When passing video to the Video Intelligence API, you can either pass a
Cloud Storage URI, or you can embed video data directly within the request's
content
field, which must be base64 encoded.
Embed Base64 encoded video
Video data is binary data. Within a gRPC request, you can simply write the binary data out directly; however, JSON is used when making a REST request. JSON is a text format that does not directly support binary data, so you will need to convert such binary data into text using Base64 encoding.
To base64 encode a video file:
Linux
Encode the video file using the base64 command line tool, making sure to
prevent line-wrapping by using the -w 0
flag:
$ base64 SOURCE_VIDEO_FILE -w 0 > DEST_TEXT_FILE
Mac OSX
Encode the video file using the base64 command line tool:
$ base64 SOURCE_VIDEO_FILE > DEST_TEXT_FILE
Windows
Encode the video file using a Base64.exe tool:
C:> certutil -encodehex SOURCE_VIDEO_FILE > DEST_TEXT_FILE 0x40000001
The base64-encoded data is written out to the specified destination file. Pass
the data in a Video Intelligence API request as the value of the content
field:
{ "requests":[ { "image":{ "content": "ZkxhQwAAACIQABAAAAUJABtAA+gA8AB+W8FZndQvQAyjv..." }, "features": [ { "type":"LABEL_DETECTION", "maxResults":1 } ] } ] }
Embed video content programmatically
Copying encoded video data manually into your requests is not always practical; the preferred method is to embed base64-encoded files into client code. All supported programming languages have built-in mechanisms for base64-encoding content:
Python
In Python, base64 encode video files as follows:
# Import the base64 encoding library.
import base64
# Pass the video data to an encoding function.
def encode_video(video):
video_content = video.read()
return base64.b64encode(video_content)
Node.js
In Node.js, base64 encode video files as follows:
// Read the file into memory.
var fs = require('fs');
var videoFile = fs.readFileSync('/path/to/file');
// Convert the video data to a Buffer and base64 encode it.
var encoded = new Buffer(videoFile).toString('base64');
Java
In Java, you can base64 encode image files as follows:
// Import the Base64 encoding library.
import org.apache.commons.codec.binary.Base64;
// Encode the video.
byte[] videoData = Base64.encodeBase64(videoFile.getBytes());