How to transcode a MPEG-4 ASP using FFMPEG

[maxxon]

Hi, I'm trying to figure out all of the options in ffmpeg, and am having a hard time with it. What options do I need to transcode a file from whatever to a MPEG-4 ASP file?

Thanks,


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[Guest]

Look at the FFMPEG FAQ. And Google is your friend.

[maxxon]

Originally Posted by neuron2

Look at the FFMPEG FAQ. And Google is your friend.

Have tried. Has not been very friendly on this, must be the keywords I've been using.

Not sure how I missed the FAQ. I'll take a look.


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[manolito]

One of the annoying things about ffmpeg is that the command line parameters change constantly, and on top of this the documentation is mostly not matching the version it comes with.

So I would recommend to use one of the many available GUIs for ffmeg. I use WinFF and I am quite happy with it...

This is the ffmpeg command line which WinFF creates for the profile XviD Widescreen:

ffmpeg.exe -y -i "my input file" -f avi -r 29.97 -vcodec libxvid -vtag XVID -vf scale=704:384 -aspect 16:9 -maxrate 1800k -b:v 1500k -qmin 3 -qmax 5 -bufsize 4096 -mbd 2 -bf 2 -trellis 1 -flags +aic -cmp 2 -subcmp 2 -g 300 -acodec libmp3lame -ar 48000 -b:a 128k -ac 2 "my output file.avi"

Cheers
manolito

[maxxon]

Originally Posted by neuron2

Look at the FFMPEG FAQ. And Google is your friend.

Originally Posted by maxxon

Have tried. Has not been very friendly on this, must be the keywords I've been using.

Not sure how I missed the FAQ. I'll take a look.

Yeah neuron2, the FAQ doesn't state anything about how to encode a MPEG-4 ASP file. Just some general stuff.

Originally Posted by manolito

One of the annoying things about ffmpeg is that the command line parameters change constantly, and on top of this the documentation is mostly not matching the version it comes with.

So I would recommend to use one of the many available GUIs for ffmeg. I use WinFF and I am quite happy with it...

Great, I'll take a look at it. Thanks for this info. Hopefully, it'll tell me what I need to know or even better, do everything that I wanted to do!

Cheers.


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[manolito]

OK, this commandline has been provided by someone who wanted to get maximum quality out of ffmpeg. But this also makes for a slow encoding speed...

The first thing I would strip from this command line is the framerate parameter. If you do not specify this parameter, the resulting avi file will have the same framerate as the source.

And then you can strip all parameters which affect the encoding quality (ffmpeg defaults will be used instead. Doubles encoding speed on my machine).

"ffmpeg.exe" -y -i "my input file" -f avi -vcodec libxvid -vtag XVID -vf scale=640:480 -aspect 4:3 -maxrate 1800k -b:v 1500k -qmin 3 -qmax 5 -acodec libmp3lame -ar 48000 -b:a 128k -ac 2 "my output file.avi"

And the fastest MPEG4 ASP encoding settings are the ones for "MS Compatible AVI" (=DivX). Looks like this:

"ffmpeg.exe" -y -i "my input file" -acodec libmp3lame -vcodec msmpeg4 -b:a 128k -b:v 1000k -vf scale=640:480 "my output file.avi"

Quality is probably questionable, but you have to determine this for yourself...



Cheers
manolito

[maxxon]

Thanks manolito.


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[maxxon]

FYI, it looks like the USB HD was causing the crash, using a USB stick does the trick but is slower at seeking. Oh well.


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