ffmpeg Preset files

A preset file contains a sequence of option=value pairs, one for each line, specifying a sequence of options which would be awkward to specify on the command line. Lines starting with the hash (’#’) character are ignored and are used to provide comments. Check the presets directory in the FFmpeg source tree for examples.

There are two types of preset files: ffpreset and avpreset files.

5.12.1 ffpreset files
ffpreset files are specified with the vpre, apre, spre, and fpre options. The fpre option takes the filename of the preset instead of a preset name as input and can be used for any kind of codec. For the vpre, apre, and spre options, the options specified in a preset file are applied to the currently selected codec of the same type as the preset option.

The argument passed to the vpre, apre, and spre preset options identifies the preset file to use according to the following rules:

First ffmpeg searches for a file named arg.ffpreset in the directories $FFMPEG_DATADIR (if set), and $HOME/.ffmpeg, and in the datadir defined at configuration time (usually PREFIX/share/ffmpeg) or in a ffpresets folder along the executable on win32, in that order. For example, if the argument is libvpx-1080p, it will search for the file libvpx-1080p.ffpreset.

If no such file is found, then ffmpeg will search for a file named codec_name-arg.ffpreset in the above-mentioned directories, where codec_name is the name of the codec to which the preset file options will be applied. For example, if you select the video codec with -vcodec libvpx and use -vpre 1080p, then it will search for the file libvpx-1080p.ffpreset.

5.12.2 avpreset files
avpreset files are specified with the pre option. They work similar to ffpreset files, but they only allow encoder- specific options. Therefore, an option=value pair specifying an encoder cannot be used.

When the pre option is specified, ffmpeg will look for files with the suffix .avpreset in the directories $AVCONV_DATADIR (if set), and $HOME/.avconv, and in the datadir defined at configuration time (usually PREFIX/share/ffmpeg), in that order.

First ffmpeg searches for a file named codec_name-arg.avpreset in the above-mentioned directories, where codec_name is the name of the codec to which the preset file options will be applied. For example, if you select the video codec with -vcodec libvpx and use -pre 1080p, then it will search for the file libvpx-1080p.avpreset.

If no such file is found, then ffmpeg will search for a file named arg.avpreset in the same directories.

5.13 vstats file format
The -vstats and -vstats_file options enable generation of a file containing statistics about the generated video outputs.

The -vstats_version option controls the format version of the generated file.

With version 1 the format is:

frame= FRAME q= FRAME_QUALITY PSNR= PSNR f_size= FRAME_SIZE s_size= STREAM_SIZEkB time= TIMESTAMP br= BITRATEkbits/s avg_br= AVERAGE_BITRATEkbits/s
With version 2 the format is:

out= OUT_FILE_INDEX st= OUT_FILE_STREAM_INDEX frame= FRAME_NUMBER q= FRAME_QUALITYf PSNR= PSNR f_size= FRAME_SIZE s_size= STREAM_SIZEkB time= TIMESTAMP br= BITRATEkbits/s avg_br= AVERAGE_BITRATEkbits/s
The value corresponding to each key is described below:

avg_br
average bitrate expressed in Kbits/s

br
bitrate expressed in Kbits/s

frame
number of encoded frame

out
out file index

PSNR
Peak Signal to Noise Ratio

q
quality of the frame

f_size
encoded packet size expressed as number of bytes

s_size
stream size expressed in KiB

st
out file stream index

time
time of the packet

type
picture type

See also the -stats_enc options for an alternative way to show encoding statistics.

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