Video editing from PHP, without FFmpeg on your machine.

What running FFmpeg from PHP usually costs

• Shared hosting commonly disables shell_exec and proc_open, which rules out every FFmpeg wrapper at once.
• Where it is allowed, the render runs inside a request and hits max_execution_time long before a real video is finished.
• Escaping a filter graph through the shell is its own category of bug, and it fails at render time rather than at review time.

Trim a clip and wait for the file

<?php
$KINOPIPE = 'https://kinopipe.com/api/v1';
$headers = [
    'Authorization: Bearer ' . getenv('KINOPIPE_API_KEY'),
    'Content-Type: application/json',
];

function kinopipe(string $url, array $headers, ?array $body = null): array {
    $curl = curl_init($url);
    curl_setopt_array($curl, [
        CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
        CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER => $headers,
        CURLOPT_TIMEOUT => 30,
    ]);
    if ($body !== null) {
        curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_POST, true);
        curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, json_encode($body));
    }
    $response = curl_exec($curl);
    curl_close($curl);
    return json_decode($response, true);
}

$started = kinopipe("$KINOPIPE/tools/trim-video", $headers, [
    'inputs' => [['id' => 'main', 'url' => 'https://example.com/interview.mp4']],
    'options' => ['start' => 12, 'end' => 48],
]);

do {
    sleep(2);
    $job = kinopipe("$KINOPIPE/jobs/{$started['jobId']}", $headers);
} while (!in_array($job['status'], ['succeeded', 'failed'], true));

if ($job['status'] === 'failed') {
    throw new RuntimeException($job['errorMessage'] ?? 'the job did not finish');
}

echo $job['result']['output']['downloadUrl'];

• Nothing here needs an extension beyond cURL, which shared hosting keeps enabled even when it forbids running processes.
• For a long render, store the job id and poll it from a cron task rather than holding the request open.
• Send an Idempotency-Key header when you retry, and the retry returns the original job instead of paying for a second render.

FAQ