Scaling a video means to make it either larger (higher resolution) or smaller (smaller resolution). A low quality 480p will struggle to make it at 1080p.How to do video scaling using FFmpeg with examples for different types of upscaling and downscaling methods. A high bitrate 720p video can look good at 1080p and maybe work at 4k. The end result is going to depend on your source footage. ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf scale=640x480:flags=lanczos -c:v libx264 -preset slow -crf 21 output_compress_480p.mp4Īll you need to do is change the scale= to the dimension you want, then change the output to indicate the video dimensions. To downscale video all you need to know is popular dimensions. To upscale to 4k video: ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf scale=3840x2560:flags=lanczos -c:v libx264 -preset slow -crf 21 output_compress_4k.mp4 Downscale with FFmpeg To upscale a video to 1080p whilst encoding it: ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf scale=1920x1080:flags=lanczos -c:v libx264 -preset slow -crf 21 output_compress_1080p.mp4 Whilst Lanczos in most cases wont be the sharpest it combines sharpness with smooth to make the footage look better overall, Avoiding blocky footage. For an excellent source on resampling methods go here. This uses FFmpeg scaling with Lanczos resampling. To change a video file to be 1080p in FFmpeg: ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf scale=1920x1080:flags=lanczos output_1080p.mp4

Here are some FFmpeg commands to help you out: Upscale with FFmpeg Making a video smaller (downscaling) or bigger (upscaling) with FFmpeg is actually very easy.

Ffmpeg filter complex scale