path: root/doc/demuxers.texi

@chapter Demuxers
@c man begin DEMUXERS

Demuxers are configured elements in FFmpeg that can read the
multimedia streams from a particular type of file.

When you configure your FFmpeg build, all the supported demuxers
are enabled by default. You can list all available ones using the
configure option @code{--list-demuxers}.

You can disable all the demuxers using the configure option
@code{--disable-demuxers}, and selectively enable a single demuxer with
the option @code{--enable-demuxer=@var{DEMUXER}}, or disable it
with the option @code{--disable-demuxer=@var{DEMUXER}}.

The option @code{-formats} of the ff* tools will display the list of
enabled demuxers.

The description of some of the currently available demuxers follows.

@section applehttp

Apple HTTP Live Streaming demuxer.

This demuxer presents all AVStreams from all variant streams.
The id field is set to the bitrate variant index number. By setting
the discard flags on AVStreams (by pressing 'a' or 'v' in ffplay),
the caller can decide which variant streams to actually receive.
The total bitrate of the variant that the stream belongs to is
available in a metadata key named "variant_bitrate".

@section apng

Animated Portable Network Graphics demuxer.

This demuxer is used to demux APNG files.
All headers, but the PNG signature, up to (but not including) the first
fcTL chunk are transmitted as extradata.
Frames are then split as being all the chunks between two fcTL ones, or
between the last fcTL and IEND chunks.

@table @option
@item -ignore_loop @var{bool}
Ignore the loop variable in the file if set.
@item -max_fps @var{int}
Maximum framerate in frames per second (0 for no limit).
@item -default_fps @var{int}
Default framerate in frames per second when none is specified in the file
(0 meaning as fast as possible).
@end table

@section asf

Advanced Systems Format demuxer.

This demuxer is used to demux ASF files and MMS network streams.

@table @option
@item -no_resync_search @var{bool}
Do not try to resynchronize by looking for a certain optional start code.
@end table

@anchor{concat}
@section concat

Virtual concatenation script demuxer.

This demuxer reads a list of files and other directives from a text file and
demuxes them one after the other, as if all their packet had been muxed
together.

The timestamps in the files are adjusted so that the first file starts at 0
and each next file starts where the previous one finishes. Note that it is
done globally and may cause gaps if all streams do not have exactly the same
length.

All files must have the same streams (same codecs, same time base, etc.).

The duration of each file is used to adjust the timestamps of the next file:
if the duration is incorrect (because it was computed using the bit-rate or
because the file is truncated, for example), it can cause artifacts. The
@code{duration} directive can be used to override the duration stored in
each file.

@subsection Syntax

The script is a text file in extended-ASCII, with one directive per line.
Empty lines, leading spaces and lines starting with '#' are ignored. The
following directive is recognized:

@table @option

@item @code{file @var{path}}
Path to a file to read; special characters and spaces must be escaped with
backslash or single quotes.

All subsequent file-related directives apply to that file.

@item @code{ffconcat version 1.0}
Identify the script type and version. It also sets the @option{safe} option
to 1 if it was -1.

To make FFmpeg recognize the format automatically, this directive must
appears exactly as is (no extra space or byte-order-mark) on the very first
line of the script.

@item @code{duration @var{dur}}
Duration of the file. This information can be specified from the file;
specifying it here may be more efficient or help if the information from the
file is not available or accurate.

If the duration is set for all files, then it is possible to seek in the
whole concatenated video.

@item @code{stream}
Introduce a stream in the virtual file.
All subsequent stream-related directives apply to the last introduced
stream.
Some streams properties must be set in order to allow identifying the
matching streams in the subfiles.
If no streams are defined in the script, the streams from the first file are
copied.

@item @code{exact_stream_id @var{id}}
Set the id of the stream.
If this directive is given, the string with the corresponding id in the
subfiles will be used.
This is especially useful for MPEG-PS (VOB) files, where the order of the
streams is not reliable.

@end table

@subsection Options

This demuxer accepts the following option:

@table @option

@item safe
If set to 1, reject unsafe file paths. A file path is considered safe if it
does not contain a protocol specification and is relative and all components
only contain characters from the portable character set (letters, digits,
period, underscore and hyphen) and have no period at the beginning of a
component.

If set to 0, any file name is accepted.

The default is 1.

-1 is equivalent to 1 if the format was automatically
probed and 0 otherwise.

@item auto_convert
If set to 1, try to perform automatic conversions on packet data to make the
streams concatenable.

Currently, the only conversion is adding the h264_mp4toannexb bitstream
filter to H.264 streams in MP4 format. This is necessary in particular if
there are resolution changes.

@end table

@section flv

Adobe Flash Video Format demuxer.

This demuxer is used to demux FLV files and RTMP network streams.

