Video editing from Python, without FFmpeg on your machine.

What running FFmpeg from Python usually costs

• A binary to install on every machine that runs the code, including the container that gets rebuilt at three in the morning.
• subprocess with a list of arguments you build by hand, where a wrong flag surfaces as a non-zero exit code and a wall of stderr.
• The encode happens in your process, so a long render holds a worker and the memory that goes with it.

Trim a clip and wait for the file

import os, time, requests

KINOPIPE = "https://kinopipe.com/api/v1"
HEADERS = {"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['KINOPIPE_API_KEY']}"}

def run(tool, inputs, options=None):
    started = requests.post(
        f"{KINOPIPE}/tools/{tool}",
        headers=HEADERS,
        json={"inputs": inputs, "options": options or {}},
        timeout=30,
    )
    started.raise_for_status()
    job_id = started.json()["jobId"]

    while True:
        job = requests.get(f"{KINOPIPE}/jobs/{job_id}", headers=HEADERS, timeout=30).json()
        if job["status"] in ("succeeded", "failed"):
            return job
        time.sleep(2)

job = run(
    "trim-video",
    [{"id": "main", "url": "https://example.com/interview.mp4"}],
    {"start": 12, "end": 48},
)

if job["status"] == "failed":
    raise RuntimeError(job.get("errorMessage", "the job did not finish"))

print(job["result"]["output"]["downloadUrl"])

• The tool slug is the only thing that changes between operations: swap trim-video for resize-video, compress-video or add-subtitles-to-video and keep the same function.
• Send an Idempotency-Key header when you retry, and the retry returns the original job instead of paying for a second render.
• For a file on disk, POST to /api/v1/uploads with the filename, content type and byte size, submit the file to the URL it returns, then use the media URL as the input.

FAQ