FFmpeg: A Practical Guide to Essential Command-Line Options
Introduction
FFmpeg is an incredibly versatile command-line tool for manipulating audio and video files. This post provides a practical collection of useful FFmpeg commands for common tasks.
FFmpeg Command Structure
The general structure of an FFmpeg command is:
ffmpeg [global_options] {[input_file_options] -i input_url} ... {[output_file_options] output_url} ...
Merging Video and Audio
Merging video and audio, with audio re-encoding
ffmpeg -i video.mp4 -i audio.wav -c:v copy -c:a aac output.mp4
Copying the audio without re-encoding
ffmpeg -i video.mp4 -i audio.wav -c copy output.mkv
Why copy audio?