ffmpeg

FFMPEG General use

The purpose of this page is to explain the general use of using Fffmpeg as a HandBrake alternative for video transcoding as it has better support for Hardware Acceleration especially for QSV.

Note: You will have to install drivers and prerequisites for some Hardware Acceleration, and ensure that your GPU/iGPU supports encode of the relevent codec

USE_FFMPEG flag

Set to true to use ffmpeg instead of Handbreak Default value is False

FFMPEG_PRE_FILE_ARGS

These are arguments that will be passed in before the -i "file_name" use them to control things like:

FFMPEG_POST_FILE_ARGS

These are arguments that will be passed in after the -i "file_name" and before the output file, use them to control things like:

• subtitle/audio tracks to include in the final output file
• encoded format of the final output file

Use ffmpeg -h for a full list of arguments but some common ones used are:

• -c this is used to select the codec of the output file's audio, video or subtitles (or data), use ffmpeg -encoders to get a full list of options

  • -c:v used to choose the codec of the output file video, some commonly used optons are:
    • CPU-Only: libx265, libx264, libsvtav1(SVT)
    • Nvidia Nvenc Encoder: h264_nvenc, hevc_nvenc, av1_nvenc
    • AMD AMF Encoder: h264_amf, hevc_amf, av1_amf
    • Intel Quicksync Encoder: h264_qsv, hevc_qsv, av1_qsv
  • -c:a used to used to choose the codec of the output file audio use copy to copy it from the source file,
  • -c:s used to used to choose the codec of the output file subtitles use copy to copy it from the source file,

• -map this is used to define what tracks are included in the output file, either audio, video or subtitles (or data), it works numerically in the format: "-map input_file_index:track_type:track_index" but can also be handled via metadata using an m in place of track_index, Note: the first parameter defines the file used, this is primarily if you were processing more then one file at once but it should always be set to 0 as ARM transcodes files one at a time

  • -map 0:a maps all audio tracks from the source to the destination
  • -map 0:a:m:language:eng will map all audio tracks of a certain language (English demonstrated here)
  • -map 0:a:0 maps just the first audio track, if you want specific numeric audio tracks you can use more then one statement
  • -map 0:s maps all subtitle tracks from the source to the destination
  • -map 0:s:m:language:eng will map all subtitle tracks of a certain language (English demonstrated here)

FFMPEG_CLI

Specifies the command used to call FFmpeg.

FFMPEG_LOCAL

Specifies the path to the FFmpeg binary.
This can be the same as FFMPEG_CLI.
See HANDBRAKE_LOCAL for more details.