@table @option
@item -flv_metadata @var{bool}
Allocate the streams according to the onMetaData array content.
@end table

@section libgme

The Game Music Emu library is a collection of video game music file emulators.

See @url{http://code.google.com/p/game-music-emu/} for more information.

Some files have multiple tracks. The demuxer will pick the first track by
default. The @option{track_index} option can be used to select a different
track. Track indexes start at 0. The demuxer exports the number of tracks as
@var{tracks} meta data entry.

For very large files, the @option{max_size} option may have to be adjusted.

@section libquvi

Play media from Internet services using the quvi project.

The demuxer accepts a @option{format} option to request a specific quality. It
is by default set to @var{best}.

See @url{http://quvi.sourceforge.net/} for more information.

FFmpeg needs to be built with @code{--enable-libquvi} for this demuxer to be
enabled.

@section gif

Animated GIF demuxer.

It accepts the following options:

@table @option
@item min_delay
Set the minimum valid delay between frames in hundredths of seconds.
Range is 0 to 6000. Default value is 2.

@item default_delay
Set the default delay between frames in hundredths of seconds.
Range is 0 to 6000. Default value is 10.

@item ignore_loop
GIF files can contain information to loop a certain number of times (or
infinitely). If @option{ignore_loop} is set to 1, then the loop setting
from the input will be ignored and looping will not occur. If set to 0,
then looping will occur and will cycle the number of times according to
the GIF. Default value is 1.
@end table

For example, with the overlay filter, place an infinitely looping GIF
over another video:
@example
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -ignore_loop 0 -i input.gif -filter_complex overlay=shortest=1 out.mkv
@end example

Note that in the above example the shortest option for overlay filter is
used to end the output video at the length of the shortest input file,
which in this case is @file{input.mp4} as the GIF in this example loops
infinitely.

@section image2

Image file demuxer.

This demuxer reads from a list of image files specified by a pattern.
The syntax and meaning of the pattern is specified by the
option @var{pattern_type}.

The pattern may contain a suffix which is used to automatically
determine the format of the images contained in the files.

The size, the pixel format, and the format of each image must be the
same for all the files in the sequence.

This demuxer accepts the following options:
@table @option
@item framerate
Set the frame rate for the video stream. It defaults to 25.
@item loop
If set to 1, loop over the input. Default value is 0.
@item pattern_type
Select the pattern type used to interpret the provided filename.

@var{pattern_type} accepts one of the following values.
@table @option
@item sequence
Select a sequence pattern type, used to specify a sequence of files
indexed by sequential numbers.

A sequence pattern may contain the string "%d" or "%0@var{N}d", which
specifies the position of the characters representing a sequential
number in each filename matched by the pattern. If the form
"%d0@var{N}d" is used, the string representing the number in each
filename is 0-padded and @var{N} is the total number of 0-padded
digits representing the number. The literal character '%' can be
specified in the pattern with the string "%%".

If the sequence pattern contains "%d" or "%0@var{N}d", the first filename of
the file list specified by the pattern must contain a number
inclusively contained between @var{start_number} and
@var{start_number}+@var{start_number_range}-1, and all the following
numbers must be sequential.

For example the pattern "img-%03d.bmp" will match a sequence of
filenames of the form @file{img-001.bmp}, @file{img-002.bmp}, ...,
@file{img-010.bmp}, etc.; the pattern "i%%m%%g-%d.jpg" will match a
sequence of filenames of the form @file{i%m%g-1.jpg},
@file{i%m%g-2.jpg}, ..., @file{i%m%g-10.jpg}, etc.

Note that the pattern must not necessarily contain "%d" or
"%0@var{N}d", for example to convert a single image file
@file{img.jpeg} you can employ the command:
@example
ffmpeg -i img.jpeg img.png
@end example

@item glob
Select a glob wildcard pattern type.

The pattern is interpreted like a @code{glob()} pattern. This is only
selectable if libavformat was compiled with globbing support.

@item glob_sequence @emph{(deprecated, will be removed)}
Select a mixed glob wildcard/sequence pattern.

If your version of libavformat was compiled with globbing support, and
the provided pattern contains at least one glob meta character among
@code{%*?[]@{@}} that is preceded by an unescaped "%", the pattern is
interpreted like a @code{glob()} pattern, otherwise it is interpreted
like a sequence pattern.

All glob special characters @code{%*?[]@{@}} must be prefixed
with "%". To escape a literal "%" you shall use "%%".

For example the pattern @code{foo-%*.jpeg} will match all the
filenames prefixed by "foo-" and terminating with ".jpeg", and
@code{foo-%?%?%?.jpeg} will match all the filenames prefixed with
"foo-", followed by a sequence of three characters, and terminating
with ".jpeg".

