78 Chapter 4—Video and Audio
Table 4.3 Some important FFmpeg parametersParameter Effect
-h Help for all parameters (very long list)
-formats List of all supported file formats-codecs List of all supported audio and video codecs-i file Sets file as input file / stream-f fmt Sets fmt as output format (for example, webm, ogg, or mp4)
-ss start Searches the input medium up to the point start (in seconds)-t duration Records for duration seconds
-b bitrate Video quality (bitrate, default: 200 kilobits/s)-r fps Frames per second (default: 25)
-s widthxheight Video size (in pixels, specified in width times height, or spec-
ifications such as vga)-ab bitrate Audio quality (bitrate, default: 64 kilobits/s)Thanks to the option of letting FFmpeg work without user interaction, it is par-
ticularly suitable for automatic video conversion.4.4.2 VLC
For many years, the VideoLan project has been developing the popular media
player VLC, available for various operating systems (Windows, Mac OS, Linux,
and other UNIX variations) with a simple graphic interface. The media player
uses, among others, the libavcodec library of the FFmpeg project and therefore
also supports the WebM format.
VLC does not just play videos of different formats and sources; you also have the
option to convert multimedia content via the menu item Convert / Save. As you
can see in Figure 4.3, you can use predefined profiles for converting to common
formats—a very useful feature.