How can I determine if a codec / container combination is compatible with FFmpeg?

Question

I\'m looking at re-muxing some containers holding audio and video such that I extract the best, first audio stream, and store it in a new container where e.g. only

Answer 1

There's a dynamic approach to that problem. This enumerates the codecs for each container, but you also get the inverse:

// enumerate all codecs and put into list
std::vector<AVCodec*> encoderList;
AVCodec * codec = nullptr;
while (codec = av_codec_next(codec))
{
    // try to get an encoder from the system
    auto encoder = avcodec_find_encoder(codec->id);
    if (encoder)
    {
        encoderList.push_back(encoder);
    }
}
// enumerate all containers
AVOutputFormat * outputFormat = nullptr;
while (outputFormat = av_oformat_next(outputFormat))
{
    for (auto codec : encoderList)
    {
        // only add the codec if it can be used with this container
        if (avformat_query_codec(outputFormat, codec->id, FF_COMPLIANCE_STRICT) == 1)
        {
            // add codec for container
        }
    }
}

If you just want specific containers or codecs you can use a whitelist with their name or id fields and use that when enumerating.

Answer 2

For each individual muxer, there is usually a codec tag writing function.That function will check against a list in another source file or work through a switch statement in the same. There is no central roster or container-matching utility function. Your best bet is to identify the codec id in libavcodec/allcodecs.c and then grep in libavformat/ for that ID, particularly within files suffixed with enc e.g. matroskaenc.c.