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ShīnChvën ✨

Effective Accelerationism

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Convert VP9 video to H264 Losslessly

Mon Feb 07 2022

VP9 serves as the standard codec for YouTube, even though it's not frequently found in video editing tools. If you have a video encoded with the VP9 codec and you want to edit it, you may have to transform it into a more commonly used codec, such as H264.

This conversion, referred to as transcoding, can be effortlessly performed using ffmpeg. By executing the following command, you can convert a VP9 video to H264 without any loss of quality:

ffmpeg -i video.webm -y -vcodec libx264 -qp 0 -pix_fmt yuv420p -acodec copy video.mp4

Here's a breakdown of what each part of this command does:

  • ffmpeg: Initiates the command-line tool for multimedia operations.
  • -i video.webm: Specifies the VP9-encoded input file.
  • -y: Overwrites the output file if it exists.
  • -vcodec libx264: Sets the video codec to H.264.
  • -qp 0: Maintains maximum quality with a quantization parameter of 0.
  • -pix_fmt yuv420p: Sets the pixel format for compatibility.
  • -acodec copy: Preserves the original audio quality by copying the audio codec.
  • video.mp4: Names the output file in the H.264 format.

By understanding this command, you can efficiently convert VP9 videos to H264, making them more accessible for various editing tools.