Are these commands tested?
Every one. Each command on this page was executed against the Rendobar API on the same source file, and the page records what it produced: encode time, output size and billed cost. 28 runs, $0.066088 to measure.
FFmpeg recipes, measured
Every command here was run, not copied. Each page records what the command produced on a known file, and most of them also run the version people try first, so you can see what going wrong actually looks like.
- Recipes
- 20
- Runs
- 28
- Wrong versions run
- 8
- Cost to measure
- $0.066088
Of the 8 naive commands we ran, only 1 failed outright. The other 7 succeeded while producing something worse, which is the failure mode nothing in a pipeline catches.
Editing
Trim a video without re-encoding Cuts a section out of a video by copying streams, which is effectively instant and lossless. Remove audio from a video Strips the audio track and copies the video untouched, so there is no quality loss and almost no work. Resize a video with FFmpeg Scales to a target width while computing a height that stays even, which H.264 requires. Rotate a video with FFmpeg Rotates the picture in 90-degree steps and clears the rotation metadata so players do not rotate it again. Speed up or slow down a video Changes video and audio speed together, which needs two filters because one alone desynchronises the file. Loop a video with FFmpeg Repeats a clip a fixed number of times using the stream loop input option. Crop a video to a square or vertical Cuts a centred rectangle from each frame, using input-relative expressions so it works on any source size. Join videos with FFmpeg Joins clips end to end, copying streams when the inputs already match. Add a watermark to a video Composites a logo image over the video at a corner offset, using explicit stream labels. Fade a video in and out Fades from black at the start and to black at the end, with the audio faded to match.
Extracting
Extract audio from video with FFmpeg Pulls the audio track out of a video, copying it without re-encoding when the format allows. Extract a thumbnail from a video Grabs a single frame as a JPEG or PNG, seeking to the timestamp first so it is fast on long files. Export every frame as an image Writes each frame to a numbered image file, or samples at a fixed rate to keep the count manageable. Make a contact sheet from a video Samples frames across the video and lays them out in a grid as a single image.
Audio
Convert audio between formats Re-encodes an audio file to another codec, or copies it when the codec already suits the target container. Normalise audio loudness Brings perceived loudness to a standard target using the EBU R128 loudnorm filter. Mute part of a video's audio Silences a time range while leaving the rest of the audio and all of the video untouched.
Frequently asked questions
Why show the wrong command too?
Because "don't forget this flag" is an assertion and a measurement is evidence. We ran the naive version of each recipe as well. Only 1 of 8 failed outright; the rest succeeded while producing something worse, which is the case no error handler catches.
Do I need FFmpeg installed to use these?
No. Every command here ran through the API against a URL, with no local FFmpeg binary and no server to manage.
Can I run these on my own files?
Yes. Each is a single API call with the command as a parameter, so the only thing that changes is the input URL.