Main options

'-f fmt (input/output)'

Force input or output file format. The format is normally auto detected for input files and guessed from the file extension for output files, so this option is not needed in most cases.

'-i url (input)'

input file url

'-y (global)'

Overwrite output files without asking.

'-n (global)'

Do not overwrite output files, and exit immediately if a specified output file already exists.

'-stream_loop number (input)'

Set number of times input stream shall be looped. Loop 0 means no loop, loop -1 means infinite loop.

'-c[:stream_specifier] codec (input/output,per-stream)'
'-codec[:stream_specifier] codec (input/output,per-stream)'

Select an encoder (when used before an output file) or a decoder (when used before an input file) for one or more streams. codec is the name of a decoder/encoder or a special value copy (output only) to indicate that the stream is not to be re-encoded.

For example 

ffmpeg -i INPUT -map 0 -c:v libx264 -c:a copy OUTPUT

encodes all video streams with libx264 and copies all audio streams.

For each stream, the last matching c option is applied, so 

ffmpeg -i INPUT -map 0 -c copy -c:v:1 libx264 -c:a:137 libvorbis OUTPUT

will copy all the streams except the second video, which will be encoded with libx264, and the 138th audio, which will be encoded with libvorbis.

'-t duration (input/output)'

When used as an input option (before -i), limit the duration of data read from the input file.

When used as an output option (before an output url), stop writing the output after its duration reaches duration.

duration must be a time duration specification, see .

-to and -t are mutually exclusive and -t has priority.

'-to position (input/output)'

Stop writing the output or reading the input at position. position must be a time duration specification, see .

-to and -t are mutually exclusive and -t has priority.

'-fs limit_size (output)'

Set the file size limit, expressed in bytes. No further chunk of bytes is written after the limit is exceeded. The size of the output file is slightly more than the requested file size.

'-ss position (input/output)'

When used as an input option (before -i), seeks in this input file to position. Note that in most formats it is not possible to seek exactly, so ffmpeg will seek to the closest seek point before position. When transcoding and '-accurate_seek' is enabled (the default), this extra segment between the seek point and position will be decoded and discarded. When doing stream copy or when '-noaccurate_seek' is used, it will be preserved.

When used as an output option (before an output url), decodes but discards input until the timestamps reach position.

position must be a time duration specification, see .

'-sseof position (input)'

Like the -ss option but relative to the "end of file". That is negative values are earlier in the file, 0 is at EOF.

'-itsoffset offset (input)'

Set the input time offset.

offset must be a time duration specification, see .

The offset is added to the timestamps of the input files. Specifying a positive offset means that the corresponding streams are delayed by the time duration specified in offset.

'-itsscale scale (input,per-stream)'

Rescale input timestamps. scale should be a floating point number.

'-timestamp date (output)'

Set the recording timestamp in the container.

date must be a date specification, see .

'-metadata[:metadata_specifier] key=value (output,per-metadata)'

Set a metadata key/value pair.

An optional metadata_specifier may be given to set metadata on streams, chapters or programs. See -map_metadata documentation for details.

This option overrides metadata set with -map_metadata. It is also possible to delete metadata by using an empty value.

For example, for setting the title in the output file: 

ffmpeg -i in.avi -metadata title="my title" out.flv

To set the language of the first audio stream: 

ffmpeg -i INPUT -metadata:s:a:0 language=eng OUTPUT
'-disposition[:stream_specifier] value (output,per-stream)'

Sets the disposition for a stream.

This option overrides the disposition copied from the input stream. It is also possible to delete the disposition by setting it to 0.

The following dispositions are recognized:

'default'
'dub'
'original'
'comment'
'lyrics'
'karaoke'
'forced'
'hearing_impaired'
'visual_impaired'
'clean_effects'
'attached_pic'
'captions'
'descriptions'
'dependent'
'metadata'

For example, to make the second audio stream the default stream: 

ffmpeg -i in.mkv -c copy -disposition:a:1 default out.mkv

To make the second subtitle stream the default stream and remove the default disposition from the first subtitle stream: 

ffmpeg -i in.mkv -c copy -disposition:s:0 0 -disposition:s:1 default out.mkv

To add an embedded cover/thumbnail: 

ffmpeg -i in.mp4 -i IMAGE -map 0 -map 1 -c copy -c:v:1 png -disposition:v:1 attached_pic out.mp4

Not all muxers support embedded thumbnails, and those who do, only support a few formats, like JPEG or PNG.

