Create Videos in the Browser using JavaScript
Develop video-based applications using a powerful video editor SDK that supports React, Angular, Vue, and plain JavaScript. Add video editing capabilities to your web application – all within hours rather than months.
- Create & edit video using JavaScript
- Quickly build online video editors
- No video infrastructure to manage
How to Render Video using JavaScript
Create video-based applications with ease. Consider, for example, a video app that creates videos based on
real estate photos, or a video platform that produces videos from user-generated content. Whatever the case, you'll probably want your users to customize and view their videos in the browser before producing a final MP4.
This is where browser-based video rendering comes into play.
1Think of any web application
Let's say you're developing a web application for creating social media videos. Your goal is to provide your users with the ability to create and customize videos based on content that they enter in a form. In addition, you would like to allow users to make changes to the styling, colors, and captions of the video as well as to view a real-time preview of the video within your web app. After editing the video, the user should be able to download or share the video on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, or any other platform.
This is exactly what can be achieved with the SDK, without sacrificing the freedom to build your own custom UI and functionality. Rather than limiting you to a specific interface, the SDK provides a modular and flexible dynamic video player that can be seamlessly integrated into any web-based application.
await player.loadTemplate('...');
await player.setModifications({
'My-Text': 'Your Text And Video Here',
'Bg-Video': 'https://example.com/video.mp4'
});
await player.play();
2Import the JavaScript SDK
Whether you are using React, Angular, Vue, or plain JavaScript, you can easily integrate the video editor library into your application with just a few lines of code.
The module consists of a simple JavaScript component that can be added like a simple HTML5 video element. Just specify where you want the responsive video preview to display, and the SDK handles the rest.
It has a simple programmatic interface with full control over the video. As a developer, you can manipulate the video in real-time without limitations, including images, video, fonts, filters, and colors. It's even possible to render a video entirely using JSON. This lets you build something as simple as a video customization app to something as complex as a full-featured video editor.
Want to see what's possible? Our own Form-to-Video, Spreadsheet-to-Video, and Video Editor all use this exact software component to display video previews. You can also try our open source GitHub demo:
3Optional: Export to MP4
The SDK is fully compatible with our Video Editing API, so you can render a high-quality MP4 after the user has finished editing the video. Once the video has been completed, it may be uploaded to social media or published elsewhere.
This API provides a cloud-based infrastructure for on-demand video processing. If you have hundreds of concurrent users, you do not want them to wait in a queue. This is taken care of by the API, as it automatically scales according to demand. This means you don't have to host and manage your own video servers.
As the video API has a simple REST interface, you can easily integrate it with other services and data sources, for example for creating real-time and on-demand video content.
Frequently asked questions
How can I build a video editor in JavaScript?
A JavaScript video editor can be built by utilizing the HTML5 Canvas and WebGL capabilities of modern browsers. Every browser today supports basic image operations using hardware acceleration. When you combine this with the HTML Video and Audio APIs, you have the basis for building a video editing application. However, it only provides primitive drawing operations, so you have to code your own engine to do things like video editing, animations, transformations, and text rendering. Fortunately, Creatomate comes with a full-featured JavaScript library so you don't have to reinvent the wheel. Additionally, it offers an API for exporting videos to MP4.
How capable is the video editor?
The video editor provides all the video editing features required for almost any video render scenario. Both the frontend and backend SDKs use the same rendering engine and have a simple JavaScript API for interacting with the video. Whether it is a browser-based application or a Node.js application, it provides seamless integration with any JavaScript app.
What's the best video API for JavaScript?
We believe that the Creatomate API is the most comprehensive and cost-effective on the market for Node.js applications. We're especially proud of our video rendering tools for JavaScript-based projects, which let you make almost any video application for the web. Get a feel for what the API can do by checking out the web-based video editor and reading this article to see how it compares.
How much effort is required to implement a video editor?
The JavaScript SDK has everything you'll need to develop your own video editor in no time. Its API is built as a collection of reusable components that can be easily integrated into any web application. With its flexibility, it can be used to develop applications ranging from simple video customizers to full-featured video editors.
Can't I just use FFmpeg?
Although FFmpeg is a versatile command-line tool for transcoding video, it can only be used to perform very basic video editing operations. While there are web-based ports of FFmpeg (such as FFmpeg.wasm), they're slow and don't work on many devices. Furthermore, FFmpeg cannot preview real-time videos in the browser. It's also hard to scale up in the cloud, which is another whole topic. In fact, Creatomate was developed for exactly these reasons.
How much does it cost?
The library is included with the Growth subscription plan and allows users to render unlimited videos in the browser. In comparison, our total monthly subscription fee ($99) is only the cost of employing a single software engineer for just a single hour, compared to thousands of hours spent developing, hosting, and maintaining the technology yourself. Due to this, we provide the most cost-effective solution on the market for developing video applications.
