ffmpeg

name	ffmpeg
description	Video and audio processing with ffmpeg

FFmpeg

Use the bash tool with ffmpeg for media processing.

Setup

# Check if installed
command -v ffmpeg && command -v ffprobe

# Install — macOS
brew install ffmpeg

# Install — Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt install ffmpeg

Info

ffprobe -v quiet -print_format json -show_format -show_streams <input>

Convert

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:v libx264 -crf 23 -preset medium output.mp4
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vn -acodec libmp3lame -q:a 2 output.mp3
ffmpeg -i input.webm -c:v libx264 output.mp4

Trim & Cut

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -ss 00:01:00 -t 00:00:30 -c copy output.mp4

Resize

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf "scale=1280:720" output.mp4
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf "scale=-1:720" output.mp4   # maintain aspect ratio

Audio

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vn -acodec copy audio.aac
ffmpeg -i audio.wav -acodec libmp3lame -b:a 192k output.mp3

GIF

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf "fps=10,scale=480:-1:flags=lanczos" -c:v gif output.gif

Tips

• Use -c copy for fast operations without re-encoding
• Use -crf for quality (lower = better, 18-28 is good range)
• Always check output with ffprobe