ffmpeg-encoder-check

A pre-encoding check that lists which H.264 video encoders are available in your FFmpeg installation. FFmpeg is a tool for processing video files.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it before writing or running video encoding code to choose an available software or hardware encoder, such as libx264 or a GPU-based option.
Why use it?
It helps prevent encoding scripts from failing because an expected encoder or compatible library is missing.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/hkuds/openspace/ffmpeg-encoder-check
Any agent
npx skills add HKUDS/OpenSpace --skill ffmpeg-encoder-check
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/HKUDS/OpenSpace

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 19 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 884 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00019 $0.00884
Opus 5 $0.00010 $0.00442
Sonnet 5 $0.00004 $0.00177
Haiku 4.5 $0.00002 $0.00088

Measured 2d ago against content hash 9af2b87c75db, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

ffmpeg-encoder-check scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 2d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

benchmarks/gdpval/skills/ffmpeg-encoder-check/SKILL.md · 108 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 108 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

FFmpeg Encoder Availability Check

Purpose

Before writing video encoding scripts, always verify which H.264 encoders are available in your FFmpeg installation. This prevents failures from library version mismatches, particularly with libopenh264.

Instructions

Step 1: Probe Available Encoders

Run the following command to check available H.264 encoders:

ffmpeg -encoders 2>/dev/null | grep h264

This shows which H.264 encoders are compiled into your FFmpeg build.

Step 2: Interpret Results

Common encoder options you may see:

Encoder Description Recommendation
libx264 Software H.264 encoder Preferred - widely compatible
libopenh264 OpenH264 software encoder Use with caution - often has library version mismatches
h264_nvenc NVIDIA hardware encoder Good if NVIDIA GPU available
h264_videotoolbox macOS hardware encoder Good on macOS
h264_vaapi Intel VAAPI hardware encoder Good on Linux with Intel GPU
h264_qsv Intel QuickSync encoder Good on Windows/Linux with Intel GPU

Step 3: Choose Encoding Strategy

For same-resolution sources (no re-encoding needed):

# Best option - pass-through without quality loss
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:v copy -c:a copy output.mp4

If libx264 is available:

# Reliable software encoding
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:v libx264 -preset medium -crf 23 -c:a aac output.mp4

If only libopenh264 is available:

# Use with caution - may have library issues
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:v libopenh264 -c:a aac output.mp4

Step 4: Validate Before Batch Processing

Always test your encoding command on a small sample file before processing multiple videos or long footage.

Best Practices

  1. Default to -c:v copy when source and target resolutions match - no quality loss, fastest processing
  2. Prefer libx264 over libopenh264 for software encoding - more stable, better compatibility
  3. Check encoder availability at script startup, not during execution - fail fast with clear error
  4. Cache encoder check results if running multiple encoding operations in the same session
  5. Provide fallback options in automated scripts - try copy first, then libx264, then fail gracefully

Read the full file on GitHub · 108 lines

Files

What ships with it

1 file beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 2d ago First seen · 108 lines · 19 tokens per session scan A 9af2b87c75db

Subscribe to this mod's changes

ffmpeg-encoder-check is a skill published in the GitHub repository HKUDS/OpenSpace (7,486 stars, last pushed 20d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 19 tokens to every session and 884 once invoked, about $0.0001 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.

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