ffmpeg2theora

Ffmpeg2theora is not a part of <zapp>ffmpeg</zapp> but an independent frontend for converting any format that ffmpeg can read into the free Ogg Vorbis and Ogg Theora codecs.

There may be no real advantage to using ffmpeg2theora rather than just using ffmpeg, but it does have an abbreviated set of options since its goal is far more focused than the near-infinite possibilities of ffmpeg.

Tip

For some video (especially high-res video meant to be dynamically scaled on any variety of device with any variety of screen size), you should also consider the webm format, which is also free and open source like Theora, directly through ffmpeg.

The command structure is similar, so if you've used ffmpeg or mencoder to transcode media then it will all feel very familiar:

$ ffmpeg2theora input_file.avi -x 1920 -y 1080 -V 21000kbps -A 320kbps -c 2 -H 44100 -o output.ogv

In other words:

$ ffmpeg2theora [input filename] -x
[target horizontal pixel count] -y [target vertical
pixel count] -V [target bitrate in kbps] -A [audio
bit rate] -c [audio channels] -H [audio sample
rate in Hz] -o [output filename]

ffmpeg2theora is available from slackbuilds.org and requires no special compile options.