From 612afca9f70e65de8b6511b7b0c008e563313a39 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Ken D'Ambrosio <ken@jots.org>
Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2026 19:09:54 +0000
Subject: Transcode HEVC/non-H264 MP4 files to H.264 for browser compatibility
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Firefox has no HEVC support. Pixel 9a (and newer phones) record video
in HEVC by default. update.rb now probes the codec of every .mp4/.m4v
file via ffprobe and transcodes non-web-friendly codecs (anything not
h264/vp8/vp9/av1) to H.264 MP4 with a .h264.mp4 suffix, same as the
existing MOV→MP4 flow. The original is kept and hidden from non-admins.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
---
 scripts/update.rb | 44 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++---------
 1 file changed, 35 insertions(+), 9 deletions(-)

(limited to 'scripts/update.rb')

diff --git a/scripts/update.rb b/scripts/update.rb
index f909510..996ecbd 100644
--- a/scripts/update.rb
+++ b/scripts/update.rb
@@ -35,7 +35,8 @@ IMAGE_EXTS     = %w[jpg jpeg png gif webp heic heif tiff bmp].freeze
 VIDEO_EXTS     = %w[mp4 mov avi mkv webm m4v ogv].freeze
 AUDIO_EXTS     = %w[mp3 flac ogg wav m4a aac].freeze
 MEDIA_EXTS     = (IMAGE_EXTS + VIDEO_EXTS + AUDIO_EXTS).freeze
-TRANSCODE_EXTS = %w[avi mkv mov].freeze
+TRANSCODE_EXTS    = %w[avi mkv mov].freeze
+WEB_VIDEO_CODECS  = %w[h264 vp8 vp9 av1].freeze
 SENTINEL_FILE  = '.albumen_scanned'.freeze
 
 # Explicit directory argument implies force — you asked for it, it should run.
@@ -91,19 +92,33 @@ def process_dir(dir, idx, total)
     end
   end
 
-  # Transcode non-web-friendly videos to MP4; hide the original
-  current.select { |n| TRANSCODE_EXTS.include?(File.extname(n).downcase.delete_prefix('.')) }
-         .each do |name|
+  # Transcode non-web-friendly videos to H.264 MP4; hide the original
+  current.each do |name|
+    ext  = File.extname(name).downcase.delete_prefix('.')
+    next unless VIDEO_EXTS.include?(ext)
+    full = File.join(dir, name)
+
+    needs_transcode = if TRANSCODE_EXTS.include?(ext)
+      true
+    elsif ext == 'mp4' || ext == 'm4v'
+      codec = video_codec(full)
+      codec && !WEB_VIDEO_CODECS.include?(codec)
+    else
+      false
+    end
+    next unless needs_transcode
+
     base   = File.basename(name, '.*')
-    target = "#{base}.mp4"
-    if current.include?(target)
+    target = TRANSCODE_EXTS.include?(ext) ? "#{base}.mp4" : "#{base}.h264.mp4"
+    if current.include?(target) || data['files'][name]&.fetch('transcoded_to', nil)
       data['files'][name] ||= {}
-      data['files'][name]['transcoded_to'] = target
+      data['files'][name]['transcoded_to'] ||= target
       next
     end
-    full = File.join(dir, name)
+
     dest = File.join(dir, target)
-    log "  Transcoding: #{name} → #{target}"
+    codec_name = TRANSCODE_EXTS.include?(ext) ? ext.upcase : video_codec(full)&.upcase
+    log "  Transcoding #{codec_name}: #{name} → #{target}"
     transcode_to_mp4(full, dest)
     if File.exist?(dest)
       data['files'][name] ||= {}
@@ -225,6 +240,17 @@ rescue StandardError => e
   warn "  Thumb error (image): #{e.message}"
 end
 
+def video_codec(path)
+  out = IO.popen(
+    ['ffprobe', '-v', 'quiet', '-select_streams', 'v:0',
+     '-show_entries', 'stream=codec_name', '-of', 'default=noprint_wrappers=1:nokey=1', path],
+    err: '/dev/null', &:read
+  ).strip
+  out.empty? ? nil : out
+rescue StandardError
+  nil
+end
+
 def transcode_to_mp4(source, dest)
   system(
     'ffmpeg', '-y', '-i', source,
-- 
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