Splitting Long Video Files with FFmpeg: Segment Times Arg for Resolution Change

Splitting Long Video Files with FFmpeg: Segment Times, Resolution Change, and More

In this article, we will discuss how to split long video files using the FFmpeg tool, focusing on segment times and resolution changes. This powerful multimedia framework allows users to handle various video and audio manipulation tasks, including splitting and merging files, changing resolutions, and extracting timestamps.

Introduction to FFmpeg

FFmpeg is a free and open-source project consisting of a vast software suite to record, convert, and stream audio and video. It supports many file formats, codecs, and protocols, making it an ideal tool for handling multimedia files.

Splitting Long Video Files

To split a long video file into smaller segments, you can use the FFmpeg -f segment option. This option allows you to divide a video into multiple segments based on a specified time duration. For example, to split a video called "input.mp4" into 10-minute segments, you can use the following command:

In this command:

• -i input.mp4: specifies the input file
• -f segment: sets the output format to segment
• -segment_time 600: sets the segment time to 600 seconds (10 minutes)
• -c copy: copies the input codecs to the output files
• part%03d.mp4: specifies the output file pattern, where %03d is a three-digit number starting from 0

Changing Resolution During Splitting

If you want to change the resolution of the output segments, you can use the -vf option to apply video filters. For instance, to downscale the video to 720p, you can use the following command:

In this command:

• -vf scale=-2:720: sets the video filter to scale the video to a height of 720 pixels, automatically calculating the width to maintain the aspect ratio

Extracting Timestamps from a Video File

If you have a video file and want to extract its timestamps, you can use the FFprobe tool, which is included in the FFmpeg project. The following command will extract the timestamps and save them to a text file called "timestamps.txt":

In this command:

• -show_entries format=duration: specifies the entries to show, in this case, the duration
• -of csv=p=0:s=N: sets the output format to CSV and specifies the number of output lines
• input.mp4: specifies the input file
• > timestamps.txt: redirects the output to a text file

In this article, we discussed how to split long video files using FFmpeg, focusing on segment times and resolution changes. We also covered extracting timestamps from a video file using FFprobe. The following list summarizes the main topics:

• Introduction to FFmpeg
• Splitting long video files
• Changing resolution during splitting
• Extracting timestamps from a video file using FFprobe

References

• FFmpeg Official Website
• FFmpeg Documentation
• FFprobe Documentation
• Scaling (resizing) within ffmpeg