video2ascii

Transfer video to ascii animation using ffmpeg.

Screenshot

Prerequisite

• Have ffmpeg installed. It's recommend using homebrew.
• Download a font file for ascii image.
• Basic knowledge about using command line.

Steps

1. extract audio

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vn -acodec copy output-audio.aac

2. extract video frames

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 %04d.bmp
mkdir frame_images
mv *.bmp frame_images

3. generate ascii string for each frame

mkdir ascii_files
ls frame_images | grep .bmp | xargs -n1 python3 image_to_ascii.py

4. generate image frame for each ascii string

mkdir ascii_images
ls ascii_files | grep .txt | xargs -n1 python3 ascii_to_image.py

5. combine frames

cd ascii_images
ffmpeg -framerate 30 -i %04d.png -c:v libx264 -pix_fmt yuv420p -crf 23 -vf scale=-2:720 output-video.mp4

6. mix video and audio

ffmpeg -i output-video.mp4 -i output-audio.aac -c:v copy -c:a aac -strict experimental output.mp4