Preset files
A preset file contains a sequence of option=value pairs, one for each line, specifying a sequence of options which would be awkward to specify on the command line. Lines starting with the hash ('#') character are ignored and are used to provide comments. Check the 'presets' directory in the FFmpeg source tree for examples.
There are two types of preset files: ffpreset and avpreset files.
ffpreset files
ffpreset files are specified with the vpre
, apre
, spre
, and fpre
options. The fpre
option takes the filename of the preset instead of a preset name as input and can be used for any kind of codec. For the vpre
, apre
, and spre
options, the options specified in a preset file are applied to the currently selected codec of the same type as the preset option.
The argument passed to the vpre
, apre
, and spre
preset options identifies the preset file to use according to the following rules:
First ffmpeg searches for a file named arg.ffpreset in the directories '$FFMPEG_DATADIR' (if set), and '$HOME/.ffmpeg', and in the datadir defined at configuration time (usually 'PREFIX/share/ffmpeg') or in a 'ffpresets' folder along the executable on win32, in that order. For example, if the argument is libvpx-1080p
, it will search for the file 'libvpx-1080p.ffpreset'.
If no such file is found, then ffmpeg will search for a file named codec_name-arg.ffpreset in the above-mentioned directories, where codec_name is the name of the codec to which the preset file options will be applied. For example, if you select the video codec with -vcodec libvpx
and use -vpre 1080p
, then it will search for the file 'libvpx-1080p.ffpreset'.
avpreset files
avpreset files are specified with the pre
option. They work similar to ffpreset files, but they only allow encoder- specific options. Therefore, an option=value pair specifying an encoder cannot be used.
When the pre
option is specified, ffmpeg will look for files with the suffix .avpreset in the directories '$AVCONV_DATADIR' (if set), and '$HOME/.avconv', and in the datadir defined at configuration time (usually 'PREFIX/share/ffmpeg'), in that order.
First ffmpeg searches for a file named codec_name-arg.avpreset in the above-mentioned directories, where codec_name is the name of the codec to which the preset file options will be applied. For example, if you select the video codec with -vcodec libvpx
and use -pre 1080p
, then it will search for the file 'libvpx-1080p.avpreset'.
If no such file is found, then ffmpeg will search for a file named arg.avpreset in the same directories.