Preamble
This HOWTO is about getting QWinFF installed via packages and configuring it's "presets" to display the various options for converting to various video/audio formats.
What is QWinFF?
QWinFF is a Qt GUI front-end for
ffmpeg.
Installing QWinFF
The easiest way of installing it is via software packages, because the more recent versions require versions of certain libraries that ain't available in CentOS 7, the only way I could install it without compiling it was to use a package built for openSUSE 12.X
If you have the KDE desktop environment installed, then you should have all of the required dependencies installed already (using the same package for it as I have).
If you go
here and download the binary package, it should just be a matter of running the command below to install it:
Code:
rpm -i /path/to/qwinff-0.1.7-3.1.x86_64.rpm
You need to replace "
/path/to" with the actual path to the downloaded rpm package.
NOTE: I used QWinFF 0.1.7-3.1, which uses Qt 4.
Configuring the "presets"
The "presets" are stored in a XML file, like most of the other GUI front-ends for
ffmpeg, QWinFF has what are known as "presets", that tell the application what options to use with
ffmpeg. It also has the same file format as the others. It's by default stored in the file
/usr/share/qwinff/presets.xml
Here's a snippet of that file:
Code:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<presets>
<!-- MPEG4 -->
<MPEG4Auto>
<label>MPEG-4 Auto</label>
<params>-strict experimental -sameq</params>
<extension>mp4</extension>
<category>MPEG-4</category>
</MPEG4Auto>
<MPEG4VideoHQ>
<label>MPEG-4 H.264 video (high quality)</label>
<params>-crf 35.0 -vcodec libx264 -vpre hq -acodec libfaac -ar 48000 -ab 128kb -coder 1 -flags +loop -cmp +chroma -partitions +parti4x4+partp8x8+partb8x8 -me_method hex -subq 6 -me_range 16 -g 250 -keyint_min 25 -sc_threshold 40 -i_qfactor 0.71 -b_strategy 1 -threads 0</params>
<extension>mp4</extension>
<category>MPEG-4</category>
</MPEG4VideoHQ>
<MPEG4VideoVHQ>
<label>MPEG-4 H.264 video (very high quality)</label>
<params>-crf 25.0 -vcodec libx264 -vpre hq -acodec libfaac -ar 48000 -ab 160kb -coder 1 -flags +loop -cmp +chroma -partitions +parti4x4+partp8x8+partb8x8 -me_method hex -subq 6 -me_range 16 -g 250 -keyint_min 25 -sc_threshold 40 -i_qfactor 0.71 -b_strategy 1 -threads 0</params>
<extension>mp4</extension>
<category>MPEG-4</category>
</MPEG4VideoVHQ>
...
The problem is that what's highlighted in bold is the only option you will see when you go to convert your video to MPEG-4, but as you can see, there should be at least two more options (and many more than just two).
Below is a "presets" file I've modified so it displays all of those options.
NOTE: I've not tested any other versions of QWinFF, so I don't know if other versions have the same issue.
Here's the modified version of that same "preset" file so it does display the rest of those options:
Code:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<presets>
<!-- MPEG4 -->
<MPEG4VideoHQ>
<label>MPEG-4 H.264 video (high quality)</label>
<extension>mp4</extension>
<params></params>
<category>MPEG-4</category>
</MPEG4VideoHQ>
<MPEG4VideoHQ>
<label>MPEG-4 H.264 video (high quality)</label>
<params>-crf 35.0 -vcodec libx264 -vpre hq -acodec libfaac -ar 48000 -ab 128kb -coder 1 -flags +loop -cmp +chroma -partitions +parti4x4+partp8x8+partb8x8 -me_method hex -subq 6 -me_range 16 -g 250 -keyint_min 25 -sc_threshold 40 -i_qfactor 0.71 -b_strategy 1 -threads 0</params>
<extension>mp4</extension>
<category>MPEG-4</category>
</MPEG4VideoHQ>
<MPEG4Video5HQ>
<label>MPEG-4 H.264 video with 5.1 Sound (high quality)</label>
<extension>mp4</extension>
<params>-ac 6</params>
<category>MPEG-4</category>
</MPEG4Video5HQ>
<MPEG4Video5HQ>
<label>MPEG-4 H.264 video with 5.1 Sound (high quality)</label>
<params>-crf 35.0 -vcodec libx264 -vpre hq -acodec libfaac -ar 48000 -ab 128kb -coder 1 -flags +loop -cmp +chroma -partitions +parti4x4+partp8x8+partb8x8 -me_method hex -subq 6 -me_range 16 -g 250 -keyint_min 25 -sc_threshold 40 -i_qfactor 0.71 -b_strategy 1 -threads 0</params>
<extension>mp4</extension>
<category>MPEG-4</category>
</MPEG4Video5HQ>
<MPEG4VideoVHQ>
<label>MPEG-4 H.264 video (very high quality)</label>
<extension>mp4</extension>
<params>-crf 25.0 -ab 160kb</params>
<category>MPEG-4</category>
</MPEG4VideoVHQ>
<MPEG4VideoVHQ>
<label>MPEG-4 H.264 video (very high quality)</label>
<params>-vcodec libx264 -vpre hq -acodec libfaac -ar 48000 -coder 1 -flags +loop -cmp +chroma -partitions +parti4x4+partp8x8+partb8x8 -me_method hex -subq 6 -me_range 16 -g 250 -keyint_min 25 -sc_threshold 40 -i_qfactor 0.71 -b_strategy 1 -threads 0</params>
<extension>mp4</extension>
<category>MPEG-4</category>
</MPEG4VideoVHQ>
<MPEG4VideoSHQ>
<label>MPEG-4 H.264 video (super high quality)</label>
<extension>mp4</extension>
<params>-crf 15.0 -ab 192kb</params>
<category>MPEG-4</category>
</MPEG4VideoSHQ>
<MPEG4VideoSHQ>
<label>MPEG-4 H.264 video (super high quality)</label>
<params>-vcodec libx264 -vpre max -acodec libfaac -ar 48000 -coder 1 -flags +loop -cmp +chroma -partitions +parti4x4+partp8x8+partb8x8 -me_method hex -subq 6 -me_range 16 -g 250 -keyint_min 25 -sc_threshold 40 -i_qfactor 0.71 -b_strategy 1 -threads 0</params>
<extension>mp4</extension>
<category>MPEG-4</category>
</MPEG4VideoSHQ>
...
You'll notice that each option has two blocks of XML code in the above "presets" file (one of which is highlighted in blue font), if you just had the latter XML block for each option there, those options missing the block above it would not show up in the "wizard" in QWinFF.
You'll also notice the what's highlighted in bold has another field that the other options don't, this is for
ffmpeg command options that you only want for a particular QWinFF option. If you put an option in the second
<params> field for said option, it will get ignored if it's different to the other options for
ffmpeg in the previous XML code blocks for the other options.
NOTE: The above information regarding the "presets" is not exclusive to CentOS and would also apply with any other distribution that QWinFF is installed on.
