ffmpeg

name	ffmpeg
description	Use when the user asks for FFmpeg or FFprobe commands, video/audio conversion, trimming, resizing, padding, overlays, subtitles, thumbnails, GIFs, storyboards, slideshows, speed control, audio mixing, jump cuts, social-media crops, hardware-accelerated encoding, codec settings, CRF/preset tuning, stream mapping, or troubleshooting media automation pipelines.

FFmpeg Plugin

Use this skill to produce reliable, explainable FFmpeg/FFprobe commands for media automation via supercli.

Commands

All commands use supercli ffmpeg <resource> <action> syntax.

Video Operations

Command	Description
ffmpeg video convert	Convert between formats (mp4, mkv, avi, webm, mov)
ffmpeg video resize	Scale to specific dimensions
ffmpeg video trim	Cut time range (lossless with -c copy)
ffmpeg video thumbnail	Extract a single frame as image
ffmpeg video gif	Create animated GIF
ffmpeg video concat	Join multiple videos
ffmpeg video speed	Change playback speed (slow-mo / fast-forward)
ffmpeg video jump-cut	Remove selected time ranges (jump cuts)
ffmpeg video overlay	Overlay logo/image with position and timing
ffmpeg video subtitle	Burn subtitles into video (ASS/SRT)
ffmpeg video slideshow	Create video slideshow from images with audio
ffmpeg video hw-encode	Hardware-accelerated encoding (NVENC/QSV)

Audio Operations

Command	Description
ffmpeg audio extract	Extract audio track from video
ffmpeg audio mix	Mix background music under original audio

Media Inspection

Command	Description
ffmpeg media inspect	Get detailed metadata as JSON
ffmpeg media storyboard	Generate storyboard thumbnails from scene changes

Defaults

• Web-compatible MP4: -c:v libx264 -crf 18 -preset slow -pix_fmt yuv420p -c:a aac -movflags +faststart
• High-quality archival H.264: -c:v libx264 -crf 17 or -crf 18
• Smaller modern MP4: -c:v libx265 -crf 24 -vtag hvc1 -c:a aac
• WebM/VP9: -c:v libvpx-vp9 -crf 15 -b:v 0 -c:a libopus
• Preserve audio when safe: -c:a copy
• Force square pixels after scale/pad/crop: setsar=1:1
• Playback compatibility from generated images: format=yuv420p or -pix_fmt yuv420p

Common Command Patterns

Inspect media

ffprobe -hide_banner -show_streams -show_format input.mp4

Remux without re-encoding

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

Resize and pad to vertical 1080x1920

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 \
  -vf "scale=1080:1920:force_original_aspect_ratio=decrease,pad=1080:1920:(ow-iw)/2:(oh-ih)/2:color=black,setsar=1:1" \
  -c:v libx264 -crf 18 -preset slow -pix_fmt yuv420p -c:a aac -movflags +faststart \
  output.mp4

Frame-accurate trim

Use output seeking and re-encode for reliable exact cuts:

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -ss 00:00:10 -to 00:00:25 \
  -c:v libx264 -crf 18 -preset slow -c:a aac output_trimmed.mp4

Use input seeking before -i only when speed matters more than accuracy.

Replace audio

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -i music.mp3 \
  -map 0:v -map 1:a -shortest -c:v copy -c:a aac output.mp4

Mix background music under original audio

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -i music.mp3 \
  -filter_complex "[1:a]volume=0.2[bgm];[0:a][bgm]amix=inputs=2:duration=shortest[a]" \
  -map 0:v -map "[a]" -c:v copy -c:a aac -shortest output.mp4

Overlay logo for a time range

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -i logo.png \
  -filter_complex "overlay=x=(main_w-overlay_w)/8:y=(main_h-overlay_h)/8:enable='gte(t,1)*lte(t,7)'" \
  -c:v libx264 -crf 18 -preset slow -c:a copy output.mp4

Burn subtitles

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 \
  -vf "subtitles=subtitles.srt:fontsdir=.:force_style='FontName=Poppins,FontSize=24,PrimaryColour=&HFFFFFF'" \
  -c:v libx264 -crf 18 -preset slow -c:a copy output_subtitled.mp4

Add soft subtitle track

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -i subtitles.srt \
  -c copy -c:s srt -disposition:s:0 default output.mkv

Thumbnail

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -ss 00:00:07 -frames:v 1 -q:v 2 thumbnail.jpg

GIF from video

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 \
  -vf "select='gt(trunc(t/2),trunc(prev_t/2))',setpts='PTS*0.1',scale=trunc(oh*a/2)*2:320:force_original_aspect_ratio=decrease,pad=trunc(oh*a/2)*2:320:-1:-1" \
  -loop 0 -an output.gif

Takes every second frame and accelerates playback 10x. Use -loop 1 for play-once.

Hardware acceleration (Nvidia NVENC)

ffmpeg -i input.avi -c:v h264_nvenc output.mp4
ffmpeg -i input.avi -c:v hevc_nvenc output.mp4

Hardware acceleration (Intel QSV)

ffmpeg -init_hw_device qsv=hw -filter_hw_device hw -i input.avi -c:v h264_qsv output.mp4

Scene-change thumbnail

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf "select='gt(scene,0.4)'" -frames:v 1 -q:v 2 thumbnail_scene.jpg

Storyboard tile from scene changes

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf "select='gt(scene,0.4)',scale=640:480,tile=2x2" -frames:v 1 storyboard.jpg

Gotchas

• -c copy cannot apply filters and is not frame-accurate for most cuts.
• -ss before -i is fast but approximate; -ss after -i is slower but accurate.
• MP4 playback in QuickTime and browsers often needs yuv420p for H.264 output.
• Use -movflags +faststart for web-hosted MP4/MOV/M4A so playback starts sooner.
• In filter graphs, [0:v] means first input's video stream, [1:a] means second input's audio stream, and -map chooses which streams become outputs.
• Escaping filter expressions is shell-sensitive. Prefer single quotes inside double-quoted filter graphs for time expressions, and escape commas inside nested expressions when required.
• drawtext with special characters is fragile; prefer textfile= for user-supplied text.
• Burned subtitles require re-encoding; soft subtitle tracks can often use stream copy.
• Videos without audio will cause audio extract and audio mix to fail.
• Concat requires identical codecs/resolutions for lossless operation.
• All plugin commands use -y flag — outputs are overwritten without prompting.