How do you convert an entire directory with ffmpeg

Question

How do you convert an entire directory/folder with ffmpeg via command line or with a batch script?

Answer 1

I know this might be redundant but I use this script to batch convert files.

old_extension=$1
new_extension=$2

for i in *."$old_extension";
  do ffmpeg -i "$i" "${i%.*}.$new_extension";
done

It takes 2 arguments to make it more flexible :

1. the extension you want to convert from
2. the new extension you want to convert to

I create an alias for it but you can also use it manually like this:

sh batch_convert.sh mkv mp4

This would convert all the mkv files into mp4 files.

As you can see it slightly more versatile. As long as ffmpeg can convert it you can specify any two extensions.

Answer 2

If you have GNU parallel you could convert all .avi files below vid_dir to mp4 in parallel, using all except one of your CPU cores with

find vid_dir -type f -name '*.avi' -not -empty -print0 |
    parallel -0 -j -1 ffmpeg -loglevel fatal -i {} {.}.mp4

To convert from/to different formats, change '*.avi' or .mp4 as needed. GNU parallel is listed in most Linux distributions' repositories in a package which is usually called parallel.

Answer 3

And on Windows:

FOR /F "tokens=*" %G IN ('dir /b *.flac') DO ffmpeg -i "%G" -acodec mp3 "%~nG.mp3"

Answer 4

For anyone who wants to batch convert anything with ffmpeg but would like to have a convenient Windows interface, I developed this front-end:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/ffmpeg-batch

It adds to ffmpeg a window fashion interface, progress bars and time remaining info, features I always missed when using ffmpeg.

Answer 5

Previous answer will only create 1 output file called out.mov. To make a separate output file for each old movie, try this.

for i in *.avi;
  do name=`echo $i | cut -d'.' -f1`;
  echo $name;
  ffmpeg -i "$i" "${name}.mov";
done

Answer 6

If you want a graphical interface to batch process with ffmpegX, try Quick Batcher. It's free and will take your last ffmpegX settings to convert files you drop into it.

Note that you can't drag-drop folders onto Quick Batcher. So select files and then put them through Quick Batcher.