1 @chapter Format Options
2 @c man begin FORMAT OPTIONS
4 The libavformat library provides some generic global options, which
5 can be set on all the muxers and demuxers. In addition each muxer or
6 demuxer may support so-called private options, which are specific for
9 Options may be set by specifying -@var{option} @var{value} in the
10 FFmpeg tools, or by setting the value explicitly in the
11 @code{AVFormatContext} options or using the @file{libavutil/opt.h} API
14 The list of supported options follows:
17 @item avioflags @var{flags} (@emph{input/output})
24 @item probesize @var{integer} (@emph{input})
25 Set probing size in bytes, i.e. the size of the data to analyze to get
26 stream information. A higher value will enable detecting more
27 information in case it is dispersed into the stream, but will increase
28 latency. Must be an integer not lesser than 32. It is 5000000 by default.
30 @item packetsize @var{integer} (@emph{output})
33 @item fflags @var{flags} (@emph{input/output})
41 Enable fast, but inaccurate seeks for some formats.
45 Do not fill in missing values that can be exactly calculated.
47 Disable AVParsers, this needs @code{+nofillin} too.
51 Discard corrupted frames.
53 Try to interleave output packets by DTS.
55 Do not merge side data.
57 Enable RTP MP4A-LATM payload.
59 Reduce the latency introduced by optional buffering
61 Only write platform-, build- and time-independent data.
62 This ensures that file and data checksums are reproducible and match between
63 platforms. Its primary use is for regression testing.
65 Stop muxing at the end of the shortest stream.
66 It may be needed to increase max_interleave_delta to avoid flushing the longer
70 @item seek2any @var{integer} (@emph{input})
71 Allow seeking to non-keyframes on demuxer level when supported if set to 1.
74 @item analyzeduration @var{integer} (@emph{input})
75 Specify how many microseconds are analyzed to probe the input. A
76 higher value will enable detecting more accurate information, but will
77 increase latency. It defaults to 5,000,000 microseconds = 5 seconds.
79 @item cryptokey @var{hexadecimal string} (@emph{input})
82 @item indexmem @var{integer} (@emph{input})
83 Set max memory used for timestamp index (per stream).
85 @item rtbufsize @var{integer} (@emph{input})
86 Set max memory used for buffering real-time frames.
88 @item fdebug @var{flags} (@emph{input/output})
89 Print specific debug info.
96 @item max_delay @var{integer} (@emph{input/output})
97 Set maximum muxing or demuxing delay in microseconds.
99 @item fpsprobesize @var{integer} (@emph{input})
100 Set number of frames used to probe fps.
102 @item audio_preload @var{integer} (@emph{output})
103 Set microseconds by which audio packets should be interleaved earlier.
105 @item chunk_duration @var{integer} (@emph{output})
106 Set microseconds for each chunk.
108 @item chunk_size @var{integer} (@emph{output})
109 Set size in bytes for each chunk.
111 @item err_detect, f_err_detect @var{flags} (@emph{input})
112 Set error detection flags. @code{f_err_detect} is deprecated and
113 should be used only via the @command{ffmpeg} tool.
118 Verify embedded CRCs.
120 Detect bitstream specification deviations.
122 Detect improper bitstream length.
124 Abort decoding on minor error detection.
126 Consider things that violate the spec and have not been seen in the
129 Consider all spec non compliancies as errors.
131 Consider things that a sane encoder should not do as an error.
134 @item max_interleave_delta @var{integer} (@emph{output})
135 Set maximum buffering duration for interleaving. The duration is
136 expressed in microseconds, and defaults to 1000000 (1 second).
138 To ensure all the streams are interleaved correctly, libavformat will
139 wait until it has at least one packet for each stream before actually
140 writing any packets to the output file. When some streams are
141 "sparse" (i.e. there are large gaps between successive packets), this
142 can result in excessive buffering.
144 This field specifies the maximum difference between the timestamps of the
145 first and the last packet in the muxing queue, above which libavformat
146 will output a packet regardless of whether it has queued a packet for all
149 If set to 0, libavformat will continue buffering packets until it has
150 a packet for each stream, regardless of the maximum timestamp
151 difference between the buffered packets.
153 @item use_wallclock_as_timestamps @var{integer} (@emph{input})
154 Use wallclock as timestamps if set to 1. Default is 0.
156 @item avoid_negative_ts @var{integer} (@emph{output})
160 @item make_non_negative
161 Shift timestamps to make them non-negative.
162 Also note that this affects only leading negative timestamps, and not
163 non-monotonic negative timestamps.
165 Shift timestamps so that the first timestamp is 0.
167 Enables shifting when required by the target format.
169 Disables shifting of timestamp.
172 When shifting is enabled, all output timestamps are shifted by the
173 same amount. Audio, video, and subtitles desynching and relative
174 timestamp differences are preserved compared to how they would have
175 been without shifting.
177 @item skip_initial_bytes @var{integer} (@emph{input})
178 Set number of bytes to skip before reading header and frames if set to 1.
181 @item correct_ts_overflow @var{integer} (@emph{input})
182 Correct single timestamp overflows if set to 1. Default is 1.
184 @item flush_packets @var{integer} (@emph{output})
185 Flush the underlying I/O stream after each packet. Default is -1 (auto), which
186 means that the underlying protocol will decide, 1 enables it, and has the
187 effect of reducing the latency, 0 disables it and may increase IO throughput in
190 @item output_ts_offset @var{offset} (@emph{output})
191 Set the output time offset.
193 @var{offset} must be a time duration specification,
194 see @ref{time duration syntax,,the Time duration section in the ffmpeg-utils(1) manual,ffmpeg-utils}.
196 The offset is added by the muxer to the output timestamps.
198 Specifying a positive offset means that the corresponding streams are
199 delayed bt the time duration specified in @var{offset}. Default value
200 is @code{0} (meaning that no offset is applied).
202 @item format_whitelist @var{list} (@emph{input})
203 "," separated list of allowed demuxers. By default all are allowed.
205 @item dump_separator @var{string} (@emph{input})
206 Separator used to separate the fields printed on the command line about the
208 For example to separate the fields with newlines and indention:
210 ffprobe -dump_separator "
211 " -i ~/videos/matrixbench_mpeg2.mpg
214 @item max_streams @var{integer} (@emph{input})
215 Specifies the maximum number of streams. This can be used to reject files that
216 would require too many resources due to a large number of streams.
219 @c man end FORMAT OPTIONS
221 @anchor{Format stream specifiers}
222 @section Format stream specifiers
224 Format stream specifiers allow selection of one or more streams that
225 match specific properties.
227 Possible forms of stream specifiers are:
229 @item @var{stream_index}
230 Matches the stream with this index.
232 @item @var{stream_type}[:@var{stream_index}]
233 @var{stream_type} is one of following: 'v' for video, 'a' for audio,
234 's' for subtitle, 'd' for data, and 't' for attachments. If
235 @var{stream_index} is given, then it matches the stream number
236 @var{stream_index} of this type. Otherwise, it matches all streams of
239 @item p:@var{program_id}[:@var{stream_index}]
240 If @var{stream_index} is given, then it matches the stream with number
241 @var{stream_index} in the program with the id
242 @var{program_id}. Otherwise, it matches all streams in the program.
244 @item #@var{stream_id}
245 Matches the stream by a format-specific ID.
248 The exact semantics of stream specifiers is defined by the
249 @code{avformat_match_stream_specifier()} function declared in the
250 @file{libavformat/avformat.h} header.
252 @ifclear config-writeonly
253 @include demuxers.texi
255 @ifclear config-readonly
258 @include metadata.texi