ffmpeg$ CLI Builder

ffmpeg@cli-builder:~

FFMPEG

CLI Builder v2.0 — build your ffmpeg commands visually

user@ffmpeg-cli

pid 8421

tool ffmpeg 6.1

uptime 00:00:00

presets:

user@host:~$ ./io_config — input & output files ▶

input file

output file

overwrite

-y overwrite output

user@host:~$ ./video_codec — video encoding settings ▶

codec

preset

crf

bitrate

max:

bufsize

fps

pixel format

profile

user@host:~$ ./audio_codec — audio encoding settings ▶

codec

bitrate

sample rate

channels

volume

user@host:~$ ./scale_filter — resolution & scaling ▶

resolution

quick scale

scale flag

user@host:~$ ./trim_seek — cut & seek ▶

start time

duration

end time

user@host:~$ ./filters — video & audio filters ▶

video filters

audio filters

common filters

denoise

deinterlace

-vf yadif

user@host:~$ ./misc — metadata, maps & extras ▶

map video

map audio

strip metadata

-map_metadata -1

movflags

-movflags +faststart

shortest

-shortest end at shortest stream

threads

extra args

$ ffmpeg

ffmpeg

# About FFMPEG

FFmpeg is a free and open-source multimedia framework capable of decoding, encoding, transcoding, muxing, demuxing, streaming, filtering, and playing virtually any media format ever created. It provides the core multimedia processing backbone behind countless applications including VLC, Chrome, Firefox, Blender, OBS Studio, and many more.

Originally created by Fabrice Bellard in 2000, FFmpeg is now maintained by a global community of developers. The project includes several components:

ffmpeg — command-line tool for converting multimedia files
ffprobe — analyzes multimedia streams and displays media information
ffplay — simple media player based on SDL and FFmpeg libraries
libavcodec — audio/video codec library containing all FFmpeg codecs
libavformat — library containing muxer and demuxer for all supported formats
libavfilter — graph-based frame editing library (video/audio filters)
libavutil — utility library with common functions like hash, cipher, compression
libswscale — library for performing highly optimized image scaling and colorspace conversion
libswresample — library for performing highly optimized audio resampling and remixing

FFmpeg supports a vast number of codecs, formats, and protocols. It can handle input and output in formats including MP4, MKV, AVI, MOV, WebM, FLV, HLS, DASH, RTMP, RTSP, and hundreds more. Codec support spans H.264, H.265/HEVC, VP8, VP9, AV1, ProRes, AAC, MP3, Opus, FLAC, and many others.

Licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) 2.1+ or GNU General Public License (GPL) 2+ depending on the configuration, FFmpeg is freely available for use, modification, and distribution.

Official website: https://ffmpeg.org

# Installing FFMPEG on Linux

Debian / Ubuntu / Mint

# Update package index
sudo apt update

# Install ffmpeg from official repos
sudo apt install ffmpeg

# Verify installation
ffmpeg -version

For the latest version on older Ubuntu releases, you can add the Jonathon F PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:jonathonf/ffmpeg-4
sudo apt update
sudo apt install ffmpeg

Fedora

# Enable RPM Fusion repositories first
sudo dnf install https://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm

# Install ffmpeg
sudo dnf install ffmpeg

# With all codecs and extras
sudo dnf install ffmpeg ffmpeg-devel

Arch Linux / Manjaro

# Install from official repos (usually up to date)
sudo pacman -S ffmpeg

openSUSE

# Add Packman repository for full codec support
sudo zypper ar -cfp 90 https://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/misc/packman/suse/openSUSE_Tumbleweed/ packman

# Install ffmpeg
sudo zypper install ffmpeg

CentOS / RHEL

# Enable EPEL and RPM Fusion
sudo yum install epel-release
sudo yum install --nogpgcheck https://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/el/rpmfusion-free-release-7.noarch.rpm

# Install ffmpeg
sudo yum install ffmpeg ffmpeg-devel

Snap (universal)

sudo snap install ffmpeg

Flatpak (universal)

flatpak install flathub org.freedesktop.Platform.ffmpeg-full

Build from source (latest git)

# Install build dependencies (Debian/Ubuntu example)
sudo apt install autoconf automake build-essential cmake git \
  libass-dev libfreetype6-dev libgnutls28-dev libmp3lame-dev \
  libsdl2-dev libtool libva-dev libvdpau-dev libvorbis-dev \
  libxcb1-dev libxcb-shm0-dev libxcb-xfixes0-dev meson ninja-build \
  pkg-config texinfo wget yasm zlib1g-dev

# Clone the FFmpeg source
git clone https://git.ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg.git
cd ffmpeg

# Configure, build, and install
./configure --prefix=/usr/local --enable-gpl --enable-nonfree \
  --enable-libass --enable-libfreetype --enable-libmp3lame \
  --enable-libvorbis --enable-libx264 --enable-libx265
make -j$(nproc)
sudo make install

After installation, verify everything works by running ffmpeg -version and ffmpeg -codecs to see all available codecs. For NVIDIA GPU acceleration, install NVENC support via the nvidia-cuda-toolkit package and compile with --enable-nvenc.