Ubuntu – How to use ffmpeg’s “-vf” / “-vfilters” option without recompiling ffmpeg theself

ffmpegmultimediavideo

I have ffmpeg install from apt (version 4:0.5.1-1ubuntu1). I have a video that is up-side-down, so I want to flip it vertically. The ffmpeg documentation says to use the -vf option (which I see was recently renamed from -vfilters). However that just doesn't work for me. I get an error like: ffmpeg: unrecognized option '-vf'.

I know there are all kinds of legal reasons why ffmpeg is not the full options, but surely flipping a video should be OK? There are many guides for ubuntu and ffmpeg which advise to recompile it yourself. e.g. the number 2 hit for "ubuntu ffmpeg" is a guide on ubuntu forums on recompiling ffmpeg yourself.

I don't want to recompile it myself. I am a fan of package managers and "doing things the right way". There should be a way to get this functionality in the packaged version, otherwise there is a bug in the packaged version.

How can I get the -vf/-vfilter option in ffmpeg? (If I can't get it, why not?)

Best Answer

You are right, the ffmpeg packages in Ubuntu 10.04 and 10.10 do not support video filters. If you use Ubuntu 10.10, you can add unofficial packages from the Debian Multimedia Project and install their ffmpeg version (you should not do this if you use Ubuntu 10.04, there are too many conflicts with older packages. Also do not combine those packages with ubuntu-restriced-extras). Then the following works

ffmpeg -i in.avi -vf vflip out.avi

An easier option ̣- if all you want to do is flip videos - is to use the mencoder package instead of ffmpeg. After installing the package, the following works (copying the audio, encoding the video with libavcodecs):

mencoder -vf flip -o out.avi -oac copy -ovc lavc in.avi

Too old

Your version is way too old, and in fact I don't think it even supports any filters if I recall correctly. You can check with ffmpeg -filters.

Get a new `ffmpeg`

To get a recent version you can compile ffmpeg or simply download a static build. Users of Ubuntu 15.04 or newer can just install ffmpeg from the repository.

Example command

This example will:

Place video1.mp4 20 pixels down and 40 pixels over.
Place video2.mp4 in the middle.

Combine audio from video1.mp4 and video2.mp4.

ffmpeg -i bg.mp4 -i video1.mp4 -i video2.mp4 -filter_complex \
"[0:v][1:v]setpts=PTS-STARTPTS,overlay=20:40[bg]; \
 [bg][2:v]setpts=PTS-STARTPTS,overlay=(W-w)/2:(H-h)/2[v]; \
 [1:a][2:a]amerge=inputs=2[a]" \
-map "[v]" -map "[a]" -ac 2 output.mp4