Command-Line Cheat Sheet

Jul 21, 2018 3 min read

How to use various command-line utilities including batch, bash, FFmpeg and ImageMagick.

Conversion

Batch to Opus

Defaults to 96K bitrate.

for %%a in ("*.mkv" "*.mp4" "*.webm") do ffmpeg -i "%%a" -acodec libopus "%%a.opus"

Encode VP8 Webm

ffmpeg -i INPUT_FILENAME -c:v libvpx -pix_fmt yuv420p -lag-in-frames 16 -auto-alt-ref 1 -qmin 28 -crf 30 -qmax 32 -qcomp 1 -b:v 0 out.webm

Encode to Twitter MP4

ffmpeg -i INPUT_FILENAME -c:v libx264 -strict -2 OUTPUT_FILENAME.mp4

@foone version

ffmpeg -i INPUT_FILENAME -pix_fmt yuv420p -vcodec libx264 -vf scale=640:-1 -acodec aac -vb 1024k -minrate 1024k -maxrate 1024k -bufsize 1024k -ar 44100  -ac 2  -strict experimental -r 30  OUTPUT_FILENAME.mp4

Convert to JPEG

Convert all BMP files in directory to JPEG then delete them.

magick mogrify -format jpg -quality 80 *.bmp
del *.bmp

Output Frames of Video

ffmpeg -i inputvideo.mp4 frames/frame%05d.bmp  
ffmpeg -ss 00:19:20 -i inputvideo.mkv -t 5 frames/frame%05d.bmp

Extract audio

ffmpeg -i vid.mp4 -vn -acodec copy output.aac

Youtube-DL

Archival

youtube-dl --write-thumbnail --add-metadata --ignore-errors --embed-thumbnail

Download live streams

--hls-use-mpegts

Download Youtube video with subtitles.

youtube-dl --write-auto-sub https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
youtube-dl --write-sub --sub-lang en --embed-subs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=

Download snippet only.

1st -ss set before the start to allow key frames to populate.
2nd -ss actual start.

youtube-dl -g [URL]  
ffmpeg -ss 00:59:30 -i "vidlink" -ss 00:59:30 -i "audlink" -map 0:v -map 1:a -ss 30 -t 60 out.mp4

Image Editing

Tiling

https://www.imagemagick.org/Usage/montage/#settings
Create a spritesheet from the files with a maximum size of 256x128, with a spacing of 0 pixels in between and 1 pixel on the top and bottom, with 2 columns and 1 row.
Tiling optional, montage will distribute it evenly by default.
256x128 optional, montage will leave things at their original size.

magick montage "file1.jpg" "file2.jpg" "file3.jpg" -geometry 256x128+0+1 -tile 2x1 montage.jpg
magick montage *.jpg -geometry +0 -tile 1 foo.jpg

Exiftool

Copy exif

exiftool -TagsFromFile src.jpg target.jpg

Adding artist exif tag

exiftool -artist="Teh Lemon" *.jpg

Offset time/date

exiftool “-DateTimeOriginal+=5:10:2 10:48:0” *.jpg

Strip all metadata

exiftool -all= pic.jpg

Video Editing

Hold the last frame

N in trim=0:N changes the duration of the freeze.

ffmpeg -i in.webm -filter_complex "[0]trim=0:N[hold];[0][hold]concat[extended];[extended][0]overlay" -c:v libvpx -pix_fmt yuv420p -lag-in-frames 16 -auto-alt-ref 1 -qmin 28 -crf 30 -qmax 32 -qcomp 1 -b:v 0 out.webm

Tiling

ffmpeg
	-i 1.avi -i 2.avi -i 3.avi -i 4.avi
	-filter_complex "
		nullsrc=size=640x480 [base];
		[0:v] setpts=PTS-STARTPTS, scale=320x240 [upperleft];
		[1:v] setpts=PTS-STARTPTS, scale=320x240 [upperright];
		[2:v] setpts=PTS-STARTPTS, scale=320x240 [lowerleft];
		[3:v] setpts=PTS-STARTPTS, scale=320x240 [lowerright];
		[base][upperleft] overlay=shortest=1 [tmp1];
		[tmp1][upperright] overlay=shortest=1:x=320 [tmp2];
		[tmp2][lowerleft] overlay=shortest=1:y=240 [tmp3];
		[tmp3][lowerright] overlay=shortest=1:x=320:y=240
	"
	-c:v libx264 output.mkv

Time Range

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -ss 00:00:00.00 -to 00:04:15.00 [output]

Concatenation

https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/Concatenate

Only works for videos of the same codec.
list.txt

file '/path/to/file1.webm'  
file '/path/to/file2.webm'  
file '/path/to/file3.webm'  
ffmpeg -f concat -i list.txt -c copy outputFile.webm

More methods: https://stackoverflow.com/a/11175851

Ping Pong

Videos with audio:

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -filter_complex "[0:v]reverse,fifo[r];[0:v][0:a][r] [0:a]concat=n=2:v=1:a=1 [v] [a]" -map "[v]" -map "[a]" output.mp4

videos without audio:

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -filter_complex "[0:v]reverse,fifo[r];[0:v][r] concat=n=2:v=1 [v]" -map "[v]" output.mp4