[FFmpeg-devel] on the hard state of ffmpeg command line options

[Roger Pack]

Hello all.  I know you've probably all heard this before, but thought
I'd just throw it out there all again.
I love FFmpeg, but sometimes I'm a bit unhappy with the way it takes
command line options.

$ ffmpeg -i INPUT  -f h264 yo.mp4
$ ffmpeg -i INPUT  -f mp4 yo.mp4

Same location on the command line. Different meaning.  Another example:

$ ffmpeg -i INPUT -r 24 output

I know this line makes perfect sense to long time users of FFmpeg.
But to newbies, it is really hard to know where the r is going to
apply.  People mess it up all the time.  And sometimes FFmpeg ignores
input parameters

So basically I would suggest that "ambiguous" parameters like "r" and
"f" be deprecated in favor of something (anything?) else.  One
possibility might be something like -o:r (for "output rate") or the
like.  Another option might be to force input into its own section
somehow, like
$ ffmpeg -i "input_filename -r 24"

or the like.  That would be nice as well.

Anyway just spouting steam.
Thanks all.
-roger-