Media Processing Tools

vx supports media processing tools for audio, video, and image manipulation.

FFmpeg

A complete, cross-platform solution to record, convert and stream audio and video.

vx install `ffmpeg@latest

vx ffmpeg -version
vx ffmpeg -i input.mp4 output.avi
vx ffmpeg -i video.mp4 -vn -acodec copy audio.aac
vx ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf scale=1280:720 output.mp4

Bundled tools:

• ffprobe - Multimedia stream analyzer
• ffplay - Simple media player

# Use ffprobe for media inspection
vx ffprobe -v quiet -print_format json -show_format input.mp4

# Use ffplay for quick playback
vx ffplay video.mp4

ImageMagick

A powerful image manipulation and conversion tool.

vx install `magick@latest

vx magick --version
vx magick input.png output.jpg
vx magick -resize 50% input.png output.png
vx magick montage *.jpg -geometry +2+2 collage.png

Platform Support:

• Linux: Direct download via AppImage
• macOS: Installed via Homebrew (brew install imagemagick)
• Windows: Installed via system package managers with silent/non-interactive mode:
  • winget (preferred, built-in on Windows 11) - Uses --silent --disable-interactivity
  • choco - Uses -y --no-progress --limit-output
  • scoop - Non-interactive by default

Silent Installation:

When installing ImageMagick on Windows, vx automatically uses silent installation flags to avoid interactive prompts. This makes it suitable for CI/CD environments and automated workflows:

# vx handles all the silent flags automatically
vx install `magick@latest

# Behind the scenes, vx uses:
# winget: winget install --id ImageMagick.ImageMagick --silent --disable-interactivity
# choco:  choco install imagemagick -y --no-progress --limit-output

Common operations:

# Format conversion
vx magick input.png output.jpg

# Resize image
vx magick input.png -resize 800x600 output.png

# Create thumbnail
vx magick input.jpg -thumbnail 150x150^ -gravity center -extent 150x150 thumb.jpg

# Add watermark
vx magick input.png watermark.png -gravity southeast -composite output.png

# Batch convert
vx magick mogrify -format jpg *.png

Note: In ImageMagick 7+, the unified magick command replaces legacy commands like convert, mogrify, etc. Use magick convert instead of just convert.

Project Configuration Example

[tools]
ffmpeg = "latest"
magick = "latest"

[scripts]
convert-video = "ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:v libx264 -preset slow output.mp4"
thumbnail = "magick input.jpg -thumbnail 200x200^ -gravity center -extent 200x200 thumbnail.jpg"
extract-audio = "ffmpeg -i video.mp4 -vn -acodec libmp3lame audio.mp3"
resize-images = "magick mogrify -resize 50% *.jpg"