Random FFMPEG Snippets #

Advanced Webcam Settings for Windows #

.\ffmpeg.exe -f dshow -show_video_device_dialog true -i video="Brio 101"

Use this to open a camera settings panel that will allow manual config of webcam exposure settings. Helps if you sit in front of a window and the auto-exposure swings a lot. Replace the camera model name with whatever yours is called.

Combine Separate Audio and Video #

ffmpeg.exe -i .\VIDEO.MOV -i .\AUDIO.mp3 -map 0:v
 -map 1:a -t 66 -c:v libx264 -c:a aac output.mp4

The -t flag will set a duration on the output; set it to the lesser of either input stream.

Text Overlay on a Video #

Building on the above to bring in separate audio and video, with an overlay. This produced (and credited!) the “piano over the entropy mobile” video in use on some example pages in this repo.

ffmpeg.exe -i .\DSC_2741.MOV `
-i .\723975__universfield__smooth-piano-for-documentaries.mp3 `
-filter_complex "[0:v]drawtext='fontfile=/Windows/Fonts/ARIALNB.TTF:text=Audio\: Smooth Piano for Documentaries by UNIVERSFIELD on freesound.org:fontcolor=white:fontsize=32:x=(w-text_w):y=(h-text_h)'[out]"  `
-map '[out]:v' -map 1:a -t 66 `
-c:v libx264 -c:a aac `
mobile-overlay.mp4

I had trouble with this command exiting without producing output. Check that the fontfile you reference exists and that you quote the right parts of your filter -filter_complex "[input]drawtext='...:its options, dont quote text but\: escape colons:...'[output]"

ffmpeg.exe -i AUDIO.ogg `
-f lavfi -i "color=color=black:size=1920x1080:r=30" `
-vf 'drawtext=fontfile=/Windows/fonts/ARIALNB.TTF:fontsize=128:fontcolor=white:text="Test Advertisement %{pts\\:hms}":x=(w-text_w)/2:y=(h-text_h)/2' `
-t 15 -codec:a aac -b:a 128k -codec:v libx264 ad-test.mp4

Generated the 15 second “advertisement” video example.