All the numerical options, if not specified otherwise, accept a string representing a number as input, which may be followed by one of the SI unit prefixes, for example: 'K', 'M', or 'G'.

If 'i' is appended to the SI unit prefix, the complete prefix will be interpreted as a unit prefix for binary multiples, which are based on powers of 1024 instead of powers of 1000. Appending 'B' to the SI unit prefix multiplies the value by 8. This allows using, for example: 'KB', 'MiB', 'G' and 'B' as number suffixes.

Options which do not take arguments are boolean options, and set the corresponding value to true. They can be set to false by prefixing the option name with "no". For example using "-nofoo" will set the boolean option with name "foo" to false.

Stream specifiers
=================

Some options are applied per-stream, e.g. bitrate or codec. Stream specifiers are used to precisely specify which stream(s) a given option belongs to.

A stream specifier is a string generally appended to the option name and separated from it by a colon. E.g. -codec:a:1 ac3 contains the a:1 stream specifier, which matches the second audio stream. Therefore, it would select the ac3 codec for the second audio stream.

A stream specifier can match several streams, so that the option is applied to all of them. E.g. the stream specifier in -b:a 128k matches all audio streams.

An empty stream specifier matches all streams. For example, -codec copy or -codec: copy would copy all the streams without reencoding.

Possible forms of stream specifiers are:

STREAM_INDEX
     Matches the stream with this index. E.g. -threads:1 4 would set the thread count for the second stream to 4. If STREAM_INDEX is used as an additional stream specifier (see below), then it selects stream number STREAM_INDEX from the matching streams. Stream numbering is based on the order of the streams as detected by libavformat except when a program ID is also specified. In this case it is based on the ordering of the streams in the program.

STREAM_TYPE[:ADDITIONAL_STREAM_SPECIFIER]
     STREAM_TYPE is one of following: 'v' or 'V' for video, 'a' for audio, 's' for subtitle, 'd' for data, and 't' for attachments. 'v' matches all video streams, 'V' only matches video streams which are not attached pictures, video thumbnails or cover arts. If ADDITIONAL_STREAM_SPECIFIER is used, then it matches streams which both have this type and match the ADDITIONAL_STREAM_SPECIFIER. Otherwise, it matches all streams of the specified type.

p:PROGRAM_ID[:ADDITIONAL_STREAM_SPECIFIER]
     Matches streams which are in the program with the id PROGRAM_ID. If ADDITIONAL_STREAM_SPECIFIER is used, then it matches streams which both are part of the program and match the ADDITIONAL_STREAM_SPECIFIER.

#STREAM_ID or i:STREAM_ID
     Match the stream by stream id (e.g. PID in MPEG-TS container).

m:KEY[:VALUE]
     Matches streams with the metadata tag KEY having the specified value. If VALUE is not given, matches streams that contain the given tag with any value.

u
     Matches streams with usable configuration, the codec must be defined and the essential information such as video dimension or audio sample rate must be present.

     Note that in ffmpeg, matching by metadata will only work properly for input files.

Generic options
===============

These options are shared amongst the ff* tools.

-L
     Show license.

-h, -?, -help, --help [ARG]
     Show help. An optional parameter may be specified to print help about a specific item. If no argument is specified, only basic (non advanced) tool options are shown.

     Possible values of ARG are:

     long
          Print advanced tool options in addition to the basic tool options.

     full
          Print complete list of options, including shared and private options for encoders, decoders, demuxers, muxers, filters, etc.

     decoder=DECODER_NAME
          Print detailed information about the decoder named DECODER_NAME. Use the -decoders option to get a list of all decoders.

     encoder=ENCODER_NAME
          Print detailed information about the encoder named ENCODER_NAME. Use the -encoders option to get a list of all encoders.

     demuxer=DEMUXER_NAME
          Print detailed information about the demuxer named DEMUXER_NAME. Use the -formats option to get a list of all demuxers and muxers.

     muxer=MUXER_NAME
          Print detailed information about the muxer named MUXER_NAME. Use the -formats option to get a list of all muxers and demuxers.

     filter=FILTER_NAME
          Print detailed information about the filter named FILTER_NAME. Use the -filters option to get a list of all filters.

     bsf=BITSTREAM_FILTER_NAME
          Print detailed information about the bitstream filter named BITSTREAM_FILTER_NAME. Use the -bsfs option to get a list of all bitstream filters.

-version
     Show version.

-formats
     Show available formats (including devices).

-demuxers
     Show available demuxers.

-muxers
     Show available muxers.

-devices
     Show available devices.

-codecs
     Show all codecs known to libavcodec.

     Note that the term 'codec' is used throughout this documentation as a shortcut for what is more correctly called a media bitstream format.

-decoders
     Show available decoders.

-encoders
     Show all available encoders.

-bsfs
     Show available bitstream filters.

-protocols
     Show available protocols.

-filters
     Show available libavfilter filters.

-pix_fmts
     Show available pixel formats.

-sample_fmts
     Show available sample formats.

-layouts
     Show channel names and standard channel layouts.

-colors
     Show recognized color names.

-sources DEVICE[,OPT1=VAL1[,OPT2=VAL2]...]
     Show autodetected sources of the input device. Some devices may provide system-dependent source names that cannot be autodetected. The returned list cannot be assumed to be always complete.

          ffmpeg -sources pulse,server=192.168.0.4

-sinks DEVICE[,OPT1=VAL1[,OPT2=VAL2]...]
     Show autodetected sinks of the output device. Some devices may provide system-dependent sink names that cannot be autodetected. The returned list cannot be assumed to be always complete.

          ffmpeg -sinks pulse,server=192.168.0.4

-loglevel [FLAGS+]LOGLEVEL | -v [FLAGS+]LOGLEVEL
     Set logging level and flags used by the library.

