19 ffmpeg commands for every need

From the translator :

Many people know that ffmpeg is a force, but not everyone knows which one. It is multifaceted and limitless, and its man is obscure and in places obscure, only a few have comprehended the dao of professional work with it. Nevertheless, this tool can be useful to almost everyone who at least sometimes works with video and sound, even at the household level. Some useful ffmpeg console commands will be discussed in the article. In some places I took the liberty to insert links to explanatory articles.



ffmpeg is a cross-platform open-source library for processing video and audio files. I gathered 19 useful and amazing commands covering almost all needs: video conversion, audio track extraction, iPod or PSP conversion, and more.

1. Getting information about the video file

ffmpeg -i video.avi 

2. Turn a set of pictures into video

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

This command converts all images from the current directory (named image1.jpg, image2.jpg, etc.) into the video file video.mpg

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(translator's note: I prefer this format:

 ffmpeg -r 12 -y -i "image_%010d.png" output.mpg 

here the frame rate (12) for the video is set, the format “image_% 010d.png” means that the pictures will be searched as image_0000000001.png, image_0000000002.png, etc., that is, in printf format)

3. Cut the video into pictures

 ffmpeg -i video.mpg image%d.jpg 

This command will create files image1.jpg, image2.jpg, etc., the formats PGM, PPM, PAM, PGMYUV, JPEG, GIF, PNG, TIFF, SGI are also supported.

4. Convert video to iPod / iPhone format

 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: 320 by 180 pixels
• The resulting video: final_video.mp4

5. Convert video to PSP format

 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: 320 by 180 pixels
• The resulting video: final_video.mp4

6. Extract audio track from video and save to mp3

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

Explanations:

• Source: source_video.avi
• Audio Bitrate: 192kb / s
• Output format: mp3
• The resulting audio file: sound.mp3

7. Convert wav to mp3

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

8. Convert .avi to .mpg

 ffmpeg -i video_origine.avi video_finale.mpg 

9. Convert .mpg to .avi

 ffmpeg -i video_origine.mpg video_finale.avi 

10. Convert .avi to .gif (without compression)

 ffmpeg -i video_origine.avi gif_anime.gif 

11. Add sound to the video

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

12. Convert .avi to .flv

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

13. 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 

14. Convert .avi to mpeg for DVD players

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

Explanations:

• Output format: pal-dvd
• The maximum size for the output file: 2000000000 (2 Gb)
• Widescreen format: 16: 9

15. Compress .avi to DivX

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

16. Compress OGG Theora to mpeg DVD

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

17. 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 

18. 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 

19. Multi-pass encoding with ffmpeg

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

Translator's Note :

I suggest in the comments to bring other useful ffmpeg commands, there are much more of them than 19.;)