This pattern type is deprecated in favor of @var{glob} and
@var{sequence}.
@end table

Default value is @var{glob_sequence}.
@item pixel_format
Set the pixel format of the images to read. If not specified the pixel
format is guessed from the first image file in the sequence.
@item start_number
Set the index of the file matched by the image file pattern to start
to read from. Default value is 0.
@item start_number_range
Set the index interval range to check when looking for the first image
file in the sequence, starting from @var{start_number}. Default value
is 5.
@item ts_from_file
If set to 1, will set frame timestamp to modification time of image file. Note
that monotonity of timestamps is not provided: images go in the same order as
without this option. Default value is 0.
If set to 2, will set frame timestamp to the modification time of the image file in
nanosecond precision.
@item video_size
Set the video size of the images to read. If not specified the video
size is guessed from the first image file in the sequence.
@end table

@subsection Examples

@itemize
@item
Use @command{ffmpeg} for creating a video from the images in the file
sequence @file{img-001.jpeg}, @file{img-002.jpeg}, ..., assuming an
input frame rate of 10 frames per second:
@example
ffmpeg -framerate 10 -i 'img-%03d.jpeg' out.mkv
@end example

@item
As above, but start by reading from a file with index 100 in the sequence:
@example
ffmpeg -framerate 10 -start_number 100 -i 'img-%03d.jpeg' out.mkv
@end example

@item
Read images matching the "*.png" glob pattern , that is all the files
terminating with the ".png" suffix:
@example
ffmpeg -framerate 10 -pattern_type glob -i "*.png" out.mkv
@end example
@end itemize

@section mov/mp4/3gp/Quicktme

Quicktime / MP4 demuxer.

This demuxer accepts the following options:
@table @option
@item enable_drefs
Enable loading of external tracks, disabled by default.
Enabling this can theoretically leak information in some use cases.

@item use_absolute_path
Allows loading of external tracks via absolute paths, disabled by default.
Enabling this poses a security risk. It should only be enabled if the source
is known to be non malicious.

@end table

@section mpegts

MPEG-2 transport stream demuxer.

@table @option

@item fix_teletext_pts
Overrides teletext packet PTS and DTS values with the timestamps calculated
from the PCR of the first program which the teletext stream is part of and is
not discarded. Default value is 1, set this option to 0 if you want your
teletext packet PTS and DTS values untouched.
@end table

@section rawvideo

Raw video demuxer.

This demuxer allows one to read raw video data. Since there is no header
specifying the assumed video parameters, the user must specify them
in order to be able to decode the data correctly.

This demuxer accepts the following options:
@table @option

@item framerate
Set input video frame rate. Default value is 25.

@item pixel_format
Set the input video pixel format. Default value is @code{yuv420p}.

@item video_size
Set the input video size. This value must be specified explicitly.
@end table

For example to read a rawvideo file @file{input.raw} with
@command{ffplay}, assuming a pixel format of @code{rgb24}, a video
size of @code{320x240}, and a frame rate of 10 images per second, use
the command:
@example
ffplay -f rawvideo -pixel_format rgb24 -video_size 320x240 -framerate 10 input.raw
@end example

@section sbg

SBaGen script demuxer.

This demuxer reads the script language used by SBaGen
@url{http://uazu.net/sbagen/} to generate binaural beats sessions. A SBG
script looks like that:
@example
-SE
a: 300-2.5/3 440+4.5/0
b: 300-2.5/0 440+4.5/3
off: -
NOW      == a
+0:07:00 == b
+0:14:00 == a
+0:21:00 == b
+0:30:00    off
@end example

A SBG script can mix absolute and relative timestamps. If the script uses
either only absolute timestamps (including the script start time) or only
relative ones, then its layout is fixed, and the conversion is
straightforward. On the other hand, if the script mixes both kind of
timestamps, then the @var{NOW} reference for relative timestamps will be
taken from the current time of day at the time the script is read, and the
script layout will be frozen according to that reference. That means that if
the script is directly played, the actual times will match the absolute
timestamps up to the sound controller's clock accuracy, but if the user
somehow pauses the playback or seeks, all times will be shifted accordingly.

@section tedcaptions

JSON captions used for @url{http://www.ted.com/, TED Talks}.

TED does not provide links to the captions, but they can be guessed from the
page. The file @file{tools/bookmarklets.html} from the FFmpeg source tree
contains a bookmarklet to expose them.

This demuxer accepts the following option:
@table @option
@item start_time
Set the start time of the TED talk, in milliseconds. The default is 15000
(15s). It is used to sync the captions with the downloadable videos, because
they include a 15s intro.
@end table

Example: convert the captions to a format most players understand:
@example
ffmpeg -i http://www.ted.com/talks/subtitles/id/1/lang/en talk1-en.srt
@end example

@c man end DEMUXERS