# joelibaceta/video-to-ascii

It is a simple python package to play videos in the terminal using characters as pixels

Repository: https://github.com/joelibaceta/video-to-ascii
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/video-to-ascii
Language: Python
License: MIT
License Family: permissive
Topics: video, terminal, opencv, python, ascii, play-videos, ansi-colors, cli, opensource, python3, pip, ffmpeg, wav, portaudio, pixel, bash, console, ascii-art
Last push: 2025-09-27T02:46:56+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 43/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 44, release rhythm 8, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 2838, "days_push": 340, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1859, forks 151 (observed 2026-08-28T04:05:45.215688+00:00)

## What it is
A Python package and CLI tool that plays video files in the terminal by rendering frames as ASCII characters, with optional ANSI color and audio playback support. It resizes video frames to fit terminal dimensions and can export the rendered output as a bash script.

## Use cases
- play a video in my terminal as ascii art
- render mp4 frames as colored ascii characters in the console
- export an ascii video animation as a shareable bash script
- play video with audio track in the terminal
- convert video frames to terminal-friendly ascii output

## When to choose
- you want a fun, lightweight way to play videos directly in a Linux or macOS terminal
- you need ascii-art video rendering with optional color and audio support
- you want to export terminal video animations as portable bash scripts

## When to avoid
- you need actual video playback with full quality or a GUI player
- you are on Windows, which is not supported
- you need video editing or transcoding capabilities rather than terminal rendering

## Facets
- artifact type: cli-tool
- maturity: active
- function: video-processing, cli, graphics
- domain: media, developer-tools
- platform: cli, python
- tags: ascii-art, terminal, opencv, ffmpeg, ansi-colors, entertainment, command-line, linux, macos

## Member repositories
- joelibaceta/video-to-ascii (main) score 43

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:05:45.215688+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T03:16:00.825799+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/joelibaceta/video-to-ascii (fetched 2026-08-28T04:05:45.215688+00:00, sha 8a91ee3a6c51)
  - registry_pypi: https://pypi.org/pypi/video-to-ascii/json (fetched 2026-08-29T10:55:11.367711+00:00, sha 372b1d0a5da1)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.