What are some audio/video converters for Linux? [closed]

What are some audio/video converters for Linux?

I'm focusing on video converters here, although FFmpeg or mencoder can encode audio as well.

Graphical interface

Handbrake

From its homepage:

HandBrake is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multiplatform, multithreaded video transcoder.

Easy to use GUI with presets for various hardware devices; can rip DVDs with ease.

Avidemux

From its homepage:

Avidemux is a free video editor designed for simple cutting, filtering, and encoding tasks. It supports many file types, including AVI, DVD compatible MPEG files, MP4 and ASF, using a variety of codecs. Tasks can be automated using projects, job queue and powerful scripting capabilities.

Also rather easy to use. It is somewhat comparable to VirtualDub on Windows.

VLC

VLC provides and easily accessible converting function in Media->Convert/Save. An instruction is given here.

Command line interface

FFmpeg (or its fork avconv) ###

From its homepage:

FFmpeg is a complete, cross-platform solution to record, convert and stream audio and video. It includes libavcodec - the leading audio/video codec library.

Example:

ffmpeg -i input.mkv -c:v mjpeg -b 2000k -c:a libmp3lame -ab 128k -ar 44100 -vf denoise3d,scale=640:360 output.avi

Mencoder

mencoder is part of the MPlayer project, so it shares the same syntax.

Example:

mencoder input.wmv -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vbitrate=3000 -oac mp3lame -lameopts cbr:br=160 -vf denoise3d,scale=640:360 -o output.avi 

Handbrake

Handbrake also has a command line interface.

Codec restrictions due to software patents

Be aware that due to software patents, some programs in the standard Ubuntu repositories don't include certain codecs (H264 encoding is a prominent example).

Workarounds for stripped down binaries:

Enable the Medibuntu repositories:

sudo -E wget --output-document=/etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/$(lsb_release -cs).list && sudo apt-get --quiet update && sudo apt-get --yes --quiet --allow-unauthenticated install medibuntu-keyring && sudo apt-get --quiet update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Use a prebuilt static binary

For example, you can download FFmpeg with all codecs supported here: http://ffmpeg.gusari.org/static/

If you want to run that binary, don't forget to call it with the full path; otherwise, the FFmpeg of Ubuntu will be run.

Build the binaries for yourself...

...and include everything you want. This is, of course, the most tedious solution.

A best video/audio converter of choice is WINFF (GUI of ffmpeg is here )