ffmpeg

• ffplay
• frameinfo
• framecount
• detelecine
• yadif
• bwdif

• https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/FFMPEG_An_Intermediate_Guide

To do a clean MPG copy from a DVD:

dvd_copy -o - | ffmpeg -i - -map 0:v -map 0:a -c:v copy -c:a copy -f vob dvd_copy.mpg 

Or into Matroska with subtitles:

dvd_copy -o - | ffmpeg -fflags +genpts -i - -map 0:v -c:v copy -map 0:a -c:a copy -map 0:s? -c:s copy dvd_copy.mkv 

Adding Chapters

• See https://ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg-formats.html#Metadata-1

Create a file with the metadata. This example here has chapters at each minute mark.

;FFMETADATA1
[CHAPTER]
TIMEBASE=1/1000
START=0
END=60000
[CHAPTER]
TIMEBASE=1/1000
START=60000
END=120000
[CHAPTER]
TIMEBASE=1/1000
START=120000
END=180000
[CHAPTER]
TIMEBASE=1/1000
START=180000
END=240000

Use the file as input with the encode, and map the metadata:

ffmpeg -i video.mpg -i chapters.txt -map_metadata 1 video.mkv

Note: This is a bug I would run into after extracting a VOB from a DVD, and running ffmpeg -i movie.vob

ffmpeg lists the audio tracks in reverse order *in some cases*, so be sure to map the right one. See order of 0x8x below for an example.

You can see the streams by ffmpeg output that it is reading and writing to:

    Stream #0.0[0x1e0]: Video: mpeg2video, yuv420p, 720x480 [PAR 32:27 DAR 16:9], 9800 kb/s, 59.94 tb(r)
    Stream #0.1[0x85]: Audio: ac3, 48000 Hz, 5.0, s16, 448 kb/s
    Stream #0.2[0x84]: Audio: ac3, 48000 Hz, stereo, s16, 256 kb/s
    Stream #0.3[0x83]: Audio: ac3, 48000 Hz, quad, s16, 448 kb/s
    Stream #0.4[0x82]: Audio: ac3, 48000 Hz, stereo, s16, 256 kb/s
    Stream #0.5[0x81]: Audio: ac3, 48000 Hz, 5.1, s16, 448 kb/s
    Stream #0.6[0x80]: Audio: ac3, 48000 Hz, stereo, s16, 256 kb/s
Output #0, avi, to 'movie.avi':
    Stream #0.0: Video: mpeg4, yuv420p, 720x480 [PAR 32:27 DAR 16:9], q=2-31, 200 kb/s, 59.94 tb(c)
    Stream #0.1: Audio: mp2, 48000 Hz, stereo, s16, 192 kb/s
Stream mapping:
  Stream #0.0 -> #0.0
  Stream #0.6 -> #0.1 [sync #0.1]

If you map any of them, you need to map all of them (both audio and video).

ffmpeg -i movie.vob -map 0.0:0.0 -map 0.6:0.1

ffmpeg -i movie.vob -acodec copy \
	-croptop 60 -cropbottom 60 \
	-s 720x480 -aspect 16:9 -deinterlace \
	-vcodec libx264 -vpre hq -crf 12 -threads 0 \
	movie.mp4

The original source of DVDs is a 720×480 picture. The height is stretched to 540 pixels (480 x 1.125 = 540) to display it, so that the aspect ratio is 4:3 (720/540 = 1.33333).

What I want to do is both crop the black and bottom bars, but also keep the new size the same as the original one … just so that the new specs mirror exactly what a widescreen DVD would be (instead of having arbitrary heights/widths).

Since the original size is a height of 480 pixels, *that* is the number to use when counting how many pixels to crop. *Do not* count it from the display size (540). That's why I'm cropping by 60 on top and bottom (verified with GIMP).

If you look at a “normal” widescreen movie that doesn't have black bars at the top and bottom, you'll see that source material is the same size: 720×480. The aspect ratio, though, is 16:9, so the display is stretched to 854×480 – in this case, it's the width that is stretched instead of the height (480 x 16/9 = 853.333).

Last but not least, the MPEG2 codec can store the display aspect ratio inside the header data, which is why you tell ffmpeg that the new one is 16:9.

If you looked at a widescreen and a fullscreen video, the original display size is actually the same: 720×480. They are just stretched differently based on the aspect ratio.

ffmpeg -i snapshot.jpg -sameq -s 720x480 video.mp4

That will create a one frame video. Then I copy it to about 200 frames to make a 6 second video.

Avidemux has problems opening a single frame file, so create a long MP4 before trying to create a VOB to burn to DVD.

Finally found a working solution:

ffmpeg -y -i 101._The_Force_Phantom.mkv -s 320x240 -ar 24000 -r 29.97 -f psp -title "The Force Phantom" M4V12345.MP4

You *can* encode to 480×272 (or 270) and it will playback fine, but for some reason the title tag won't be read anymore. Seems to be a PSP bug, since a video I downloaded (SWTFU stuff) also won't display it.

Also, MV1234.MP4 is the old supported format. My PSP (firmware >5) supports “movie.mp4” naming scheme, as well as folder structures just fine!

ffmpeg seems to have issues creating MKV files. For one, they are much larger than an AVI with the same encoding options. Secondly, they don't seem to work well when AC3 is placed in there. I'd recommend encoding to AVI (or MP4) and then using mkvmerge.