ffmpeg is a commandline tool to convert media (audio, video) into different formats, manipulate or compress them, put filters on, etc. .
This is a list of ffmpeg flags and commands I commonly use.
This is neither a complete list nor a guide on how to use ffmpeg.
If the code doesn’t start with ffmpeg then it’s only the middle part.
This middle part needs to be inserted ffmpeg -i input.mp4 <here> output.mp4.
Should be between 20 and 28 for good quality.
The lower the bigger the filesize.
51 is max compression and looks very bad.
A good value is 25 for compression/filesize balance.
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -crf 25 output.mp4-an
-vnffmpeg -i input_video.mp4 -vn output_audio.mp3vcodec changes the video’s codec and acodec the audio one.
copy means it takes the input straight to the output. This makes it way faster.
-vcodec h264
-vcodec libvpx
-vcodec copy
-acodec aac
-acodec mp3
-acodec copyWith this you take the input video and audio and copy it to output.
This makes cutting videos (e.g. by time) very quick as no converting takes place.
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c copy output.mp4-map 0:a:0 -b:a 96k-aspect 16:9-vf "setpts=0.5*PTS"ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -filter:a "atempo=2.0" -vn output.mp3-b:v 1M
-b:a 96kffmpeg -i input.mp3 -af 'volume=1.5' output.mp3iw = width, ih = height, -1 means auto
The first example command halfs the width (and height automatically)
The second one sets the width and height (and thus the aspect ratio) explicitly
-vf scale="iw/2:-1"
-vf scale="1280:720"w = width of output video
x = left top startpoint for the rectangle
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -filter:v "crop=w:h:x:y" output.mp4Names are image-001.png, image-002.png, …
-r = framerete in which screenshots are taken, default=25
%3d = name, 001 - 999
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -r 1 -f image2 image-%3d.png-vf drawtext="text='MyTextHere': fontcolor=white: fontsize=24: x=(w-text_w)/2: y=(h-text_h)/2"ffmpeg -i in_one.mp4 -c copy -bsf:v h264_mp4toannexb -f mpegts _1.ts
ffmpeg -i in_two.mp4 -c copy -bsf:v h264_mp4toannexb -f mpegts _2.ts
ffmpeg -i "concat:_1.ts|_2.ts" -c copy -bsf:a aac_adtstoasc together.mp4ffmpeg -i Input.mp4 -filter:v "minterpolate='fps=60'" Out60.mp4ffmpeg -i 30.mp4 -i 60.mp4 -filter_complex hstack comparison.mp4The time either in 00:01:23.000 or in seconds format, here seconds are used
This example would cut the video, so that only seconds 3 to 8 plays
aka. 5 seconds long output video -t = duration, -ss = starttime
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -ss 3 -t 5 output.mp4ffmpeg -i in.mkv -vf subtitles=in.mkv out.mp4for i in *.mp4; do ffmpeg -i "$i" "$(basename "$i" .mp4)".mp3 ; donefor i in *.mp4; do ffmpeg -i "$i" "_$(basename "$i" .mp4)".mp4 ; doneSource: https://web.dev/replace-gifs-with-videos/
ffmpeg -i my-animation.gif -vf "crop=trunc(iw/2)*2:trunc(ih/2)*2" -b:v 0 -crf 25 -f mp4 -vcodec libx264 -pix_fmt yuv420p my-animation.mp4ffmpeg -i inputfile.mp4 -filter_complex \
"[0:v]pad=iw:ih+100:0:(oh-ih)/2+50:color=white, \
drawtext=text='Me coming to my wife's funeral':fontsize=42:x=(w-tw)/2:y=(100-th)/2" \
outputfile.mp4ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -filter_complex \
"[0:v]pad=iw:ih+100:0:(oh-ih)/2:color=white, \
drawtext=text='ONE DOES NOT SIMPLY':fontsize=24:x=(w-tw)/2:y=(50-th)/2, \
drawtext=text='STOP ME FROM FILTERING':fontsize=24:x=(w-tw)/2:y=h-25-(th/2)" \
output.mp4The input file is a 15fps and full HD .mkv video with external subtitles and unoptimized, weird encodings.
This command makes it into a 30fps normal HD .mp4 video with the subtitles burned into the video and encodings that are optimized and widely acknowledged (h264/aac).
ffmpeg -i input.mkv -vf "subtitles=input.mkv,scale=1280:720" -crf 25 -vcodec h264 -acodec aac -r 30 output.mp4