How to specify audio and video bitrate

Question

I have a mov file with the following media information:

Stream 0
Type: Video
Codec: H264-MPEG-4 AVC (part 10)avc1
Language: English
Resolution: 1280x720
Frame rate: 24

Stream 1
Type: Audio
Codec: MPEG AAC Audio (mp4a)
Language: English
Channels: Stereo
Sample rate: 44100HZ

And I would like to use FFmpeg to convert that MOV file to an AVI file.

I know i can specify audio and video bit rate (from this article):

ffmpeg -i InputFile.mpg -ab 128 -b 1200 OutputFile.avi

But for my case, if I want to keep the original quality, what should be my audio and video bit rate?

Solution

In order to specify the target bitrate for video and audio, use the -b:v and -b:a options, respectively. You can use abbreviations like K for kBit/s and M for MBit/s.

For example:

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -b:v 2M -b:a 192k output.mp4

But before you just run it like this, note the following:

• This is a simple one-pass encode that tries to reach the specified bitrate at the end. This will likely lead to wrong bitrate estimations for the video part. The output quality might be bad. It's recommended to use a two-pass encoding mode if you want to target a certain bitrate. See the H.264 encoding guide for more tips.

• ffmpeg selects a default video and audio codec for the chosen output extension. For the AVI container this is the mpeg4 and libmp3lame encoder, respectively, so MPEG-4 Part II video and MP3 audio. You cannot use the original video and audio codecs (H.264 and AAC) here because they're not supported by AVI containers. Choose the MP4 container as output, which will default to libx264 and aac encoders, i.e. MPEG-4 Part 10 video and AAC audio.

• Almost any codec allows you to set a specific bitrate, but many codecs have variable bitrate / fixed quality modes. If you do not care about a specific file size, you should use a fixed-quality mode instead. Please read the H.264 encoding guide and the section on the Constant Rate Factor (CRF) for that. Replace the video bitrate -b:v 2M with -crf 23, for instance.

Comments

[slhck]

@Visionscaper That does not make sense. Your option will copy the input audio stream and therefore not perform any encoding. You should receive a warning about that.

[Visionscaper]

hmm, you are right, sorry about that. I misunderstood the option; being in a hurry doesn't pay I guess. I got an error message without this option, so there must be something wrong with my audio codec (settings).

[slhck]

Sure, feel free to post a new question with the full log and I'll have a look at it!

[Visionscaper]

Here you go! superuser.com/q/890785/428914