Shorts

Turn multi-angle drag race footage into a vertical YouTube Short using FFmpeg.

The script takes 4 camera angles of the same drag race, shows the pass-by angle first, then stacks the three remaining angles into a single 9:16 (1080×1920) frame.

Layout

The final video is a sequence of two segments:

1. Camera 4 — exterior pass-by of both cars, cropped/scaled to fill the full 1080×1920 frame.
2. Stacked segment — cameras 1, 2, and 3 stacked vertically on a black canvas:
   • Top — camera 2 (exterior facing opponent car)
   • Middle — camera 1 (exterior behind the car)
   • Bottom — camera 3 (interior speedometer)

Requirements

• FFmpeg and ffprobe available on your PATH
• Python 3.8+

Check your install:

ffmpeg -version
ffprobe -version

Usage

1. Drop exactly 4 .mp4 camera angle files into ./files/.

   Files are picked up in sorted filename order, so name them so they sort into the intended camera order (cam1, cam2, cam3, cam4).

2. Adjust the trim settings in main.py if needed:

   stack_start = "00:00:14"   # start for the stacked clips (cam1/2/3)
   stack_end   = "00:00:33"   # end for the stacked clips
   cam4_start  = "00:00:17"   # start for the pass-by clip
   cam4_end    = "00:00:20"   # end for the pass-by clip

3. Run it:

   python main.py

4. The result is written to ./files/converted/final_short.mp4.

How alignment works

The three stacked recordings were started at different moments but end at the same real-world instant. The script probes each clip's duration with ffprobe, then keeps only the last min_dur seconds of each so their tails line up, and applies stack_start/stack_end inside that common window. This is the FFmpeg equivalent of dragging the clip tails together on a timeline.

Notes

• The canvas is fixed at 1080×1920 @ 60fps (YouTube Shorts standard).
• All clips get a brightness=0.10 / contrast=1.16 color adjustment; camera 2 is additionally cropped (top 15%, bottom 28%).
• Contents of ./files/ are git-ignored.
• See ffmpeg-cheatsheet.md for a filter reference and Notes for the original layout values from the Adobe project.