How to convert .mov file to mp4 using FFmpeg?

Tech QnA
1

I have a video file in .mov format shot using my iPhone and I want to convert it to mp4. Is there any way I can achieve this using FFmpeg?

1 Like
2

Hey Henry!

MOV to MP4 is just a video container change so you don’t have to transcode the video, you just need to transmux the video into MP4 format, unless you want to change the video codec.
You can do this transmuting with the following FFmpeg command.

ffmpeg -i video.mov -c copy -f mp4 output.mp4
Thanks :grinning:

3

Thanks for your response!

But, what does the -f stand for?

4

-f stands for format.

Second solution:

If the MOV file has video and audio that is compatible with MP4, you can stream copy it.

ffmpeg -i video.mov -c copy -movflags +faststart output.mp4

• Here, Stream copy (-c copy) works similarly to copy and paste, preserving quality while speeding up the process.
• -movflags +faststart creates an output file suitable for HTML5 streaming, for example, by including all essential information to start playback at the beginning of the file. You can ignore it if you only care about local desktop usage.
• H.264, H.265/HEVC, AV1 (new format, not universally accepted), and MPEG-4 are all video formats compatible with MP4 (old format, not supported in HTML5).
• AAC, MP3 (depending on the player), and Opus are audio formats compatible with MP4 (new format, so not universally supported).

Hope this may help you!

5

It works! Thanks for your help  :blush: