SugarReel

Terminal video player — plays mp4 / gif / avi / webm and more on the fly, rendering each frame as ASCII, ANSI 256-color, truecolor half-blocks, or via modern graphics protocols (sixel / kitty / iTerm2). Like mpv -vo tct, but in PHP and reusing the SugarCraft rendering stack throughout.

composer require sugarcraft/sugar-reel

use SugarCraft\Reel\Player;

// Play a video with auto-detected terminal capability.
$player = Player::open('clip.mp4', cols: 80, rows: 24);

// Run it (Space=play, q=quit).
(new \SugarCraft\Core\Program($player))->run();

Status: Step 7 ✓ — full implementation with ffmpeg decode pipe, pure-PHP GIF fallback, all rendering modes (ascii/ansi256/truecolor/ half-block/sixel/kitty/iTerm2), delta repaint, seek, speed control, and a runnable example.

Install

composer require sugarcraft/sugar-reel

Requires:

• PHP 8.3+
• ffmpeg and ffprobe in $PATH for mp4/avi/webm playback
• ext-gd for .gif playback (pure-PHP fallback, no ffmpeg needed)
• A terminal with at least 256-color support for ANSI modes

Usage

# Built-in synthetic test pattern (no video file needed)
php examples/play.php

# Play a real video file
php examples/play.php video.mp4

# Force a specific rendering mode
php examples/play.php video.mp4 halfblock
php examples/play.php video.mp4 ascii

# Force auto mode (probe terminal, pick best available)
php examples/play.php video.mp4 auto

# Set terminal dimensions
SUGAR_REEL_COLS=120 SUGAR_REEL_ROWS=40 php examples/play.php

Rendering modes

Mode	Description	Terminal requirement
ascii	Grayscale luminance ramp ( .,:;i1tfLCG08@)	Any
ansi256	256-color cube + grey ramp	256-color
truecolor	24-bit RGB truecolor	24-bit color
halfblock	24-bit ▀ half-blocks, 2× vertical resolution	24-bit color
sixel	Sixel graphics protocol (DEC)	Sixel-capable
kitty	Kitty graphics protocol (DCS APC)	Kitty-compatible
iterm2	iTerm2 inline image (OSC 1337)	iTerm2 / WezTerm
auto	Probe terminal, pick best available (default)	—

Auto mode probes the terminal using Mosaic::diagnose() (for sixel/kitty/ iTerm2) and falls back to ColorProfile::detect() for ANSI modes.

Luminance ramp selection

ASCII/ANSI256 text modes use a luminance ramp to map pixel brightness to characters. Three named ramps are available:

Ramp	Characters	Best for
minimal	.:-=+*#%@	Low-resolution / high contrast
standard	.,:;i1tfLCG08@	General use (default)
dense	`` .`^",:;Il!i><~+_-?][}{1)(	\/tfjrxnuvczXYUJCLQ0OZmwqpdbkhao*#MW&8%B@$``

// Use the dense ramp for more detailed ASCII output
Reel::open('video.mp4')->withRamp('dense')->play();

Keyboard controls

Key	Action
Space	Pause / resume
←	Seek backward 10 frames
→	Seek forward 10 frames
[	Decrease playback speed (−0.25×, min 0.25×)
]	Increase playback speed (+0.25×, max 4.0×)
0–9	Seek to 0–90% of video duration
m	Cycle to next rendering mode
q / Esc	Quit
resize	Terminal resize (SIGWINCH) re-scales video automatically
loop	Loop is set at open time via Reel::new()->withLoop(true)->play() (no keyboard shortcut)

Architecture

video file (mp4/gif/avi/webm)
        │
        ▼
┌───────────────────┐     ┌─────────────────┐
│ VideoSource::probe│     │ DecoderFactory  │
│   (ffprobe JSON)  │────▶│ create()        │
└───────────────────┘     └────────┬─────────┘
                                 │
                    ┌────────────┴────────────┐
                    │                        │
               GifDecoder             FfmpegDecoder
               (pure PHP / GD)         (ffmpeg pipe)
                    │                        │
                    └────────────┬───────────┘
                                ▼
                    ┌──────────────────────┐
                    │   RgbFrame (rgb24)    │
                    └──────────┬─────────────┘
                               │
                    ┌─────────┴──────────────┐
                    │   FrameRenderer /       │
                    │   Mosaic bridge         │
                    └─────────┬──────────────┘
                              │
                    ┌─────────┴──────────────┐
                    │   Player (TEA Model)    │
                    │   tick() → view()       │
                    └─────────┬──────────────┘
                              │
                    ┌─────────▼──────────────┐
                    │   Program (candy-core)  │
                    │   raw mode + alt screen│
                    └────────────────────────┘

• Decode: FfmpegDecoder shells out to ffmpeg for raw RGB frames (pre-scaled to cell dimensions). GifDecoder wraps candy-flip's pure-PHP GIF decoder.
• Render: Delegates to candy-mosaic for sixel/kitty/iTerm2. Uses candy-palette for color mapping. Delta repaint via candy-buffer.
• Pace: Cmd::tick() wall-clock alignment via Sync, no busy-waiting.
• Audio: AudioPlayer shells out to ffplay or mpv --no-video as the audio master clock.

Prior art

SugarReel has no single upstream. Its decode → render → pace pipeline draws on three terminal-video projects, credited here:

• maxcurzi/tplay — Rust terminal media player.
• seatedro/glyph — edge-aware ASCII/ANSI video renderer.
• joelibaceta/video-to-ascii — Python video-to-ASCII player.

The rendering stack is reused from the SugarCraft ecosystem rather than reinvented: candy-mosaic (image → cell renderers), candy-flip (downsampling / dithering), candy-palette (color mapping), and candy-core (TEA runtime + frame pacing).

Known limitations

• Audio plays at 1.0× regardless of playback speed. Changing speed with [/] only affects video pacing. The audio companion (ffplay/mpv) always plays at normal speed. A/V will diverge noticeably when using speeds other than 1.0×.

• Seeking repositions audio but not frame-exactly. A seek creates a new AudioPlayer at the correct offset, but the video frame timing and audio timing are only approximately synchronized (frame-skip resync keeps them close at 1.0×).

• GIF playback fills the terminal in HalfBlock mode (each cell = 2 source rows). In text modes (ascii/ansi256/truecolor) the GIF renders at its native pixel dimensions without 2× vertical scaling.