ffmpeg is a very useful command line tool for converting lots of different audio and video formats. It sits quietly hidden under a number of popular video conversion software targeted at the iPod consumers.

This post is targeted for a very specific audience - Linux users who want a non-neutered ffmpeg for audio and video file conversion. Windows users don’t have this problem but because of various licensing issues, the most common ffmpeg packages for Linux have all been built without MP3 or ACC support. This makes things like “converting for iPod” a PITA.

There are loads of site that tell you how to fetch the source code and build ffmpeg with the right switches to add the support back in but there is no need. It is nicely documented at the ffmpeg Wiki …

Install ffmpeg with MP3 support:

vi /etc/apt/sources.list

deb http://www.debian-multimedia.org stable main

apt-get update

apt-get install ffmpeg

Another place to get the media support you need is at www.medibuntu.org. That’s all there is to it. Enjoy !

Oh, by the way, to convert a video for the iPod (iPod video in my case) I use one of the following commands …

:original

ffmpeg -y -i <inputfile> -f mp4 -acodec aac -ac 2 -ab 48 -vcodec xvid -qscale 4 <outputfile>

:tv

ffmpeg -y -i <inputfile> -f mp4 -acodec aac -ac 2 -ab 48 -vcodec xvid -qscale 4 -s 512x384 <outputfile>

:widescreen

ffmpeg -y -i <inputfile> -f mp4 -acodec aac -ac 2 -ab 48 -vcodec xvid -qscale 4 -s 720x304 <outputfile>

:custom

ffmpeg -y -i <inputfile> -f mp4 -acodec aac -ac 2 -ab 48 -vcodec xvid -qscale 4 -s <customXxcustomY> <outputfile>

common custom resolutions:

    720x304 (2.35-1)

    624x336 (1.85-1)

    624x352   (16-9) widescreen

    512x384    (4-3) tv

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