gst-transcoder-1.0

GStreamer media transcoder

TLDR

Transcode a video file to WebM format (auto-detected from extension)

$ gst-transcoder-1.0 file:///[path/to/input.mp4] file:///[path/to/output.webm]

Transcode with a specific encoding format

$ gst-transcoder-1.0 file:///[path/to/input.mp4] file:///[path/to/output.mkv] "[encoding_format]"

Transcode and resize the video to a specific frame size

$ gst-transcoder-1.0 -s [1280x720] file:///[path/to/input.mp4] file:///[path/to/output.mp4]

Transcode with a specific video framerate

$ gst-transcoder-1.0 -f [30/1] file:///[path/to/input.mp4] file:///[path/to/output.mp4]

List all available encoding targets

$ gst-transcoder-1.0 -l

Limit CPU usage during transcoding

$ gst-transcoder-1.0 -c [50] file:///[path/to/input.mp4] file:///[path/to/output.mp4]

SYNOPSIS

gst-transcoder-1.0 [options] input-uri output-uri [encoding-format[/profile-name]]

gst-transcoder-1.0 is a command-line tool that transcodes multimedia streams from one format to another using the GStreamer framework. It reads from an input URI, processes the media, and writes to an output URI in the specified encoding format.The encoding format can be specified explicitly as a serialization string (e.g. muxer_caps:video_caps:audio_caps), as a named target from .gep profile files, or omitted entirely to let the tool guess the format from the output file extension.The tool uses the GStreamer Transcoder API internally, leveraging decodebin and encodebin elements for automatic format detection and encoding.

PARAMETERS

-h, --help

Show help options.

--help-all

Show all help options.

--help-gst

Show GStreamer-specific options.

-c, --cpu-usage PERCENT

Target CPU usage percentage for the transcoding process.

-l, --list-targets

List all available encoding targets and exit.

-s, --size WxH

Set the output video frame size (e.g. 1280x720).

-r, --audio-rate HZ

Set the audio sampling rate in Hz.

-f, --framerate FRACTION

Set the video framerate as a fraction (e.g. 24/1) or a single number (e.g. 24).

-v, --video-encoder ENCODER

Specify the video encoder element to use.

CAVEATS

Input and output paths must be specified as URIs with the file:/// prefix, not as plain file paths. The available encoding formats depend on which GStreamer plugins are installed on the system. The CPU usage throttling is approximate and depends on system load. Complex transcoding scenarios may require explicit encoding format strings rather than relying on file extension detection.

HISTORY

gst-transcoder-1.0 was originally developed as part of the Pitivi video editor project to provide transcoding functionality. It was later integrated into gst-plugins-bad, becoming a standard GStreamer utility. The tool builds on the GstTranscoder library, which provides a simplified high-level API for media transcoding on top of GStreamer's pipeline framework.