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An easy install of the ffmpeg command line tool UNIX
I always wanted to use the ffmpeg command line tool (the one ffmpegX is the GUI of) in Terminal, but I didn't find it in Fink, and I didn't want to compile it from an experimental source. Well, there is a working binary of ffmpeg bundled with ffmpegX. To get it, simply follow these steps:
  1. Get ffmpegX from the above URL. It's a pretty useful tool, because the ffmpeg synatx isn't quite easy to handle.
  2. Control-click on the ffmpegX application, choose Show Package Contents from the pop-up menu, and navigate into Resources.
  3. Copy ffmpeg to /usr/local/bin.
  4. Execute the following in Terminal (as admin):
    sudo chown root:wheel /usr/local/bin/ffmpeg
    sudo chmod 755 /usr/local/bin/ffmpeg
Now you have a working version of ffmpeg in the Terminal.

[robg adds: There may be other ways to get the binary as well, but this one seems quite simple.]
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An easy install of the ffmpeg command line tool | 8 comments | Create New Account
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Available in fink unstable
Authored by: caek on Fri, Dec 22 2006 at 10:20AM PST
ffmpeg is available from Fink, but you'll have to enable unstable.

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Best ffmepg .m4v settings?
Authored by: Bob O on Fri, Dec 22 2006 at 10:28AM PST
Thanks for the Mac ffmepg install procedure. I'd love to know the best ffmpeg settings to convert a MPEG2 file (.mpg) from my PVR (BeyondTV) to a .m4v (MPEG4) that can be shared in iTunes. Does anyone know the setting Apple uses?

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Best ffmepg .m4v settings?
Authored by: chally on Fri, Dec 22 2006 at 2:34PM PST
Don't know about that, but I'll bet VisualHub or iSquint will do it. It handled my ReplayTV MPEG2 files just fine (and they're funky, but it figured it out.)

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Best ffmepg .m4v settings?
Authored by: merlyn on Fri, Dec 22 2006 at 3:26PM PST
VisualHub is a great interface to ffmpeg... much cleaner than ffmpegX, and far more sane than the craziness of trying to do it at the commandline.

Also, VisualHub includes a "publish to Tivo" plugin. Yeay, finally I can get video content on to my tivo! Yeay. Between that, and the recently produced "Tivodecode", I now have two-way video with my tivo.

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Best ffmepg .m4v settings?
Authored by: Derivatize on Fri, Dec 22 2006 at 9:33PM PST
I have a Miglia TVMini HD, and I've found that the MPEG2 streams often have dropped packets. Last I checked, ffmpeg does not handle MPEG-TS properly, so it is not really useful for transcoding your PVR data to MPEG4 format; unless the tele signal is nearly flawless, the audio and video will not sync. I've found that the Mencoder features of MPlayer do (since October, I think) handle "TS" transport streams properly now, resulting in an efficient, fast, transcode to MPEG4.

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Add to $PATH
Authored by: bricoleur on Sun, Dec 24 2006 at 1:27PM PST
Another way to go about it may be to add the path to the executable to your $PATH environment variable, or symlink to /usr/local/bin/ and just leave the application binary in place.

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m4v settings
Authored by: barryjaylevine on Tue, Dec 26 2006 at 8:15AM PST
This might be obvious but why not use ffmpegX? The standard settings for 640x iPod use are great. If you use the 320x setting, set Qmin to 3 and Qmax to 28. Also set ME function to Multi-Hexagon or Exhaustive (the latter if you don't mind the extra time it will take). You'll end up with about as good an H264 video as is possible without using two-pass.

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Two things in this world aren't overrated: Macintosh and Lemon Meringue Pie.

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An easy install of the ffmpeg command line tool
Authored by: kloguy on Wed, Dec 27 2006 at 9:18PM PST
ffmpeg is avaiable on darwinports.

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