General usage ============= :: mpv infile -o outfile [-of outfileformat] [-ofopts formatoptions] \ [-ofps outfps | -oautofps] [-oharddup] [-ocopyts | -orawts] [-oneverdrop] \ [(any other mpv options)] \ -ovc outvideocodec [-ovcopts outvideocodecoptions] \ -oac outaudiocodec [-oacopts outaudiocodecoptions] Help for these options is provided if giving help as parameter, as in:: mpv -ovc help The suboptions of these generally are identical to ffmpeg's (as option parsing is simply delegated to ffmpeg). The option -ocopyts enables copying timestamps from the source as-is, instead of fixing them to match audio playback time (note: this doesn't work with all output container formats); -orawts even turns off discontinuity fixing. Note that if neither -ofps nor -oautofps is specified, VFR encoding is assumed and the time base is 24000fps. -oautofps sets -ofps to a guessed fps number from the input video. Note that not all codecs and not all formats support VFR encoding, and some which do have bugs when a target bitrate is specified - use -ofps or -oautofps to force CFR encoding in these cases. Of course, the options can be stored in a profile, like this .mpv/config section:: [myencprofile] vf-add = scale=480:-2 ovc = libx264 ovcopts-add = preset=medium,tune=fastdecode ovcopts-add = crf=23 ovcopts-add = maxrate=1500k,bufsize=1000k,rc_init_occupancy=900k,refs=2 ovcopts-add = profile=baseline oac = aac oacopts-add = b=96k One can then encode using this profile using the command:: mpv infile -o outfile.mp4 -profile myencprofile Some example profiles are provided in a file etc/encoding-example-profiles.conf; as for this, see below. Encoding examples ================= These are some examples of encoding targets this code has been used and tested for. Typical MPEG-4 Part 2 ("ASP", "DivX") encoding, AVI container:: mpv infile -o outfile.avi \ -ofps 25 \ -ovc mpeg4 -ovcopts qscale=4 \ -oac libmp3lame -oacopts ab=128k Note: AVI does not support variable frame rate, so -ofps must be used. The frame rate should ideally match the input (25 for PAL, 24000/1001 or 30000/1001 for NTSC) Typical MPEG-4 Part 10 ("AVC", "H.264") encoding, Matroska (MKV) container:: mpv infile -o outfile.mkv \ -ovc libx264 -ovcopts preset=medium,crf=23,profile=baseline \ -oac libvorbis -oacopts qscale=3 Typical MPEG-4 Part 10 ("AVC", "H.264") encoding, MPEG-4 (MP4) container:: mpv infile -o outfile.mp4 \ -ovc libx264 -ovcopts preset=medium,crf=23,profile=baseline \ -oac aac -oacopts ab=128k Typical VP8 encoding, WebM (restricted Matroska) container:: mpv infile -o outfile.mkv \ -of webm \ -ovc libvpx -ovcopts qmin=6,b=1000000k \ -oac libvorbis -oacopts qscale=3 Device targets ============== As the options for various devices can get complex, profiles can be used. An example profile file for encoding is provided in etc/encoding-example-profiles.conf in the source tree. You can include it into your configuration by doing:: mkdir -p ~/.mpv curl https://raw.github.com/mpv-player/mpv/master/etc/encoding-example-profiles.conf \ > ~/.mpv/encoding-profiles.conf echo "include = $HOME/.mpv/encoding-profiles.conf" >> ~/.mpv/config Refer to the top of that file for more comments - in a nutshell, the following options are added by it:: -profile enc-to-dvdpal DVD-Video PAL, use dvdauthor -v pal+4:3 -a ac3+en -profile enc-to-dvdntsc DVD-Video NTSC, use dvdauthor -v ntsc+4:3 -a ac3+en -profile enc-to-bb-9000 MP4 for Blackberry Bold 9000 -profile enc-to-nok-6300 3GP for Nokia 6300 -profile enc-to-psp MP4 for PlayStation Portable -profile enc-to-iphone MP4 for iPhone -profile enc-to-iphone-4 MP4 for iPhone 4 (double res) -profile enc-to-iphone-5 MP4 for iPhone 5 (even larger res) You can encode using these with a command line like:: mpv infile -o outfile.mp4 -profile enc-to-bb-9000 Of course, you are free to override options set by these profiles by specifying them after the -profile option. What works ========== * Encoding at variable frame rate (default) * Encoding at constant frame rate using -ofps framerate -oharddup * 2-pass encoding (specify flags=+pass1 in the first pass's -ovcopts, specify flags=+pass2 in the second pass) * Hardcoding subtitles using vobsub, ass or srt subtitle rendering (just configure mpv for the subtitles as usual) * Hardcoding any other mpv OSD (e.g. time codes, using -osdlevel 3 and -vf expand=::::1) * Encoding directly from a DVD, network stream, webcam, or any other source mpv supports * Using x264 presets/tunings/profiles (by using profile=, tune=, preset= in the -ovcopts) * Deinterlacing/Inverse Telecine with any of mpv's filters for that * Audio file converting: mpv -o outfile.mp3 infile.flac -no-video -oac libmp3lame -oacopts ab=320k * inverse telecine filters (confirmed working: detc, pullup, filmdint) What does not work yet * 3-pass encoding (ensuring constant total size and bitrate constraints while having VBR audio; mencoder calls this "frameno") * Direct stream copy