H264 MP4 + WEBM (libvpx) FFMPEG on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS command lines

Please see below for my on-going notes for setting FFMPEG for ubuntu transcoding systems :

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Ok the WEBM codec experiments and recompiling FFMPEG with x264 + libvpx codecs :

Install the LATEST version of the WEBM codec - LIBVPX libs

http://code.google.com/p/webm/downloads/list (libvpx-v0.9.5.zip @ this moment in time)

Then follow this process but excluding the libvpx step :

http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=9868359&postcount=1289

After some time compiling =>

fmpeg
FFmpeg version git-1108f89, Copyright (c) 2000-2011 the FFmpeg developers
built on Feb 24 2011 21:49:32 with gcc 4.4.3
configuration: --enable-gpl --enable-version3 --enable-nonfree --enable-postproc --enable-libfaac --enable-libopencore-amrnb --enable-libopencore-amrwb --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis --enable-libx264 --enable-libxvid --enable-x11grab --enable-libvpx --enable-libmp3lame
libavutil 50. 39. 0 / 50. 39. 0
libavcodec 52.113. 1 / 52.113. 1
libavformat 52.102. 0 / 52.102. 0
libavdevice 52. 2. 3 / 52. 2. 3
libavfilter 1. 76. 0 / 1. 76. 0
libswscale 0. 12. 0 / 0. 12. 0
libpostproc 51. 2. 0 / 51. 2. 0
Hyper fast Audio and Video encoder
usage: ffmpeg [options] [[infile options] -i infile]... {[outfile options] outfile}...

Use -h to get full help or, even better, run 'man ffmpeg'

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source : http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=786095
source : http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=9868359&postcount=1289

This worked VERY well for us on 10.04 : http://code.google.com/p/x264-ffmpeg-up-to-date/

One-pass CRF (Constant Rate Factor) using the slow preset. One-pass CRF is good for general encoding and is what I use most often. Adjust -crf to change the quality. Lower numbers mean higher quality and a larger output file size. A sane range is 18 to 28.

ffmpeg -i input.wmv -acodec libfaac -ab 128k -ac 2 -vcodec libx264 -vpre slow -crf 22 \
-threads 0 output.mp4

Two-Pass encode using the fast presets. Two-pass encoding is used when you are targeting a specific bitrate and/or final output file size.

ffmpeg -i input.avi -pass 1 -vcodec libx264 -vpre fast_firstpass -b 512k -bt 512k
-threads 0 -f rawvideo -an -y /dev/null && ffmpeg -i input.avi -pass 2 -acodec libfaac \
-ab 128k -ac 2 -vcodec libx264 -vpre fast -b 512k -bt 512k -threads 0 output.mp4

iPod 640x480 using the slow and ipod640 presets. This example uses -aq to create VBR audio:

ffmpeg -i input.ogv -acodec libfaac -aq 100 -ac 2 -vcodec libx264 -vpre slow \
-vpre ipod640 -crf 26 -map_meta_data 0:0 -vf scale=640:-1 -threads 0 output.mp4

Lossless H.264 in MKV container

ffmpeg -i input.foo -vcodec libx264 -vpre lossless_medium -threads 0 -acodec copy output.mkv