Tuesday, 16 August 2011

FFmpeg & 10.04 LTS

I've been having a problem converting a video from one format (.avi) to another (.mp4). It wasn't a huge issue, I just wanted to convert a few seconds of raw video to a format that my wife's Android could read, but, try as I might, I couldn't get FFmpeg to handle the conversion. To be honest, I don't edit video often and I merely assumed that it was I that was doing something wrong - it turns out that it wasn't!

In the past, whenever I have converted video from one format to another, I'd just open a command line and type:

ffmpeg -i /source_directory/source_file.avi /output_directory/output_file.mp4

Now, FFmpeg is far more capable than this simple command suggests, but this simple conversion instruction is normally all I need. However, the version in the Ubuntu Software Centre doesn't seem to support even this level of simplicity, so I had to turn to one of the best resources on the Internet for Ubuntu specific problems - the Ubuntu Forums.

FakeOutdoorsman has posted some superb instructions for installing a fully operational version of FFmpeg. The installation process is lengthy but, if you're experiencing problems with video conversions, this excellent tutorial may be the answer you're looking for.

Sources & References:

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