The Problem:
You want to encode video for playback on a PS3 using FFmpeg.
The Solution:
I’ve got a working command line option for you right here. This is a solution, not the only solution.
My Setup:
Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic)
libx264 (for encoding H264)
libfaac (for encoding AAC)
mkvtoolnix
ffmpeg
fuppes
I’m also going to assume that your input file is a .mkv containing an H264 video track and an AC-3 audio track. Most of the time this is fair assumption however, it won’t be correct 100% of the time.
To start, you’re going to need a current build of FFmpeg. It’s been a while since I did the build but I think these were my configuration options.
#cd ~/ffmpeg #make distclean #svn update #sudo ./configure \ --enable-gpl \ --enable-nonfree \ --enable-postproc \ --enable-pthreads \ --enable-x11grab \ --enable-runtime-cpudetect \ --enable-libdc1394 \ --enable-libfaac \ --enable-libfaad \ --enable-libgsm \ --enable-libmp3lame \ --enable-libtheora \ --enable-libvorbis \ --enable-libx264 \ --enable-libxvid \ --arch=x86_64 #make #sudo checkinstall \ --ftrans=no \ --install=yes \ --pkgname=ffmpeg \ --pkversion "4:0.5.svn'date + %Y%m%d'-12ubuntu3" \ --default
On to what you REALLY wanted to know, here’s my command sequence.
#mkvextract tracks {input-file}.mkv 1:video.h264
#mkvextract tracks {input-file}.mkv 2:audio.ac3
#ffmpeg -i video.h264 -i audio.ac3 \
-vcodec copy \
-acodec libfaac -ab 320k -ac 6 \
-threads 0 -f mp4 \
{output-file-name}.mp4
Let’s break it down line by line so that you can modify it to your needs:
mkvextract tracks {input-file}.mkv 1:video.h264
Extract track 1 to “video.h264″
mkvextract tracks {input-file}.mkv 2:audio.ac3
Extract track 2 to “audio.ac3″
ffmpeg -i video.h264 -i audio.ac3
Input video.h264
Input audio.ac3
-vcodec copy
Copy the video track as is.
-acodec libfaac -ab 320k -ac 6
Transform audio track to AAC using libfaac
Set Audio Bitrate to 320k
Set Audio Channels to 6 (5.1)
-threads 0 -f mp4
Let ffmpeg decide how many threads to use
Set the container format to mp4
{output-file-name}.mp4
Output the file as specified
Checkout the ffmpeg documentation for more information about general options.
I donno about you, but I got tired of typing out three commands for every file I wanted to encode, plus all those options… forget about it! So I wrote a stupid little shell script to do it for me.
You can download it here: ps3encode. Just plop it somewhere in your filesystem and then make sure it’s included in your PATH variable and that it has execute permissions.
Usage:
#ps3encode {input-file}.mkv {output-file}.mp4
Questions and comments welcome!
