Hey everyone! I’m trying to automate taking screenshots of web pages that have HTML5 video players and their thumbnails. I’ve been looking into headless browsers, but I’m running into a problem.
I tried PhantomJS, which is pretty popular, but it doesn’t support HTML5 video. I ran a test and it showed a bunch of supported features, but video wasn’t on the list.
Does anyone know of a lightweight headless browser that can handle HTML5 video? I really need this for my project. Thanks in advance for any suggestions!
// Example test code
const browser = new HeadlessBrowser();
const page = await browser.newPage();
await page.goto('https://example.com/video-player');
const screenshot = await page.screenshot();
console.log('Screenshot taken:', screenshot);
have u tried puppeteer? its lightweight and supports html5 video. i use it for similar stuff and it works great. Plus its maintained by Google so you know its gonna be good. just install it with npm and youre good to go
I’d recommend looking into Selenium with headless Chrome or Firefox. It’s a robust solution that supports HTML5 video and provides extensive automation capabilities. While not as lightweight as some alternatives, it’s widely used and well-documented. You’ll need to install the WebDriver for your chosen browser, but once set up, it’s quite straightforward to use. Here’s a basic Python example:
from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.options import Options
options = Options()
options.add_argument('--headless')
driver = webdriver.Chrome(options=options)
driver.get('https://example.com/video-player')
driver.save_screenshot('screenshot.png')
driver.quit()
This approach should work for your HTML5 video screenshot needs.
I’ve been down this road before, and let me tell you, Playwright is your best bet. It’s like Puppeteer on steroids - lightweight, fast, and fully supports HTML5 video. I switched to it a few months back for a similar project, and it’s been a game-changer.
What I love about Playwright is its cross-browser support. You can run your tests on Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit with the same code. Plus, it’s got this neat feature called ‘video recording’ which might be useful for your screenshot project.
Here’s a quick snippet to get you started:
const { chromium } = require('playwright');
(async () => {
const browser = await chromium.launch();
const page = await browser.newPage();
await page.goto('https://example.com/video-player');
await page.screenshot({ path: 'screenshot.png' });
await browser.close();
})();
Give it a shot. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by how smooth it runs.