     The optional FLAGS prefix can consist of the following values:

     repeat
          Indicates that repeated log output should not be compressed to the first line and the "Last message repeated n times" line will be omitted.

     level
          Indicates that log output should add a [level] prefix to each message line. This can be used as an alternative to log coloring, e.g. when dumping the log to file.

     Flags can also be used alone by adding a '+'/'-' prefix to set/reset a single flag without affecting other FLAGS or changing LOGLEVEL. When setting both FLAGS and LOGLEVEL, a '+' separator is expected between the last FLAGS value and before LOGLEVEL.

     LOGLEVEL is a string or a number containing one of the following values:

     quiet, -8
          Show nothing at all; be silent.

     panic, 0
          Only show fatal errors which could lead the process to crash, such as an assertion failure. This is not currently used for anything.

     fatal, 8
          Only show fatal errors. These are errors after which the process absolutely cannot continue.

     error, 16
          Show all errors, including ones which can be recovered from.

     warning, 24
          Show all warnings and errors. Any message related to possibly incorrect or unexpected events will be shown.

     info, 32
          Show informative messages during processing. This is in addition to warnings and errors. This is the default value.

     verbose, 40
          Same as info, except more verbose.

     debug, 48
          Show everything, including debugging information.

     trace, 56

     For example to enable repeated log output, add the level prefix, and set LOGLEVEL to verbose:

          ffmpeg -loglevel repeat+level+verbose -i input output

     Another example that enables repeated log output without affecting current state of level prefix flag or LOGLEVEL:

          ffmpeg [...] -loglevel +repeat

     By default the program logs to stderr. If coloring is supported by the terminal, colors are used to mark errors and warnings. Log coloring can be disabled setting the environment variable AV_LOG_FORCE_NOCOLOR, or can be forced setting the environment variable AV_LOG_FORCE_COLOR.

-report
     Dump full command line and log output to a file named PROGRAM-YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS.log in the current directory. This file can be useful for bug reports. It also implies -loglevel debug.

     Setting the environment variable FFREPORT to any value has the same effect. If the value is a ':'-separated key=value sequence, these options will affect the report; option values must be escaped if they contain special characters or the options delimiter ':' (see the ``Quoting and escaping'' section in the ffmpeg-utils manual).

     The following options are recognized:

     file
          set the file name to use for the report; %p is expanded to the name of the program, %t is expanded to a timestamp, %% is expanded to a plain %

     level
          set the log verbosity level using a numerical value (see -loglevel).

     For example, to output a report to a file named ffreport.log using a log level of 32 (alias for log level info):

          FFREPORT=file=ffreport.log:level=32 ffmpeg -i input output

     Errors in parsing the environment variable are not fatal, and will not appear in the report.

-hide_banner
     Suppress printing banner.

     All FFmpeg tools will normally show a copyright notice, build options and library versions. This option can be used to suppress printing this information.

-cpuflags flags (global)
     Allows setting and clearing cpu flags. This option is intended for testing. Do not use it unless you know what you're doing.

          ffmpeg -cpuflags -sse+mmx ...
          ffmpeg -cpuflags mmx ...
          ffmpeg -cpuflags 0 ...

     Possible flags for this option are:

     x86

          mmx

          mmxext

          sse

          sse2

          sse2slow

          sse3

          sse3slow

          ssse3

          atom

          sse4.1

          sse4.2

          avx

          avx2

          xop

          fma3

          fma4

          3dnow

          3dnowext

          bmi1

          bmi2

          cmov

     ARM

          armv5te

          armv6

          armv6t2

          vfp

          vfpv3

          neon

          setend

     AArch64

          armv8

          vfp

          neon

     PowerPC

          altivec

     Specific Processors

          pentium2

          pentium3

          pentium4

          k6

          k62

          athlon

          athlonxp

          k8

AVOptions
=========

These options are provided directly by the libavformat, libavdevice and libavcodec libraries. To see the list of available AVOptions, use the -help option. They are separated into two categories:

generic
     These options can be set for any container, codec or device. Generic options are listed under AVFormatContext options for containers/devices and under AVCodecContext options for codecs.

private
     These options are specific to the given container, device or codec. Private options are listed under their corresponding containers/devices/codecs.

For example to write an ID3v2.3 header instead of a default ID3v2.4 to an MP3 file, use the id3v2_version private option of the MP3 muxer:

     ffmpeg -i input.flac -id3v2_version 3 out.mp3

All codec AVOptions are per-stream, and thus a stream specifier should be attached to them:

     ffmpeg -i multichannel.mxf -map 0:v:0 -map 0:a:0 -map 0:a:0 -c:a:0 ac3 -b:a:0 640k -ac:a:1 2 -c:a:1 aac -b:2 128k out.mp4

In the above example, a multichannel audio stream is mapped twice for output. The first instance is encoded with codec ac3 and bitrate 640k. The second instance is downmixed to 2 channels and encoded with codec aac. A bitrate of 128k is specified for it using absolute index of the output stream.

Note: the -nooption syntax cannot be used for boolean AVOptions, use -option 0/-option 1.

Note: the old undocumented way of specifying per-stream AVOptions by prepending v/a/s to the options name is now obsolete and will be removed soon.