OpenARC

OpenARC is a media archival tool designed to automatically compress and archive phone photos and videos with minimal quality loss. It converts images to BPG format (superior to HEIC) and compresses videos using ffmpeg, creating efficient archives that can reduce a 2.5MB JPEG to just 200KB with no perceptible quality loss.

Features

🎨 Media Processing

• Advanced Image Compression: Converts images to BPG format using HEIC codec

  • Supports: JPEG, PNG, HEIC/HEIF, RAW (DNG, CR2, NEF, ARW, ORF), TIFF, BMP, WebP, JPEG2000
  • 90%+ size reduction with no visible quality loss
  • Configurable quality levels and bit depths (8-14 bit)

• Video Compression: Automatic H.264/H.265 encoding with ffmpeg

  • Smart detection of already-compressed videos
  • Configurable CRF and speed presets
  • Preserves metadata

🗂️ Archive Management

• Dual Archive Formats:
  • .oarc - ArcMax format with FreeArc codecs (high compression)
  • .zstd - Fast ZSTD compression for mixed content
• Deduplication: Hash-based duplicate detection across archives
• Catalog System: SQLite-based tracking of archived files
• Phone Auto-Detection: Automatic MTP device detection and staging

🖥️ User Interface

• Modern WPF GUI (DocBrakeGUI):

  • Media browser with thumbnail/stats toggle
  • Drag-and-drop support
  • Real-time processing queue
  • Settings management
  • MTP device integration

• Stats Mode: NEW! Disable thumbnails to view file metadata

  • 📄 Filename and format
  • 📐 Resolution
  • 💾 File size
  • 📅 Last modified
  • ⏱️ Duration (videos)
  • 📊 Bitrate (videos)

• Interactive CLI Wizard: Drag-and-drop files, configure settings, and process with just 4 Enter presses

• Advanced CLI: Full command-line interface for batch processing, automation, and scripting

Why OpenARC?

Modern smartphones (Android/iPhone) use poor compression in their camera apps. A typical photo library can balloon to hundreds of gigabytes. OpenARC solves this by:

1. Massive Space Savings: 80-95% reduction in archive size
2. Quality Preservation: Visually lossless compression
3. Automation: Set it and forget it - no manual steps
4. Flexibility: Both GUI and CLI for different workflows

Installation

Prerequisites

Required:

• Windows 10/11 (x64)
• .NET 8.0 SDK (for building from source)
• Rust 1.70+ (for building from source)
• Visual Studio Build Tools (C++ components)

Optional:

• ffmpeg/ffprobe (for video processing and stats extraction)
• Git (for cloning repository)

Pre-built Releases

Download the latest release from Releases:

• DocBrakeGUI.exe - Self-contained GUI (no .NET runtime needed)
• openarc.exe - CLI tool
• Required DLLs: openarc_ffi.dll, bpg_viewer.dll, openjp2.dll, openarc_bpg.dll

Extract all files to a folder and run DocBrakeGUI.exe or openarc.exe.

Building from Source

Use the automated build script:

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/LegeApp/OpenArc.git
cd OpenArc

# Build everything (Debug mode)
.\build-all.ps1

# Build Release version
.\build-all.ps1 -Release

The script will:

1. Build BPG codec dependencies
2. Build FreeArc compression codecs
3. Build Rust workspace (CLI, core libraries, FFI bindings)
4. Build DocBrakeGUI as self-contained executable

Build outputs: Release/ folder

• DocBrakeGUI.exe - GUI application (~150MB self-contained)
• openarc.exe - CLI tool (~30MB)

Usage

GUI Application

1. Launch DocBrakeGUI.exe
2. Browse Media:
   • Click "Open Folder" or "Open File"
   • Or drag-and-drop folders/files
3. Select Files: Check boxes next to files/folders to process
4. Configure Settings (gear icon):
   • Photo: BPG quality, bit depth, encoder type
   • Video: Codec (H.264/H.265), CRF, speed preset
   • Archive: Compression level, catalog, deduplication
   • UI: Toggle thumbnails on/off
5. Process: Click "Start Processing" to create archive

CLI Usage

Interactive Mode (Recommended for beginners):

# Launch wizard - just run with no arguments
openarc

# Follow prompts:
# 1. Drag-and-drop or paste file/folder paths
# 2. Configure settings (or press Enter for defaults)
# 3. Select mode (encode-only or encode+archive)
# 4. Choose output location
# 5. Press Enter to start!

Command Line Mode (For automation/scripting):

# Create archive with defaults
openarc create -o my-archive.oarc ~/Pictures ~/Videos

# Custom settings
openarc create \
  -o archive.oarc \
  --bpg-quality 25 \
  --video-preset 1 \
  --compression-level 22 \
  ~/Photos

# Extract archive
openarc extract -i archive.oarc -o output_folder

# List contents
openarc list archive.oarc

See CLI_GUIDE.md for detailed documentation and examples.

