Scripts for easy video transcoding, powered by FFmpeg.
Years ago I started using FFmpeg to convert videos at work. It quickly became my routine and everyday tool. I mainly use it to convert MOV or EXR image sequences to h264 MP4 files. FFmpeg is lightweight, fast, and versatile. However, as a command-line tool, FFmpeg is not very user-friendly to CG artists like myself. So I wrote a couple of 'wrapper' scripts to automatically execute the FFmpeg command for me.
These wrapper scripts functioned very much like an Apple Droplet. For example, when we drag-n-drop a MOV file onto a "MP4_h264" script, the script will quickly convert the MOV file to an MP4 using h264 codec, all without needing the user to type in any code.
Years later, my scripts number grows, together with added new ones that help speed up other CG/VFX-related tasks. Eventually I turn them into a collection and called it qTool (short for quick-tool).
2010年前後，我接觸到了 FFmpeg 這個開源的視頻壓縮工具。功能强大的它很便快成為了我不可缺少的日常使用工具。在我的工作流程中，它的用途主要是將 MOV 或 EXR 圖像序列轉換為 h264 MP4 檔案。FFmpeg 非常輕巧快速，但是作為一個命令行工具，它沒有GUI界面，因此并不適合普通的 CG 創作者。爲了推廣給我的 CG 團隊，讓他們也能方便使用 FFmpeg，我編寫了幾個 Wrapper “包裹器” 腳本。
這些腳本的使用方法很簡單，非常像 Apple 的 Droplet “滴落”。
例如，我們可以將一個 MOV 影片或者是一個圖片序列 Image Sequence 拖放到這個脚本的圖標上，然后 FFmpeg 就會快速將輸入檔案轉換成 MP4，使用者無需鍵入任何的代碼。
每一個脚本對應一種輸出的格式，大小，等等… 使用者也可以打開脚本，修改内部參數，自定義輸出格式。
之後我又添加了許多可以執行各種 CG/VFX 相關任務的腳本，例如補幀，渲染… 并將這些脚本整理成一個集合，稱之為 qTool。
2023.05.30
- video downloader is now using yt-dlp instead of youtube-dl
- remove install of imagemagic and others,
only ffmpeg and yt-dlp are installed
2022.05.02
- added windows 11 support
- script installer temporarily removed
2022.03.19
- installer backup download link added.
2021.11.07
- video sequencer script updated to v4, add support to multiple input videos
also fix the framerate multiplier issue.
2021.06.29
- ffmpeg download link changes from 'essential' to 'full',
full version is 128MB, so the download time is increased.
!!! if you have issue with HAP codec, please update.
2021.03.05
- update gif-maker to v4.0
now support batching multiple file input.
2020.10.06
- ffmpeg download link is updated again.
using link from: https://www.gyan.dev/ffmpeg/builds/
using 'essentials' instead of 'full' version of ffmpeg
2020.10.02
- ffmpeg download link is updated.
2020.06.22
- updated the download regex catcher for the installer.
it was broken due to a change of the page layout on ffmpeg's website.
I might remove the download code all together in the future version.
2020.06.02
- a BUG in the code applying gamma 2.2 for exr input was fixed.
2020.05.16
- add utility-muxer\concat script, a quick way to stitch multiple video clips together.
this is a muxer script so no re-compression in the process.
- add utility-muxer\add-audio script, you can add/ or replace audio to video(s).
again this a muxer so the video codec is untouched.
2020.05.15
- fixed a bug in video\prores script.
2020.05.09
- script\utility-muxer\qTool-muxer-add-thumbnail.com is updated.
it generates icon thumbnails for mp4 files. this is a muxer script,
which means video's codec is un-changed, only meta-data is updated.
2020.05.06
- fixed some small bugs in qbatch.cmd and video-downloader.cmd
type 'qbath' in CMD to use the batch tool
type 'youtube' in CMD to use video-downloader
2020.05.03
- Updated the installer script.
2020.04.29 [v4]
- This version is a major update.
all the main scripts (image and video) scripts now support multiple input files.
this means you can 'batch' a group of selected files all at once without using
the batch script. see the user manual for more detail.
2020.04.11
- rewrite the installer script. qTool can dynamically grab
the latest version of command-line tools now.
2020.01.01
- updated qTool_install.cmd, added backup option in menu.
- updated web-video-download.cmd script with better menu system.
- updated ffmpeg. All related scripts now support PSD file input.
2019.09.06
- new gif-maker script support transparency gif export.