Tracker video thumbnail support

[danboid]

Tracker now supports creating thumbnails for images so I'd like to see this extended to show previews for video files.

I'm not sure if ffmpeg is part of the base Haiku install nor do I know what codecs and video file formats Haiku can play OOTB. Lets presume the answers are ffmpeg doesn't ship with Haiku and that it only supports playback of a few video codecs. If that's the case, I'd like to see Tracker be able to show previews of the supported video file formats in any case and be able to show previews for more video formats if the user has ffmpeg installed - see ffmpegthumbnailer under caja (the MATE desktop file manager) as an example of the sort of functionality I'd like to see replicated in Tracker.

[nephele]

ffmeg is included and powers the media kit, it should be possible indeed.

[danboid]

ffmpegthumbnailer is already ported and packaged in haikudepot. I have tested it with both h264 and HEVC/h265 videos under Haiku and it output png thumbnails fine. It can also output jpeg and raw images.

I don't know C++ but I know the basics of C, most of them anyway. It could well be biting off more than I can chew but I may have a go at adding video thumbnail support to Tracker via ffmpegthumbnailer, if there would be no issue with that? I don't suppose there's a policy aganst adding a feature to Tracker that only works if a non-default installed port has to be installed for it to work? I don't think I have the patience or knowledge to write this feature from scratch.

[nephele]

the media kit already uses ffmpeg, i wonder if this functionality is exposed? is ffmpegthumbnailer part of ffmpeg?

[danboid]

No, its a separate program.