Project Structure

OpenArc/
├── DocBrakeGUI/           # WPF GUI application (C#)
│   ├── MediaBrowser/      # Media browsing and thumbnails
│   ├── Services/          # Core services (MTP, processing, etc.)
│   └── ViewModels/        # MVVM view models
├── src/                   # Rust CLI application
├── openarc-ffi/          # FFI bindings for C# interop
├── bpg-viewer/           # BPG/HEIC/RAW image decoder
├── arcmax/               # FreeArc compression library
├── codecs/               # Native codec bindings
├── zune-image/           # Image processing library (submodule)
├── dng-rs/               # RAW image processing
└── openjp2/              # JPEG2000 codec (submodule)

Configuration

Settings File

Settings are stored in:

• GUI: %APPDATA%/DocBrake/settings.json
• CLI: ~/.openarc/config.toml

Available Settings

Setting	Description	Default
bpg_quality	BPG quality (0-51, lower = better)	28
bpg_bit_depth	Bit depth (8-14)	8
bpg_encoder_type	0=x265 (fast), 1=JCTVC (slow/best)	0
video_codec	H264 or H265	H264
video_crf	Video quality (0-51, lower = better)	23
video_speed	Fast, Medium, Slow	Medium
compression_level	Archive compression (1-22)	22
enable_catalog	Track files in SQLite DB	true
enable_dedup	Deduplicate files	true
enable_thumbnails	Show thumbnails vs stats	true

Technical Details

Supported Formats

Input Formats:

• Images: JPEG, PNG, BPG, HEIC/HEIF, TIFF, BMP, GIF, WebP, JPEG2000 (JP2/J2K)
• RAW: DNG, CR2 (Canon), NEF (Nikon), ARW (Sony), ORF (Olympus), RW2, RAF, etc.
• Videos: MP4, MOV, AVI, MKV, WebM, M4V, WMV

Output Formats:

• Images: BPG (HEIC-based)
• Videos: MP4 (H.264/H.265)
• Archives: .oarc (ArcMax) or .zstd

Compression Codecs

• BPG: Custom-built libbpg with x265/JCTVC encoders
• ArcMax: FreeArc compression (LZMA2, PPMD, Tornado, LZP)
• ZSTD: Fast compression for mixed content
• Video: ffmpeg with libx264/libx265

Performance

• Multi-threaded: Parallel processing of files
• GPU Thumbnails: Optional GPU-accelerated thumbnail generation
• Streaming: Memory-efficient streaming for large files
• Caching: Disk-based thumbnail cache

Troubleshooting

Common Issues

"Thumbnails causing crashes":

• Disable thumbnails in Settings → Archive & UI → Uncheck "Enable Thumbnails"
• Stats mode provides metadata without thumbnail generation

"Video stats not showing":

• Install ffmpeg/ffprobe and add to PATH
• Download from: https://ffmpeg.org/download.html

"MTP device not detected":

• Enable "Auto-detect phones" in Settings
• Restart application after connecting device
• Check Windows Device Manager for MTP driver

Build failures:

• Ensure Visual Studio Build Tools (C++) installed
• Run build script as Administrator if permission errors
• Check Rust toolchain: rustup update

Contributing

Contributions welcome! Please:

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)
3. Commit changes (git commit -m 'Add amazing feature')
4. Push to branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature)
5. Open a Pull Request

Development Setup

# Clone with submodules
git clone --recursive https://github.com/LegeApp/OpenArc.git
cd OpenArc

# Update submodules
git submodule update --init --recursive

# Build in debug mode
.\build-all.ps1

# Run tests
cargo test --workspace
dotnet test DocBrakeGUI/DocBrakeGUI.csproj

License

This project is dual-licensed under:

• MIT License (LICENSE-MIT or http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT)
• Apache License 2.0 (LICENSE-APACHE or http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0)

You may choose either license for your use.

Credits

• BPG Codec: Based on Fabrice Bellard's libbpg
• FreeArc: Bulat Ziganshin's compression library
• libheif: HEIF/HEIC decoder
• OpenJPEG: JPEG2000 codec
• zune-image: Fast image processing library
• rawloader: RAW image decoder

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Star ⭐ this repository if you find it useful!

Report issues: https://github.com/LegeApp/OpenArc/issues

Linux Backend Build (CLI Only)

The WPF GUI (DocBrakeGUI) is Windows-only. On Linux, build and use the CLI/backend only.

Use the Linux build helper:

cd OpenArc
./build-linux-backend.sh --release

This script intentionally:

• Builds backend native libs only (BPG/libbpg-0.9.8, arcmax codec staging)
• Builds openarc CLI only (skips DocBrakeGUI and openarc-ffi/MTP)
• Checks required native dependencies (x265, libpng, libjpeg, lcms2)
• Validates Rust toolchain compatibility (rustc >= 1.92)

Notes:

• If your Rust toolchain is older, update with rustup update stable.
• If you only want to rebuild Rust crates and keep existing native libs, use: ./build-linux-backend.sh --release --skip-codecs