Ffmpeg to wmv bitrate parameter order gotcha

Alec Jacobson

July 03, 2012

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I had been using:

ffmpeg -pass 1 -passlogfile ffmpeg2pass -g 1 -b 16000k -i input.mov output.wmv
ffmpeg -pass 2 -passlogfile ffmpeg2pass -g 1 -b 16000k -i input.mov output.wmv

which at one point gave me an error on the second pass:

[msmpeg4 @ 0x7fde41844e00] requested bitrate is too low

I tried increasing 16000k to 32000k, but this did not make the error go away. Turns out I just needed to switch the order of the parameters:

ffmpeg -pass 1 -passlogfile ffmpeg2pass -g 1 -i input.mov  -b 16000k output.wmv
ffmpeg -pass 2 -passlogfile ffmpeg2pass -g 1 -i input.mov  -b 16000k output.wmv