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Thread: I'm not very good at using the FFmpeg CLI - Is it frowned upon to use the WinFF GUI?

  1. #1
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    Cool I'm not very good at using the FFmpeg CLI - Is it frowned upon to use the WinFF GUI?

    I've been struggling to learnt he FFMpeg CLI - as well as MEncoder CLI - theres a lot of things in the CLI that overwhelm me - but I feel guilty for using the GUI frontends rather than using the CLI because I'm on Linux.

    I guess my question is, is it so bad to use the GUI of a program like FFMpeg for converting my multimedia rather than using the CLI (or atleast using it at this point in time)? Because I've had people tell me that if I don't understand it I shouldn't be using Linux..

    Is is possible to learn the CLI from the output that the GUI frontend puts out?

  2. #2
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    Re: I'm not very good at using the FFmpeg CLI - Is it frowned upon to use the WinFF G

    There is absolutely nothing wrong with using a graphical tool! GUIs exist for a reason. If you want to use the CLI, by all means. But GUIs are perfectly fine.

  3. #3
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    Re: I'm not very good at using the FFmpeg CLI - Is it frowned upon to use the WinFF G

    Quote Originally Posted by dniMretsaM View Post
    There is absolutely nothing wrong with using a graphical tool! GUIs exist for a reason. If you want to use the CLI, by all means. But GUIs are perfectly fine.
    Thanks man. Made me feel better

  4. #4
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    Re: I'm not very good at using the FFmpeg CLI - Is it frowned upon to use the WinFF G

    Because I've had people tell me that if I don't understand it I shouldn't be using Linux..
    I'm betting that these are the same people that find using Gentoo to build everything from source to be fun.

    Is is possible to learn the CLI from the output that the GUI frontend puts out?
    Yes. That's probably easier than reading the huge ffmpeg manpage.

  5. #5
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    Re: I'm not very good at using the FFmpeg CLI - Is it frowned upon to use the WinFF G

    I can't see why you should be flamed to death for using the GUI.
    Use what works.

  6. #6
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    Re: I'm not very good at using the FFmpeg CLI - Is it frowned upon to use the WinFF G

    Quote Originally Posted by AlexOnVinyl View Post
    Is is possible to learn the CLI from the output that the GUI frontend puts out?
    Yes. If you can see the generated commands you can then look up the options that you don't recognize.

    Running tools like ffmpeg or mencoder from the command line can be very helpful if you want to run batch conversions. Say you have a directory of H.264 files in the MKV container that you want to convert to XviD in AVI. You can write a quick script like this:

    Code:
    #!/bin/bash
    
    for f in *.mkv
    do
       NEWNAME=$(echo $f |  sed 's/\.mkv$/.avi/g')
       mencoder "$f" -o "$NEWNAME" -ovc xvid -oac mp3lame
    done
    (I omitted the options for simplicity.) The script creates a new filename replacing ".mkv" with ".avi" and runs mencoder to create the file. It iterates over all files in the current directory matching *.mkv. I enclosed the filenames in quotes in case they have embedded spaces.

    One other GUI tool you might look at is Handbrake.
    Last edited by SeijiSensei; April 21st, 2012 at 04:41 PM.

  7. #7
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    Re: I'm not very good at using the FFmpeg CLI - Is it frowned upon to use the WinFF G

    If you decide to use WinFF then you should stick with ffmpeg from the repository. I haven't checked WinFF in any recent Ubuntu release, but in the past its presets used syntax that is often incompatible with a compiled or more recent ffmpeg.

    SeijiSensei's suggestion of Handbrake is a good one.

  8. #8
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    Smile Re: I'm not very good at using the FFmpeg CLI - Is it frowned upon to use the WinFF G

    Quote Originally Posted by SeijiSensei View Post
    Yes. If you can see the generated commands you can then look up the options that you don't recognize.

    Running tools like ffmpeg or mencoder from the command line can be very helpful if you want to run batch conversions. Say you have a directory of H.264 files in the MKV container that you want to convert to XviD in AVI. You can write a quick script like this:

    Code:
    #!/bin/bash
    
    for f in *.mkv
    do
       NEWNAME=$(echo $f |  sed 's/\.mkv$/.avi/g')
       mencoder "$f" -o "$NEWNAME" -ovc xvid -oac mp3lame
    done
    (I omitted the options for simplicity.) The script creates a new filename replacing ".mkv" with ".avi" and runs mencoder to create the file. It iterates over all files in the current directory matching *.mkv. I enclosed the filenames in quotes in case they have embedded spaces.

    One other GUI tool you might look at is Handbrake.
    I actually have Handbrake but it only outputs to .m4v or .mkv - which is disappointing, but Im willing to learn the CLI for FFMpeg - Thank you sensei for your help!

    Quote Originally Posted by FakeOutdoorsman View Post
    If you decide to use WinFF then you should stick with ffmpeg from the repository. I haven't checked WinFF in any recent Ubuntu release, but in the past its presets used syntax that is often incompatible with a compiled or more recent ffmpeg.

    SeijiSensei's suggestion of Handbrake is a good one.
    FakeOutDoorsman - I got the FFMpeg from the Medibuntu repository and just recently got the WinFF from this repository:

    ppaaul-climbing/ppa

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