Format Video Length in HH:MM:SS from Command Line

By  on  

In my experimentation with audio and video manipulation, I've found that most tools prefer to handle time in HH:MM:SS (hour:minute:second) format.  I always presumed that using seconds would be easier but I'm barely a novice media tool user, much less a tool creator.

When I wrote the Create Short Preview from Video post, I calculated the video length in seconds with the following command:

length=$(ffprobe $sourcefile  -show_format 2>&1 | sed -n 's/duration=//p' | awk '{print int($0)}')]

That was helpful in detecting if a video was long enough to generate a preview for, but I then needed to get that length in HH:MM:SS format:

formattedlength=$(printf "%02d:%02d:%02d\n" $(($length/3600)) $(($length%3600/60)) $(($length%60)))

In the end you need to evaluate loads of individual statements to get your final HH:MM:SS format!

Recent Features

  • By
    fetch API

    One of the worst kept secrets about AJAX on the web is that the underlying API for it, XMLHttpRequest, wasn't really made for what we've been using it for.  We've done well to create elegant APIs around XHR but we know we can do better.  Our effort to...

  • By
    Vibration API

    Many of the new APIs provided to us by browser vendors are more targeted toward the mobile user than the desktop user.  One of those simple APIs the Vibration API.  The Vibration API allows developers to direct the device, using JavaScript, to vibrate in...

Incredible Demos

  • By
    Create Classy Inputs Using MooTools’ OverText

    The MooTools More library is a goldmine. A treasure chest. Pirates booty, if you will (and, of course, I will). More is full of plugins that add a lot of class and functionality to your website with minimal effort.

  • By
    MooTools Zebra Tables Plugin

    Tabular data can oftentimes be boring, but it doesn't need to look that way! With a small MooTools class, I can make tabular data extremely easy to read by implementing "zebra" tables -- tables with alternating row background colors. The CSS The above CSS is extremely basic.

Discussion

    Wrap your code in <pre class="{language}"></pre> tags, link to a GitHub gist, JSFiddle fiddle, or CodePen pen to embed!