Guide - The Glory that is FFMPEG

FFMPEG is a powerful open-source, command-line tool for editing video and audio files. Use it to quickly convert file formats, combine audio with a video, change the resolution of a file, cut parts of a video out, shorten and lengthen a video, etc. -- all with fairly simple commands. Get away from that proprietary GUI that forces advertisements on you and join the open-source, command-line world.

1. Install FFMPEG & Set Environment Path


  • For Windows go here: https://ffmpeg.org/download.html#build-windows

  • click on "Windows builds from gyan.dev"

  • scroll down to "git" and click on "https://www.gyan.dev/ffmpeg/builds/ffmpeg-git-full.7z"

  • unzip the download

  • rename the folder to ffmpeg

  • now you can either set the environment variable PATH for the folder or simply place it into your root directory in order to access it via the command-line

  • search "environ" in Windows search bar and click "Edit the system environment variables"

  • click "Environment Variables" at the bottom

  • double click "Path" or highlight it and click "Edit"

  • click "New" and paste in the directory of the ffmpeg download

  • click ok and make sure you click "Apply" on the "System Properties" window before exiting

  • OR

  • place the folder into your root directory -- for example "c:\" and it should work just the same

  • open a command terminal and type "ffmpeg" to confirm that it works

2. Sample Commands


  • simply convert avi to mp4

    • ffmpeg -i video.avi video.mp4

  • to cut a clip by time ( -ss = start time & -t = total time)

  • this will start at 0 seconds and end at 4 seconds

    • ffmpeg -i video.avi -ss 00:00:00 -t 00:00:04 video.avi

  • another example of cutting a video

  • this will start at 2 seconds and end at 6 seconds because -t is how many seconds the video should be after starting at -ss

    • ffmpeg -i video.avi -ss 00:00:02 -t 00:00:04 video.avi

  • resizing a video to 720x720

    • ffmpeg -i video.avi -s 720x720 video.avi

  • if you get this error "Too many packets buffered for output stream 0:1"

  • add this flag "-max_muxing_queue_size 1024"

    • ffmpeg -i video.avi -max_muxing_queue_size 1024 video.mp4

  • use ffmpeg to convert webms into .mov files for your twitter-using IOS buddies

    • ffmpeg -i video.webm -s 420x420 video.mov