mootranscode

Mootranscode provided local audio and video transcoding for Moodle. It replaces the uploaded version of video and audio files with transcoded versions that can play anywhere. This avoids students needing to be able to view every possible format, like requiring QuickTime for MOV files on Windows.

The following conversions are currently done:

• video/quicktime (.mov) to MP4 video
• audio/ogg (.ogg) to MP4 audio

The MP4 versions of the files should work on any modern platform.

Warning

This was created as a one-off to solve a particular problem. Your mileage may vary but contributions are always very welcome.

This application has only been tested with Moodle 3.10 running on Ubuntu with PostgreSQL serving the database.

Installation

ffmpeg must be installed to do the heavy lifting.

Compile the code with

$ cargo build --release

then move the binary from target/release/mootrancode to somewhere convenient like /usr/local/bin/.

To run the application as a service using systemd create a file called /etc/systemd/system/mootranscode.service substituting the name of the appropriate user:

[Unit]
Description=Mootranscode
After=network.target
StartLimitIntervalSec=0[Service]
Type=simple
Restart=always
RestartSec=1
User=YOUR_USERNAME
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/mootranscode --repeat

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Start the service using:

# systemctl start mootranscode

Set the service to start a boot using:

# systemctl enable mootranscode

Running

The application must be able to read and write files in the Moodle data directory and that the server can read. This may require running as a user such as moodle or one in the www-data group.

By default the application runs once and exits. Continuosly poll the database for new files by using the --repeat option.

Unless the current user can connect to the Moodle database without password authentication you will need the --dbpass option.

For a full list of options run:

$ mootranscode -help

License

Copyright 2021 Sheldon Young sheldon@softdev.ca

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.

History

• 2022-01-28 Version 0.8
• 2020-02-12 Published to GitHub.
• 2020-02-09 Project started.