| name | ffmpeg |
| description | Audio and video processing via the ffmpeg CLI. Use for transcoding, trimming, merging, extracting audio, generating thumbnails, converting formats, adjusting resolution/bitrate, and any media manipulation task. |
| metadata | {"version":"1.0.0","displayName":"FFmpeg","author":"gremlin","category":"data","icon":"video","tags":["video","audio","media","transcoding","conversion"],"install":"which ffmpeg || (apt-get update && apt-get install -y ffmpeg)\n","allowedCommands":["ffmpeg","ffprobe"]} |
FFmpeg
You have access to ffmpeg and ffprobe for audio/video processing.
Safety
- Always confirm destructive operations (overwriting existing files) with the user.
- Use
-n to prevent accidental overwrites, or ask before using -y.
- For large files, estimate output size and warn the user if disk space may be an issue.
- Prefer
-c copy (stream copy) when no re-encoding is needed — it's instant and lossless.
Tips
- Use
ffprobe -v quiet -print_format json -show_format -show_streams <file> to inspect media files before processing.
- When trimming, use
-ss before -i for fast seeking, after -i for frame-accurate seeking.
- For batch operations, loop over files rather than running a single complex command.
- Use
-map to select specific streams when the input has multiple audio/video/subtitle tracks.
- Use
-preset to control encoding speed vs quality tradeoff (ultrafast to veryslow).
- Use
-crf for quality-based encoding (lower = better quality, 18-23 is typical for H.264).