An implementation of FFmpeg for audio playback of almost any media format

When building, the FFmpeg libraries are dynamically linked by default, which means that you'll need a local installation of these libraries in order for the external to work.

Includes the following features:

• play/pause and seek functionality.

• changing the speed of playback.

• reading and iterating through m3u playlists.

  • It reads pseudo m3u playlists. Each line in the m3u should be just the file name, preceded by a path relative to the location of the m3u if they don't reside in the same folder.

  • The m3u reader can also read nested m3u's. For example, an m3u could consist of the following three lines:

  disc1.m3u
  disc2.m3u
  disc3.m3u
  

• opening files from http urls.

• retrieving metadata.

Creation args

1. numeric list

   • The channel layout. Defaults to stereo if no args given.

   • Numbers specified represent the bits of an audio channel bit-mask. A full list of available channels can be found here: https://github.com/FFmpeg/FFmpeg/blob/master/libavutil/channel_layout.h

Inlets

1. bang - Play/pause the currently loaded track.

   • Sends a 1 or 0 through the last outlet to indicate whether it's playing or paused.

   float - (Re)start playback of a given track number

   • Zero will stop playback.

   anything - Look for matching metadata

   • If metadata is found, it will be sent through the right-most outlet.

• A file must be successfully opened for any of the above to work

2. signal - Change the playback speed.

   • speed can be a factor between 16 and 1/16th.

   • speed can also be altered by sending the message [ speed $1 ( to the 1st inlet.

Outlets

1. signal - Left channel

2. signal - Right channel

   • The number of signal outlets there are depends on the number of creation args given, with the default being 2 signals for stereo.

3. list - Outputs various messages including information regarding whether a file was successfully opened, whether a track is currently playing, track metadata, etc.

Messages

• [ print $.. ( or [ info $.. ( - Prints metadata info.

  • If no args given, it will print general info. Otherwise, it will print custom info.

  • metadata needs to be surrounded with percent signs.

    • Example [ print %artist% - %title% (

• [ send $.. ( - Sends metadata info through the
  last outlet.

• [ open $1 ( - Attempts to open a file.

  • Sends a 1 or 0 through the last outlet to indicate success or failure.

• [ seek $1 ( - Seek to a track position.

• [ speed $1 ( - Set the playback speed.

• [ play $1 ( - Set playback state to either playing or paused.

  • Acts as a toggle when no args are given.
  • When an arg is given, state is forced to playing(1) or paused(0).

• [ interp $1 ( - Change the interpolation algorithm.

  • Options include:
    • Sinc (good | medium | fast)
    • Zero-order hold
    • Linear (the default)

• [ stop ( - An alias for [ 0 (.

• [ pos ( - Returns the track position.

• Any unrecognized message is assumed to be a metadata term. If there is a match, the metadata will be sent through the last outlet.

Update - March 16 2022:

ffplay~ now uses Secret Rabbit Code for resampling, which makes playback speed transitions much smoother. Playback speed can also be manipulated with signals via the 2nd inlet.

ffplay~ is now available through deken. It is part of a larger library called quilt. Searching either "quilt" or "ffplay~" should give a result.

The FFmpeg libraries are still separate, but can be either easily downloaded or easily installed via a package manager.

For Windows users, the FFmpeg libraries can be downloaded here: https://github.com/myQwil/pd-quilt/releases/download/v0.7.7/ffmpeg.v4.4.1.Windows-amd64-32.zip.

For Linux and macOS users, A README file is included, which lists the dependencies for those platforms.

ffplay~.zip

Performing a static build is also an option. That would make it so that the libraries are built into the external. I've always been on the fence about distributing a static build though because I've read that some of the decoders used in the ffmpeg library are proprietary. Their site talks about that near the bottom of this page: https://www.ffmpeg.org/legal.html

It sounds like it's only a problem if someone, as they put it, "starts trying to make money from patented technologies" but since this is being distributed freely, it's probably not an issue.

