These past weeks, we have provided you with many different tutorials about how you can edit video files using the RESTful API of online-convert.com. This article will wrap up all you can do and list the tutorials for easier access.
There are a few preliminaries before you can start video editing though:
- get a free API key for our API (you get that one after registering for free)
- get Postman
- check out how to use Postman for APIs
How To Edit Videos Using Our API
Online-Convert.com is no video editing service. We allow you to convert many different files into more common formats. However, when converting, you can already do some minor editing of your files that makes the opening, viewing and using them easier.
Video files have gotten the “special treatment” at online-convert.com lately. Thus, here are the practical things in terms of video editing you can do while converting your video and movie files.
Cut Video Files
Your video is too long? Or you simply want only a part of it? Then you can cut it using our API. By setting a start and stop time, only the part of the video you specified this way will be converted into another (or the same) format.
All you need is the following piece of code:
"options": {
"start": "00:00:06",
"end": "00:00:11"
}
Crop Video Files
Not to mix up with cutting videos, cropping a video changes the image/view that is shown to you on a video player. This can be useful to cut out black bars on the sides or bottom and top of a video. Likewise, it allows you to crop out only one part of the video instead of the whole screen.
To do so, you just need to insert this code into your POST command:
"options": {
"crop_top": 10,
"crop_bottom": 50,
"crop_left": 150,
"crop_right": 200
}
Change Video & Audio Codec
Video, as well as audio data contained in a video clip or movie, can be encoded in different ways. For that, different codecs or standards are used. If you want to find out more about codecs, check out this article: Video Codecs and Containers – What Are They?
Changing the codec, both for video and audio streams, can be necessary since not all players support all codec. This is true for both media players for your computer, tablet or phone, and for hardware players. Thus, maybe a file that does not play for you simply needs another codec. Likewise, when you only see the video or can only see the audio stream, maybe the respective other needs a different codec.
Changing the codecs is easy with our API:
"options": {
"codec": "mpeg4",
"audio_codec": "aac"
}
Remove Audio Streams
In case you want to just have the visual information from a video and not the audio, you can easily remove the audio stream:
"options": {
"remove_audio": true
}
Change Aspect Ratio
Videos have a certain aspect ratio, like the commonly used 16:9. However, on some screens, a different aspect ratio would look better. Thus, we offer you the possibility to change it:
"options": {
"aspect_ratio": "16:9"
}
Change Audio Channel
There are two majorly used audio channels: stereo and mono. With our API, you can change from one to the other:
"options": {
"channel": "mono"
}
Mirror A Video
Mirroring a video can create nice effects for your videos or add a different look to them. With this piece of code, you can mirror a video either horizontally or vertically:
"options": {
"mirror": "vertical"
}
Rotate A Video
Especially when taking a video with a mobile phone, it can happen that it is upside down or tilted to the side. Using our API, you can rotate your video a certain amount of degrees, clockwise:
"options": {
"rotate": "180"
}
The last video editing operations are explained in much more detail here: More Video Editing Options
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