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FFmpeg Tips and Tricks

Some useful tips that I have been using.

In the past few weeks, I have been using FFmpeg to modify some video and audio files. I been having found a few productive tips/tricks that I thought would be good to share.

If you have anything good to share, please feel free to leave a comment below.

ffmpeg Tips Tricks

Loop Video

If you have a short video and would like to extend it for a long duration. For example, if you have a bokeh design that you would like to loop over and over again.

This loops a GoPro video file 4 times it's current length:

ffmpeg -stream_loop 4 -i GH010375.MP4 -c copy output.mp4

Loop Audio

Looping audio works the exact same way.

This is useful when you want to extend a background sound, such as Apple's Playful for a longer duration.

This code snippet extends the 1-minute clip to 25 minutes. This saves me time in having to duplicate the clip multiple times in Final Cut Pro.

ffmpeg -stream_loop 25 -i PLAYFUL-EndlessLoop.m4a -c copy LongPlayful25.m4a

Combine Video

This is very useful when dealing with when the camera splits a video clip because of the 4GB limit. (This is something that the GoPro does.)

In this first example, We create a reference file and then combine the video clips.

cd ~/Desktop/GoPro/
printf "file '%s'n" *.MP4 > clips.txt
ffmpeg -f concat -i clips.txt -c copy GoPro.mp4

In this example, we call out the files on the command line, without using the reference file. Here's an example:

ffmpeg -i "concat:GX010197.MP4|GX010198.MP4" -c copy ~/Desktop/output.mp4

 

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A Mac veteran since 1989, I'm here to share my experience with tips and tricks every Friday. Witnessing the evolution of Mac software and hardware firsthand, I've gained a deep understanding of how these machines work and can help you troubleshoot any issues that may come up.

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