@myQwil said:

https://www.ffmpeg.org/legal.html

Yes, I guess since it is a free distribution it must have no issues.

What would be a next step is to be able to add it to deken externals management, but a lib that big or with such dependencies open new questions...

wow thanks you two! this is really cool, i tried some webradio, different audio formats and even video, everything worked, even changing the speed of a webradio stream

Nice, I am curious about on which system did you tried?

I'm on windows 10 and used the files for 64bit windows you uploaded above.
Before I read the whole thread here I was a bit why it didn't work even though I have ffmpeg installed and can use it from the console, it was unclear for me from the first post which files are actually needed and where to put them.

@rg.kies I tried for win7 with the download bundled with the " *********58" binaries.
I just kept all the files together in the unzipped folder.
It works for .mp3 and .ogg and .webm files but not .wma.
It will play the audio from a .avi video...... impressive....... but that is as far as I have gone with testing.
There are a couple of unknown objects controlling the volume and other things in the help file so I had to bypass the [zp~] object, and of course turn on dsp.
David.

@whale-av You should be able to find those missing objects in the original zip of the first post

oops, yes, I added them in the archive.
Also, I wonder : how to build a macOS binary that search for .dylib in the same local path like windows?
Now MacOS users need to copy those .dylib files to their /usr/local/opt/ffmpeg/lib folder

Since I'm using Pd on a Raspberry Pi quite a lot i tried to compile ffplay~ on it, aaand it worked!
Thats 32 bit arm linux, i think.

ffplay~.pd_linux

So Nice
I think sooner or late we should provide a deken package because that's a great external.

Maybe the dependecies are not much of a problem as long as they are well documented in the help patch

@myQwil I'm using Pd on a Raspberry Pi 4, it's working well ! Thanks for sharing this external. Is it possible to do reverse play ? I tried it with speed $1 = -1, but it doesn't work.

@tatsuya_yamada That would probably prove to be quite difficult. The packets would have to be retrieved in reverse order, but FFmpeg doesn't index the packets. So for the time being, reverse playback is not a feature.

@myQwil Okey, Thank you !!

so, what does this mean for os X

"

Dependencies for macOS:

port install libunrar; brew install ffmpeg@4

In order for gme(s)~.pd_darwin to work, libgme.1.dylib needs to be moved to `/usr/
"

p.s.

think i figured out the brew install

@pajzd said:

so, what does this mean for os X

Same thing. It should work for both OS X and macOS.

If gme(s) are not working as expected, let me know. There's a gme post where we can continue that discussion: https://forum.pdpatchrepo.info/topic/11828/gme-gmes-game-music-emu

Also, bear in mind that the latest version of the quilt library switched from using ffmpeg@4 to just ffmpeg. That's if you download the library through deken, which I would recommend from now on.

Any chance to run ffplay for ios along with libpd?

@myQwil I stopped receiving BBC radio stations on my internet radio earlier this year,
The BBC had decided to drop MP3 Shoutcast and only stream DASH and HLS.
I spent this evening searching forums for stream comversion backends for the RPI, and then remembered your external.
I don't live in the UK so I had to modify the BBC Radio4 URL slightly, and I now have a zero latency livestream of HLS in Pd on my laptop.
Next stage is to stream the output from Pd to the internet radio.
Then to stop playback as the client disconnects.
Then to run the patch permanently on my RPI.
It really is a very useful external.
Thank you,
David.

Would be great to have a M1 version on deken

@myQwil said:

Performing a static build is also an option. That would make it so that the libraries are built into the external. I've always been on the fence about distributing a static build though because I've read that some of the decoders used in the ffmpeg library are proprietary. Their site talks about that near the bottom of this page: https://www.ffmpeg.org/legal.html

It sounds like it's only a problem if someone, as they put it, "starts trying to make money from patented technologies" but since this is being distributed freely, it's probably not an issue.

Thanks for bringing up the option of performing a static build!