Make Widescreen Highlight

Overview

Create a 16:9 video clip by blurring and cropping a scaled copy of the source video as the background, then overlaying the original video centered and unblurred. Default to a 10-second highlight when the user asks for a highlight and gives no exact timestamp.

Use scripts/make_widescreen_highlight.py for the actual processing. It wraps ffmpeg, preserves audio by default, can auto-detect a motion-heavy highlight window, and handles paths with spaces or non-English characters.

Workflow

1. Find the input video:

   • If the user names a file and folder, search that folder first.
   • If the user says "Downloads" or "Download", search the user's Downloads directory.
   • Match partial names when needed, then confirm only if multiple plausible files remain.

2. Decide the highlight window:

   • Use the user's exact start/end or start/duration when provided.
   • If no timestamp is provided, use --auto-highlight and default --duration 10.
   • If the user says "highlight" but also specifies a timestamp, prefer the timestamp.

3. Generate the widescreen output:

   • Default resolution: 1920x1080.
   • Default aspect ratio: 16:9.
   • Background: scaled to fill, cropped, and blurred.
   • Foreground: original video scaled to fit inside the frame, centered, not blurred.
   • Audio: preserve original audio unless the user asks to mute.

4. Verify output:

   • Confirm the output file exists and has nonzero size.
   • Probe or inspect ffmpeg output to ensure the final dimensions are 16:9.
   • Report the output path, selected highlight start/end, and whether audio was preserved.

Script Usage

Basic:

python scripts/make_widescreen_highlight.py --input "C:\path\video.mp4" --output "C:\path\video_widescreen_highlight.mp4"

Common options:

python scripts/make_widescreen_highlight.py `
  --input "C:\path\video.mp4" `
  --output "C:\path\video_16x9_highlight.mp4" `
  --auto-highlight `
  --duration 10 `
  --resolution 1920x1080 `
  --blur 30

Manual timestamp:

python scripts/make_widescreen_highlight.py --input "C:\path\video.mp4" --start 24 --duration 10

If ffmpeg is not on PATH, install or locate one and pass --ffmpeg <path>. In Codex desktop environments, imageio-ffmpeg can be installed into a temporary directory and the script can use it when that package is importable.

Output Naming

When the user does not specify an output path, place the rendered file next to the input using:

<original-stem>_16x9_highlight.mp4

For workspace-deliverable outputs, use a clear path under the current workspace's outputs/ directory.

Quality Notes

Prefer 1920x1080 for final delivery unless the input is tiny or the user asks for a smaller file. Use 1280x720 for quick previews.

If auto-highlight selects an obviously bad segment, such as black frames, a title card, or dead air, inspect a thumbnail sheet and rerun with --start.