FFMPEG command line for quality videos?

few good links for you

https://www.virag.si/2012/01/web-vid...th-ffmpeg-0-9/

http://rodrigopolo.com/ffmpeg/cheats.php

really good infos

I am curious as to why you are using ffmpeg. Just to re encode quickly in a different format?

Or are you doing something different?

Good info. I might of missed it but they don't mention crf though.

Generally crf allows you to set a quality level.

crf 0 = virtually "lossless"
crf 18 = about perfect quality to the human eye, below this is usually a waste of bandwidth+size
crf 21 = good trade off between quality and bitrate
crf 23 = default i think?
crf 28 = generally the edge of what is recommended. Above this and things get noticeably bad
crf 33 = beyond this and the quality is usually horrible

+6 crf = (i.e. from 21 to 27) means about half the bit rate
-6 crf = generally means double the bitrate

crf generally will vary the bitrate to keep the quality setting. It is considered technically superior to simply setting a average or constant bitrate.

You can also use the maxrate and buffer size to set limits on the max bit rate (ffmpeg will compromise to keep things at that level) along with the crf factor.

If you don't specify maxrate and buffer then when using crf ffmpeg will always use the bitrate necessary to keep the specified crf factor.

http://forum.videohelp.com/threads/3...size?p=2223570
http://ffmpeg.org/trac/ffmpeg/wiki/x264EncodingGuide

I find the HandBrakeCLI High Profile preset does a better job than ffmpeg
https://trac.handbrake.fr/wiki/BuiltInPresets