BlinkClipsMerger

BlinkClipsMerger is a .NET console application written in C# for merging video clips captured by Blink security cameras with customizable title images. FFmpeg is being used for video encoding / merging.

Features

• Merging video clips captured by the same camera in the same date to a single video.
• Adding title images between merged clips with camera name, captured date and time.
• Customizable options such as output file name / video encoder / quality / etc.
• Adding slient audio streams when required
• Resizing video resolution when required

sample-merged.mp4

Supported Platforms

BlinkClipsMerger is written in pure C# so it should work on common modern platforms. Here are the tested platforms:

• Windows 10 / 11
• Ubuntu 24.04 LTS
• Raspberry Pi OS (ARM64)

Prerequisites

• .NET Runtime
• FFmpeg

Usage

# Windows

> BlinkClipsMerger.exe [options] <input directory> <output directory>

# Other platforms

> dotnet BlinkClipsMerger.dll [options] <input directory> <output directory>

Options

  -q, --quite                    Hide unnecessary messages to console.

  -y, --overwrite                Overwrite existing output files.

  -g, --group-by-month           Merge clips based on the captured month instead of date.

  -m, --ffmpeg                   Specify the path to "ffmpeg" executable if FFmpeg is not configurated
                                 in system PATH variable.

  -p, --ffprobe                  Specify the path to "ffprobe" executable if FFmpeg is not configurated
                                 in system PATH variable.

  -t, --filename-template        The template string for generating output file name. Default value is
                                 "{0}_{1:yyyy-MM-dd}.mp4" where {0} is the camera name and {1} is the
                                 capture time (standard .NET date/time format can be applied).
                                 If -g option is used without -t, the default template
                                 "{0}_{1:yyyy-MM}.mp4" will be used.

  -r, --video-frame-rate         (Default: 25) The output video frame rate.

  -d, --title-duration           (Default: 2) The duration (in seconds) of title image.

  -c, --video-codec              (Default: libx265) The video codec for merged output files.

  -s, --video-codec-preset       The video codec preset to be used for output files. It will affect
                                 the output quality and not all video codec supported.

  -i, --ignore-duration          (Default: 1) Ignore clips that having duration (in seconds) lesser
                                 than specified value. It should help to skip corrupted clips.

  -f, --camera-filter            The camera name regex filter. Such as -f "^Gar" will match
                                 Garden and Garage clips.

  --start-date                   Filter out the clips captured before this start date. The date should
                                 be in yyyy-MM-dd format.

  --end-date                     Filter out the clips captured after this end date. The date should be
                                 in yyyy-MM-dd format.

  --thread-culture               The custom thread culture to be used for date/time formatting. Such as
                                 zh-TW for Taiwan.

  --font-family                  (Default: sans-serif) The font family used in titles.

  --font-size                    (Default: 144) The font size of titles.

  --date-format                  (Default: yyyy-MM-dd) The date format of title that using standard
                                 .NET date/time formatting string.

  --time-format                  (Default: HH:mm:ss) The time format of title that using standard
                                 .NET date/time formatting string.

  --title-foreground             (Default: #ffffff) Foreground color of title.

  --title-background             (Default: #000000) Background color of title.

  --help                         Display this help screen.

  --version                      Display version information.

  <input directory> (pos. 0)     Required. Path to the Blink clips source directory

  <output directory> (pos. 1)    Required. Path to the video output directory

Examples

# Basic example that using default options.
# Merging video clips under C:\blink\ and save output files to C:\merged\.

> BlinkClipsMerger.exe C:\blink\ C:\merged\

# For Windows, specifying ffmpeg and ffprobe path if it is not configurated in PATH variable

> BlinkClipsMerger.exe -m C:\FFmpeg\ffmpeg.exe -p C:\FFmpeg\ffprobe.exe C:\blink\ C:\merged\

# Customize the title image by using "Arial" font with size 192.
# The date in title image will be formatted in "dd MMM YYY" by using Taiwan culture (zh-TW).
# Yellow color (#FFFF00) for title text and blue color (#0000FF) as background.

> BlinkClipsMerger.exe --font-family Arial --font-size 192 --thread-culture zh-TW --date-format "dd MMM yyyy" --title-foreground #FFFF00 --title-background #0000FF C:\blink\ C:\merged\

# Merge video clips of the same camera within the same month and using a custom output file name template.
# Output video files will be encoded by using H.264 with "slow" preset (slightly better quality).
# Camera name filter is applied so that only clips captured by camera with name started with "Gar" will be processed. Such as "Garden" and "Garage".

> BlinkClipsMerger.exe -g -t "MyClip_{0}_{1:yyyyMM}.mkv" -c libx264 -s slow -f "^Gar" C:\blink\ C:\merged\

Assumptions

• The video clips should be copied out from Blink Sync Module 2.
• The name of month directory name is using yy-MM format. Such as 24-10.
• The name of date directories are using yy-MM-dd format. Such as 24-10-04.
• The name of video clips are using HH-mm-ss_[Camera]_[Sequence] format. Such as 13-24-56_Garden_012.

Dependency Libraries

• CliWrap for running FFmpeg on different platforms. This library has a special terms of use so please take a look before using BlinkClipsMerger.
• CommandLineParser for parsing command line arguments.
• SkiaSharp for generating customizable title images.

License

Licensed under the MIT license.