Video encoding with FFmpeg, a great tool with the shittiest user interface you can imagine: lots of confusing, unmemorable, unintuitive, undiscoverable command-line flags

Video encoding with FFmpeg.md

Remux without transcoding

ffmpeg -i input.ts -c copy output.mp4

x264, AAC

ffmpeg -i input.avi -c:v libx264 -preset slow -crf 23 -pix_fmt yuvj420p -c:a aac -b:a 160k output.mp4

x265, AAC

ffmpeg -i input.avi -c:v libx265 -preset slow -crf 28 -x265-params range=full -vf scale=-1:1080 -c:a aac -b:a 128k output.mp4

HEVC_NVENC, pass-through audio

ffmpeg -i input.avi -c:v hevc_nvenc -preset slow -rc vbr_hq -cq 28 -tier high -dst_range 1 -c:a copy output.mp4

~ Fraps.bat

REM Convert a Fraps capture to a Ut Video file with the trimming, cropping, and resizing you want, using a tool like TMPGEnc.
REM Export as AVI file output with UtVideo YUV420 BT.709 VCM (ULH0).
REM Specifying -pix_fmt yuvj420p will preserve the full range of lightness values, instead of washed-out blacks and whites.

ffmpeg -i input.avi -pix_fmt yuvj420p -c:v libx264 -preset medium -crf 23 -c:a aac -b:a 128k output.mp4

REM You can also use YUV422 and H.265:

ffmpeg -i input.avi -pix_fmt yuvj422p -c:v libx265 -preset fast -crf 26 -c:a aac -b:a 128k output.mp4

REM Fraps to H.265 with NVENC:

ffmpeg -i input.avi -ss 00:00:01.000 -to 00:05:00.000 -c:v hevc_nvenc -preset slow -rc vbr_hq -cq 27 -c:a aac -b:a 128k -dst_range 1 output.mp4

~ Premiere Pro.md

1. Export from Premiere to a lossless, compressed AVI.
2. Transcode AVI to H.264 using FFmpeg.

If you don't have the time or space to render a temporary lossless copy of your file on disk, you can use a frameserver instead.

Premiere export settings

Video

Setting	Value
Format	AVI
Video Codec	UtVideo YUV420 BT.709 VCM
Width	1920
Height	1080
Frame Rate	29.97
Field Order	Progressive
Aspect	Square Pixels (1.0)

Audio

Setting	Value
Sample Rate	48000 Hz
Channels	Stereo
Sample Size	16 bit

When using UTVideo BT.709 YUV422, FFmpeg seems to figure out the pixel formats correctly and doesn't need to have a pix_fmt specified to get rich blacks.

RGB full range information: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/47900346/ffmpeg-color-range-cropped-to-15-235-in-rgb

QuickTime requires 4:2:0 subsampling, so remember to use -pix_fmt yuv420p or similar. It can't open 4:2:2 video.

Useful rate control articles by Werner Robitza

• CRF Guide (Constant Rate Factor in x264, x265 and libvpx)
• Understanding Rate Control Modes (x264, x265, vpx)

Video encoding with FFmpeg, a great tool with the shittiest user interface you can imagine: lots of confusing, unmemorable, unintuitive, undiscoverable command-line flags

haha, so true! I am glad that someone finally said this! Also, without looking at the documentation, even as a somewhat savvy user, I have no idea what this means:

ffmpeg -i input.avi -pix_fmt yuvj422p -c:v libx265 -preset fast -crf 26 -c:a aac -b:a 128k output.mp4

Shame on you ffmpeg... But also as developers its sad that Ffmpeg is the only option out there.

Big thank you for the scripts! I have not tried them, i will let you know how it works for me!

For my business logic, I have some very large .flv files that I have to compress in a lossless manner. I found some scripts here and they were definitely not lossless..

Thanks!

@jeffward01 Best of luck. The output codecs I listed above are typically lossy (H.264 and H.265). If you want lossless, or at least very close to lossless, you may want something like Ut Video, Apple ProRes, or Avid DNxHD instead. The best explanation of this concept that I have found is Warren Young's comprehensive answer to "How to create an uncompressed AVI from a series of 1000's of PNG images using FFMPEG".

If you only want to encode the first several seconds of a video, perhaps to compare it to another video, you can use ffmpeg -t 120s -i ....