19 ffmpeg commands for all needs

Posted by jbj on Sep 22, 2008 in GNU/Linux, Operating systems • 52 comments

ffmpeg is a multiplatform, open-source library for video and audio files. I have compiled 19 useful and amazing commands covering almost all needs: video conversion, sound extraction, encoding file for iPod or PSP, and more.

Getting infos from a video file

ffmpeg -i video.avi

Turn X images to a video sequence

ffmpeg -f image2 -i image%d.jpg video.mpg

This command will transform all the images from the current directory (named image1.jpg, image2.jpg, etc...) to a video file named video.mpg.

Turn a video to X images

ffmpeg -i video.mpg image%d.jpg

This command will generate the files named image1.jpg, image2.jpg, ...

The following image formats are also availables : PGM, PPM, PAM, PGMYUV, JPEG, GIF, PNG, TIFF, SGI.

Encode a video sequence for the iPpod/iPhone

ffmpeg -i source_video.avi input -acodec aac -ab 128kb -vcodec mpeg4 -b 1200kb -mbd 2 -flags +4mv+trell -aic 2 -cmp 2 -subcmp 2 -s 320x180 -title X final_video.mp4

Explanations :

Source : source_video.avi
Audio codec : aac
Audio bitrate : 128kb/s
Video codec : mpeg4
Video bitrate : 1200kb/s
Video size : 320px par 180px
Generated video : final_video.mp4

Encode video for the PSP

ffmpeg -i source_video.avi -b 300 -s 320x240 -vcodec xvid -ab 32 -ar 24000 -acodec aac final_video.mp4

Explanations :

Source : source_video.avi
Audio codec : aac
Audio bitrate : 32kb/s
Video codec : xvid
Video bitrate : 1200kb/s
Video size : 320px par 180px
Generated video : final_video.mp4

Extracting sound from a video, and save it as Mp3

ffmpeg -i source_video.avi -vn -ar 44100 -ac 2 -ab 192 -f mp3 sound.mp3

Explanations :

Source video : source_video.avi
Audio bitrate : 192kb/s
output format : mp3
Generated sound : sound.mp3

Convert a wav file to Mp3

ffmpeg -i son_origine.avi -vn -ar 44100 -ac 2 -ab 192 -f mp3 son_final.mp3

Convert .avi video to .mpg

ffmpeg -i video_origine.avi video_finale.mpg

Convert .mpg to .avi

ffmpeg -i video_origine.mpg video_finale.avi

Convert .avi to animated gif(uncompressed)

ffmpeg -i video_origine.avi gif_anime.gif

Mix a video with a sound file

ffmpeg -i son.wav -i video_origine.avi video_finale.mpg

Convert .avi to .flv

ffmpeg -i video_origine.avi -ab 56 -ar 44100 -b 200 -r 15 -s 320x240 -f flv video_finale.flv

Convert .avi to dv

ffmpeg -i video_origine.avi -s pal -r pal -aspect 4:3 -ar 48000 -ac 2 video_finale.dv

Or:

ffmpeg -i video_origine.avi -target pal-dv video_finale.dv

Convert .avi to mpeg for dvd players

ffmpeg -i source_video.avi -target pal-dvd -ps 2000000000 -aspect 16:9 finale_video.mpeg

Explanations :

target pal-dvd : Output format
ps 2000000000 maximum size for the output file, in bits (here, 2 Gb)
aspect 16:9 : Widescreen

Compress .avi to divx

ffmpeg -i video_origine.avi -s 320x240 -vcodec msmpeg4v2 video_finale.avi

Compress Ogg Theora to Mpeg dvd

ffmpeg -i film_sortie_cinelerra.ogm -s 720x576 -vcodec mpeg2video -acodec mp3 film_terminée.mpg

Compress .avi to SVCD mpeg2

NTSC format:

ffmpeg -i video_origine.avi -target ntsc-svcd video_finale.mpg

PAL format:

ffmpeg -i video_origine.avi -target pal-svcd video_finale.mpg

Compress .avi to VCD mpeg2

NTSC format:

ffmpeg -i video_origine.avi -target ntsc-vcd video_finale.mpg

PAL format:

ffmpeg -i video_origine.avi -target pal-vcd video_finale.mpg

Multi-pass encoding with ffmpeg

ffmpeg -i fichierentree -pass 2 -passlogfile ffmpeg2pass fichiersortie-2

Find a webhost with ffmpeg enabled

Cirtex Hosting got web hosting plans starting at $2.99.

This article is an English adaptation of Jean Cartier ffmpeg exemples.

52 reactions

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1 - Stephen on Sep 22, 2008, 8:33 pm:

Thanks for the cheat sheet, submitted this to stumble…
2 - jbj on Sep 22, 2008, 8:47 pm:

Thanks, Stephen!
3 - cesman on Sep 22, 2008, 11:17 pm:

Great article! Submitted to digg.