'-program [title=title:][program_num=program_num:]st=stream[:st=stream...] (output)'

Creates a program with the specified title, program_num and adds the specified stream(s) to it.

'-target type (output)'

Specify target file type (vcd, svcd, dvd, dv, dv50). type may be prefixed with pal-, ntsc- or film- to use the corresponding standard. All the format options (bitrate, codecs, buffer sizes) are then set automatically. You can just type: 

ffmpeg -i myfile.avi -target vcd /tmp/vcd.mpg

Nevertheless you can specify additional options as long as you know they do not conflict with the standard, as in: 

ffmpeg -i myfile.avi -target vcd -bf 2 /tmp/vcd.mpg
'-dn (input/output)'

As an input option, blocks all data streams of a file from being filtered or being automatically selected or mapped for any output. See -discard option to disable streams individually.

As an output option, disables data recording i.e. automatic selection or mapping of any data stream. For full manual control see the -map option.

'-dframes number (output)'

Set the number of data frames to output. This is an obsolete alias for -frames:d, which you should use instead.

'-frames[:stream_specifier] framecount (output,per-stream)'

Stop writing to the stream after framecount frames.

'-q[:stream_specifier] q (output,per-stream)'
'-qscale[:stream_specifier] q (output,per-stream)'

Use fixed quality scale (VBR). The meaning of q/qscale is codec-dependent. If qscale is used without a stream_specifier then it applies only to the video stream, this is to maintain compatibility with previous behavior and as specifying the same codec specific value to 2 different codecs that is audio and video generally is not what is intended when no stream_specifier is used.

'-filter[:stream_specifier] filtergraph (output,per-stream)'

Create the filtergraph specified by filtergraph and use it to filter the stream.

filtergraph is a description of the filtergraph to apply to the stream, and must have a single input and a single output of the same type of the stream. In the filtergraph, the input is associated to the label in, and the output to the label out. See the ffmpeg-filters manual for more information about the filtergraph syntax.

See the if you want to create filtergraphs with multiple inputs and/or outputs.

'-filter_script[:stream_specifier] filename (output,per-stream)'

This option is similar to '-filter', the only difference is that its argument is the name of the file from which a filtergraph description is to be read.

'-filter_threads nb_threads (global)'

Defines how many threads are used to process a filter pipeline. Each pipeline will produce a thread pool with this many threads available for parallel processing. The default is the number of available CPUs.

'-pre[:stream_specifier] preset_name (output,per-stream)'

Specify the preset for matching stream(s).

'-stats (global)'

Print encoding progress/statistics. It is on by default, to explicitly disable it you need to specify -nostats.

'-progress url (global)'

Send program-friendly progress information to url.

Progress information is written approximately every second and at the end of the encoding process. It is made of "key=value" lines. key consists of only alphanumeric characters. The last key of a sequence of progress information is always "progress".

'-stdin'

Enable interaction on standard input. On by default unless standard input is used as an input. To explicitly disable interaction you need to specify -nostdin.

Disabling interaction on standard input is useful, for example, if ffmpeg is in the background process group. Roughly the same result can be achieved with ffmpeg ... < /dev/null but it requires a shell.

'-debug_ts (global)'

Print timestamp information. It is off by default. This option is mostly useful for testing and debugging purposes, and the output format may change from one version to another, so it should not be employed by portable scripts.

See also the option -fdebug ts.

'-attach filename (output)'

Add an attachment to the output file. This is supported by a few formats like Matroska for e.g. fonts used in rendering subtitles. Attachments are implemented as a specific type of stream, so this option will add a new stream to the file. It is then possible to use per-stream options on this stream in the usual way. Attachment streams created with this option will be created after all the other streams (i.e. those created with -map or automatic mappings).

Note that for Matroska you also have to set the mimetype metadata tag: 

ffmpeg -i INPUT -attach DejaVuSans.ttf -metadata:s:2 mimetype=application/x-truetype-font out.mkv

(assuming that the attachment stream will be third in the output file).

'-dump_attachment[:stream_specifier] filename (input,per-stream)'

Extract the matching attachment stream into a file named filename. If filename is empty, then the value of the filename metadata tag will be used.

E.g. to extract the first attachment to a file named 'out.ttf': 

ffmpeg -dump_attachment:t:0 out.ttf -i INPUT

To extract all attachments to files determined by the filename tag: 

ffmpeg -dump_attachment:t "" -i INPUT

Technical note - attachments are implemented as codec extradata, so this option can actually be used to extract extradata from any stream, not just attachments.

'-noautorotate'

Disable automatically rotating video based on file metadata.