Detect the best available hardware video encoder on this machine. Probes NVENC, VideoToolbox, AMF, VA-API, and QSV with a 1-frame validation encode and falls back to CPU (libx264) when no GPU encoder works. Use before rendering or grading to confirm hardware acceleration. Results are cached for 7 days in ~/.ffmpeg-render-pro/gpu-cache.json. Requires ffmpeg on PATH or FFMPEG_RENDER_PRO_FFMPEG.

Get render system capabilities: CPU cores, total and free RAM, the recommended parallel worker count for a target resolution, detected GPU encoder, segment and final codecs, and ffmpeg version. Use before render_video to choose a worker count or check whether this machine can handle a resolution. Requires ffmpeg on PATH or FFMPEG_RENDER_PRO_FFMPEG.

Render a video by running a frame-generating worker script across parallel worker threads. Splits the frame range across N workers, encodes one MP4 segment per worker, then joins segments with stream copy. Prerequisites: ffmpeg installed, plus a worker script implementing the ffmpeg-render-pro worker contract; call get_worker_template first if you need to author a worker, or use its templatePath for a ready-made test scene. Side effects: overwrites output_path if it already exists and writes dashboard files under /preview. Long renders emit MCP progress notifications when the client supplies a progressToken (enable resetTimeoutOnProgress for renders longer than the client request timeout; per-frame progress detail requires dashboard true, the default). Client cancellation stops all workers and removes temp files. Note: this tool defaults to 30 fps; the CLI defaults to 60.

Get the worker script contract required by render_video, plus the full source of the bundled reference worker (a procedural test scene with no dependencies). Use this before authoring a custom worker script, or pass the returned templatePath directly as render_video's worker_script to render the test scene. Read-only: returns documentation and source text, touches nothing.

Apply a color grade to a video file and write the result to a new file. Provide either a built-in preset (noir, warm, cool, cinematic, vintage) or a custom ffmpeg -vf filter string (filter overrides preset). Re-encodes the video stream with the chosen codec; audio is stripped unless keep_audio is true. Prerequisite: ffmpeg installed. Side effect: overwrites output_path if it already exists.

Combine a video file and an audio file into one output file. The video stream is copied without re-encoding; audio is encoded to AAC at the given bitrate. Loops audio shorter than the video when loop is true, and can apply loudness normalization (ffmpeg loudnorm) for YouTube-style targets. Prerequisite: ffmpeg installed. Side effect: overwrites output_path if it already exists.

Join multiple video files into one with stream copy: no re-encoding, completes in seconds regardless of file size. All inputs must share the same codec, resolution, framerate, and pixel format. By default each input is probed with ffprobe and mismatches are rejected before ffmpeg runs, because ffmpeg itself accepts mismatched inputs and writes a silently corrupt file; set validate false to skip the probes for inputs known to be uniform. Prerequisite: ffmpeg installed. Side effect: overwrites output_path if it already exists.