FFMPEG Snippet Collection

FFMPEG is an extremely powerful tool for converting and editing video material. Not only is it ideal for converting to a wide variety of formats, it can also merge image data into video, crop, add filters and even export gif files.

For my own work I can’t imagine my work without this tool. However, the obstacles for getting started are relatively high, because the installation is more or less difficult depending on the operating system. Furthermore, you work with FFMPEG in the command line, which is a daunting task for some people.

I find the technology so helpful because I have to formulate every action with code so that I can reuse it at any time. That saves a lot of work at some point.

In this article I collect FFMPEG snippets that I find especially useful for my work as a designer and creative coder.

An example file-conversion with FFMPEG

Convert one video-format to another

ffmpeg -i in.mov out.mp4

Cut the first 30 seconds of a video

ffmpeg -ss 00:00:30.0 -i input.wmv -c copy -t 00:00:10.0 output.wmv

Merge Audio and Video

ffmpeg -i in.mp4 -i in.wav -c:v copy -c:a aac -shortest output.mp4

Compress Audio

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -filter_complex "compand=attacks=0:points=-80/-900|-45/-15|-27/-9|-5/-5|20/20" output.mp4

Create images from video

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf fps=1/1 ./thumbs/video%03d.jpg

Concatenate Videos

ffmpeg -i ./input1.mp4 \
	   -i ./input2.mp4 \
       -filter_complex "[0:v] [0:a] [1:v] [1:a] concat=n=2:v=1:a=1 [v] [a]" \
       -map "[v]" -map "[a]" ./output.mp4

Add padding / white letterbox

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf "pad=width=900:height=900:x=157:y=45:color=white" output.mp4

Convert video to gif

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -f gif output.gif

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -filter_complex "[0:v] palettegen" palette.png

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -i palette.png -filter_complex "[0:v][1:v] paletteuse" output.gif

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -filter_complex "[0:v] fps=15,scale=500:-1,split [a][b];[a] palettegen [p];[b][p] paletteuse" output.gif