ffmpeg basic commands

These are the basics of the video processing tool “ffmpeg”.

• Encode a video (using x264 codec) quickly.

  ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:v libx264 -preset veryfast -crf 22 output.mp4
  

  • -preset has several possible values, faster encoding means less CPU load and less compression.
  • -crf stands for “Constant Rate Factor” and this is the recommended rate control mode for most uses. A lower value generally leads to higher quality, and a subjectively sane range is 17–28 (23 is the default).
• Overwrite output file if exists.

  ffmpeg -y -i input.mp4 output.mp4
  

• Extract audio from video.

  ffmpeg -i video.mp4 -vn sound.mp3
  

• Cut a video from mm:ss to mm2:ss2 (without re-encoding)

  ffmpeg -ss mm:ss -to mm2:ss2 -i video.mp4 -codec copy output.mp4
  

• Capture a video frame (at mm:ss) and change its resolution

  ffmpeg -ss mm:ss -i video.mp4 -frames 1 -s 1280x720 -f image2 image.png
  

• Capture one frame per second of the video

  ffmpeg -i video.mp4 -r 1 -f image2 image%d.png
  

• Capture a frame from a video device (webcam, etc.)

  ffmpeg -i /dev/video0 -frames 1 -f image2 image.png