpeg	mjpeg_cuvid	Motion JPEG
mpeg1video	mpeg1_cuvid	MPEG-1 video
mpeg2video	mpeg2_cuvid	MPEG-2 video
mpeg4	mpeg4_cuvid	MPEG-4 part 2
vc1	vc1_cuvid	SMPTE VC-1
vp8	vp8_cuvid	On2 VP8
vp9	vp9_cuvid	Google VP9

Alternatives

• nginx-vod-module: Only supports MP4 sources.
• tvheadend: Intended for various live sources (IPTV or DVB), not media library - although it can record TV. Supports Nvidia acceleration, but it is hard to compile.
• jellyfin: Supports live TV sources, although does not work realiably. Cannot run standalone transcoding service (without media library).
• Any suggestions?

Contribute

Join us in the Matrix space (or the #go-transcode-general room directly) or via XMPP bridge.

Architecture

The source code is in the following files/folders:

• cmd/ and main.go: source for the command-line interface
• hls/: process runner for HLS transcoding
• internal/: actual source code logic

TODO: document different modules/packages and dependencies

Other files/folders in the repositories are:

• data/: files used/served by go-transcode
• dev/: some docker helper scripts
• profiles/: the ffmpeg profiles for transcoding
• tests/: some tests for the project
• Dockerfile, Dockerfile.nvidia and docker-compose.yaml: for the docker lovers
• god.mod and go.sum: golang dependencies/modules tracking
• LICENSE: licensing information (Apache 2.0)