[FFmpeg-user] Couple of newbie questions

[Gilles]

On Sun, 18 Nov 2012 01:19:59 +0100, Reindl Harald
<h.reindl at thelounge.net> wrote:
>Am 18.11.2012 01:01, schrieb Gilles:
>> While trying to cut down a 3h/12GB video to something more manageable
>> (say, 1GB), I tried again with the same result :-/
>> 
>> ffmpeg -i input.mpg -ss 0 -t 30 -c:v copy -c:a copy output.sample.mpg
>
>how do you image this would be smaller with codec COPY?

I didn't. What I posted was just a sample from the original so that
someone could understand why this output file doesn't play in VLC (no
video, no audio).

I did forget, however, to post the command I used ;-)

ffmpeg -i input.mpg -ss 0 -t 30 -c:v libx264 -vf scale=iw/2:-1 -preset
faster -c:a copy output.mpg