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

[Michael Bradshaw]

On Sun, Oct 28, 2012 at 10:48 AM, Stefano Sabatini <stefasab at gmail.com> wrote:
> On date Friday 2012-10-26 16:11:42 -0600, Roger Pack encoded:
>> 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
>
> FFmpeg (both tool and library) should warn in case it is
> unused/overridden/unsensical, consider to open a ticket if you have a
> specific case.
>
>> So basically I would suggest that "ambiguous" parameters like "r" and
>> "f" be deprecated in favor of something (anything?) else.  One
>
> What's wrong with "f"?

If I'm not mistaken, I think he's suggesting that new people don't
know if it's specifying the input or output format.