Regards,

Cecil
4 - jbj on Sep 22, 2008, 11:22 pm:

Thanks, cesman!
5 - cesman on Sep 23, 2008, 6:05 am:

You’re welcome.
6 - Binny V A on Sep 23, 2008, 10:04 am:

Some of my favorite ffmpeg commands. I use mencoder for the rest.
7 - M Kenyon II on Sep 23, 2008, 8:23 pm:

How about DVD to avi?
8 - damien on Sep 23, 2008, 8:33 pm:

Pretty cool! In converting images to a video, how do you start in a different #… like say i want to do image50 to image100.jpg?
9 - damien on Sep 23, 2008, 8:48 pm:

I guess it didn’t take my comment. I was wondering if there was a way to turn images into video, but, by specifying a range of images… i.e. image50 - image500 . only converting those images?
10 - Olivier @ mindfulness exercises on Sep 23, 2008, 9:48 pm:

I only use ffmpeg with xine. I thought it was a library but it seems it is also a command line tool. And a very powerful at that.
Thanks a lot.
11 - jbj on Sep 23, 2008, 9:54 pm:

@damien: I don’t know why but Akismet flagged your comment as spam…Btw, I never tried to start of at image50.jpg, but I’m pretty sure that it will work if you define a integer shell variable named d which have 50 as a value.

@Olivier: You can use ffmpeg both as a command line tool, or as a library. I’m pretty sure that Youtube uses it to convert mpeg and avi videos submitted by its users to the flv files they displays on the site.
12 - damien on Sep 23, 2008, 10:10 pm:

How would you define that in a command line? How about doing btws? Between image50 and image500? I know this is a lot to ask, but thanx for replying and your help!
13 - Michael B on Sep 23, 2008, 10:47 pm:

iPhone question (yeah, yeah, I know). From looking online it appears that the iPhone can play XVID/DIVX files, since they’re basically MPEG4. Does anyone know a way to do a fast transcode? Leave the data the same, just change the bare minimum (headers/container) so that iTunes will import and sync it to the iPod? It’d take up more space, but it would take minute or so to do an entire (for sake of argument, mind you) TV show that you found on the intertubes.

(And thanks for the reminder on FFMPEG - I needed something like that last night)
14 - damien on Sep 24, 2008, 3:47 pm:

@ jbj

I have images in sequence that look like this:

image00001.jpg

all the way to image05000.jpg

I tried doing the code up there but nothing. I get an error. Here’s what i tried:

ffmpeg -f image2 -i image%d.jpg video.mpg

I get this error:

image%d.jpg: I/O error occurred
Usually that means that input file is truncated and/or corrupted.

What’s interesting is if i change the file name to 001.jpg and so on, it works. I really don’t have control of what the jpg name is going to be so how do i get it to work with that naming convention? Thanx again!
15 - v3g on Sep 24, 2008, 4:33 pm:

Thanks for the recipe, but can’t encode tv show to mp4 ipod. I get “Unable to find a suitable output format for ‘input’” error. Tried on Ubuntu and FreeBSD, video is:
Input #0, avi, from ‘Eureka.avi’:
Duration: 00:41:56.8, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 1157 kb/s
Stream #0.0: Video: mpeg4, yuv420p, 624×352, 23.98 fps(r)
Stream #0.1: Audio: mp3, 48000 Hz, stereo, 128 kb/s
Maybe, I need to install something else? I updated ffmpeg to the latest. Is there an option for dynamic scaling, or the tool can calculate it?
16 - onlydarksets on Sep 24, 2008, 7:31 pm:

@15 - v3g: “input” is a typo - just delete it. The OP is using the command line from the ffmpeg documentation, which uses “input” as a placeholder for the name of the input file.

Also, if you get an error about not having the aac codec, use libfaac instead.

http://ffmpeg.mplayerhq.hu/faq.html#SEC25
17 - v3g on Sep 25, 2008, 11:28 am:

Thanks, now its working, but the quality is awfull:
ffmpeg -i xxxxx.avi -acodec libfaac -ab 128kb -vcodec libx264 -b 1157kb -mbd 2 -flags +4mv+trell -aic 2 -cmp 2 -subcmp 2 -s 312×176 -title X xxxxx.mp4

Input #0, avi, from ‘xxxxx.avi’:
Duration: 00:41:56.8, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 1157 kb/s
Stream #0.0: Video: mpeg4, yuv420p, 624×352, 23.98 fps(r)
Stream #0.1: Audio: mp3, 48000 Hz, stereo, 128 kb/s
File ‘eureka.mp4′ already exists. Overwrite ? [y/N] y
Output #0, mp4, to ‘xxxxx.mp4′:
Stream #0.0: Video: libx264 (hq), yuv420p, 312×176, q=2-31, 1157 kb/s, 23.98 fps(c)
Stream #0.1: Audio: libfaac, 48000 Hz, stereo, 128 kb/s

And that worked on FreeBSD, not Ubuntu. For vcodec mpeg4, I couldn’t change the width and height, but only with libx264. And still doesn’t work with Ubuntu.

How do you change the quality, something like ‘q=2′ or ‘q=9′?
18 - onlydarksets on Sep 25, 2008, 3:16 pm:

@v3g : When you change the video codec, you have to use the correct parameters. I have a few examples listed here for h.264:
http://onlydarksets.wordpress.com/2008/09/19/convert-sage-recordings-to-iphone/#more-408
19 - SWATZ on Sep 27, 2008, 7:05 am:

TOUT SIMPLEMENT
BRAVISIMO

Thanks Dude , You Are the GNU
20 - PhillyPhanatic on Sep 30, 2008, 4:09 pm:

@damien

might find some help here:

http://ffmpeg.mplayerhq.hu/ffmpeg-doc.html#SEC3
21 - Matt on Oct 27, 2008, 8:50 am:

@M Kenyon II

Handbrake-DVD to AVI (multiplatform, open source)
http://www.applemacvideo.com/articles/rip-dvd-on-mac-using-handbrake.html#126
22 - socky on Nov 12, 2008, 7:09 am:

arrived through stumble… excellent info.