Generic options

These options are shared amongst the ff* tools.

'-L'

Show license.

'-h, -?, -help, --help [arg]'

Show help. An optional parameter may be specified to print help about a specific item. If no argument is specified, only basic (non advanced) tool options are shown.

Possible values of arg are:

'long'

Print advanced tool options in addition to the basic tool options.

'full'

Print complete list of options, including shared and private options for encoders, decoders, demuxers, muxers, filters, etc.

'decoder=decoder_name'

Print detailed information about the decoder named decoder_name. Use the '-decoders' option to get a list of all decoders.

'encoder=encoder_name'

Print detailed information about the encoder named encoder_name. Use the '-encoders' option to get a list of all encoders.

'demuxer=demuxer_name'

Print detailed information about the demuxer named demuxer_name. Use the '-formats' option to get a list of all demuxers and muxers.

'muxer=muxer_name'

Print detailed information about the muxer named muxer_name. Use the '-formats' option to get a list of all muxers and demuxers.

'filter=filter_name'

Print detailed information about the filter name filter_name. Use the '-filters' option to get a list of all filters.

'-version'

Show version.

'-formats'

Show available formats (including devices).

'-demuxers'

Show available demuxers.

'-muxers'

Show available muxers.

'-devices'

Show available devices.

'-codecs'

Show all codecs known to libavcodec.

Note that the term 'codec' is used throughout this documentation as a shortcut for what is more correctly called a media bitstream format.

'-decoders'

Show available decoders.

'-encoders'

Show all available encoders.

'-bsfs'

Show available bitstream filters.

'-protocols'

Show available protocols.

'-filters'

Show available libavfilter filters.

'-pix_fmts'

Show available pixel formats.

'-sample_fmts'

Show available sample formats.

'-layouts'

Show channel names and standard channel layouts.

'-colors'

Show recognized color names.

'-sources device[,opt1=val1[,opt2=val2]...]'

Show autodetected sources of the input device. Some devices may provide system-dependent source names that cannot be autodetected. The returned list cannot be assumed to be always complete.

ffmpeg -sources pulse,server=192.168.0.4

'-sinks device[,opt1=val1[,opt2=val2]...]'

Show autodetected sinks of the output device. Some devices may provide system-dependent sink names that cannot be autodetected. The returned list cannot be assumed to be always complete.

ffmpeg -sinks pulse,server=192.168.0.4

'-loglevel [flags+]loglevel | -v [flags+]loglevel'

Set logging level and flags used by the library.

The optional flags prefix can consist of the following values:

'repeat'

Indicates that repeated log output should not be compressed to the first line and the "Last message repeated n times" line will be omitted.

'level'

Indicates that log output should add a [level] prefix to each message line. This can be used as an alternative to log coloring, e.g. when dumping the log to file.

Flags can also be used alone by adding a '+'/'-' prefix to set/reset a single flag without affecting other flags or changing loglevel. When setting both flags and loglevel, a '+' separator is expected between the last flags value and before loglevel.

loglevel is a string or a number containing one of the following values:

'quiet, -8'

Show nothing at all; be silent.

'panic, 0'

Only show fatal errors which could lead the process to crash, such as an assertion failure. This is not currently used for anything.

'fatal, 8'

Only show fatal errors. These are errors after which the process absolutely cannot continue.

'error, 16'

Show all errors, including ones which can be recovered from.

'warning, 24'

Show all warnings and errors. Any message related to possibly incorrect or unexpected events will be shown.

'info, 32'

Show informative messages during processing. This is in addition to warnings and errors. This is the default value.

'verbose, 40'

Same as info, except more verbose.

'debug, 48'

Show everything, including debugging information.

'trace, 56'

For example to enable repeated log output, add the level prefix, and set loglevel to verbose:

ffmpeg -loglevel repeat+level+verbose -i input output

Another example that enables repeated log output without affecting current state of level prefix flag or loglevel:

ffmpeg [...] -loglevel +repeat

By default the program logs to stderr. If coloring is supported by the terminal, colors are used to mark errors and warnings. Log coloring can be disabled setting the environment variable AV_LOG_FORCE_NOCOLOR or NO_COLOR, or can be forced setting the environment variable AV_LOG_FORCE_COLOR. The use of the environment variable NO_COLOR is deprecated and will be dropped in a future FFmpeg version.

'-report'

Dump full command line and console output to a file named program-YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS.log in the current directory. This file can be useful for bug reports. It also implies -loglevel debug.

Setting the environment variable FFREPORT to any value has the same effect. If the value is a ':'-separated key=value sequence, these options will affect the report; option values must be escaped if they contain special characters or the options delimiter ':' (see the "Quoting and escaping" section in the ffmpeg-utils manual).

The following options are recognized:

'file'

set the file name to use for the report; %p is expanded to the name of the program, %t is expanded to a timestamp, %% is expanded to a plain %

'level'

set the log verbosity level using a numerical value (see -loglevel).

For example, to output a report to a file named 'ffreport.log' using a log level of 32 (alias for log level info):

FFREPORT=file=ffreport.log:level=32 ffmpeg -i input output

Errors in parsing the environment variable are not fatal, and will not appear in the report.

'-hide_banner'

Suppress printing banner.

All FFmpeg tools will normally show a copyright notice, build options and library versions. This option can be used to suppress printing this information.

'-cpuflags flags (global)'

Allows setting and clearing cpu flags. This option is intended for testing. Do not use it unless you know what you're doing.

ffmpeg -cpuflags -sse+mmx ...
ffmpeg -cpuflags mmx ...
ffmpeg -cpuflags 0 ...

Possible flags for this option are:

'x86'

'mmx'

'mmxext'

'sse'

'sse2'

'sse2slow'

'sse3'

'sse3slow'

'ssse3'

'atom'

'sse4.1'

'sse4.2'

'avx'

'avx2'

'xop'

'fma3'

'fma4'

'3dnow'

'3dnowext'

'bmi1'

'bmi2'

'cmov'

'ARM'

'armv5te'

'armv6'

'armv6t2'

'vfp'

'vfpv3'

'neon'

'setend'

'AArch64'

'armv8'

'vfp'

'neon'

'PowerPC'

'altivec'

'Specific Processors'

'pentium2'

'pentium3'

'pentium4'

'k6'

'k62'

'athlon'

'athlonxp'

'k8'