convert .mov to .m4v with mac terminal

Question

What do I need to type into the mac terminal to be able to convert my .mov files to .m4a?

Answer 1

With ffmpeg installed:

ffmpeg -i input.mov -acodec copy -vcodec copy output.m4v

This will perform an exact copy of both the audio and video streams into the new file.

Answer 2

I guess I am little late in the game, but researching on the very same topic today, I found nowadays MacOS ships with avconvert:

AVCONVERT(1)              BSD General Commands Manual             AVCONVERT(1)

NAME
     avconvert -- movie conversion tool

SYNOPSIS
     avconvert [-hvq] --p <preset_name> --s <source_media> --o <output_movie>

DESCRIPTION
 avconvert can be used to compress video media to different types for sharing on the
 web or loading onto devices.

 -h       prints usage information and available presets

 -v       sets the console output to verbose

 -q       sets the console output to quiet

 -prog    shows progress during the export (default with -v)

 -p | --preset name
          converts the source media to an output file using the specified preset. Use
          --listPresets to get the full list. Common presets are:

          PresetAppleM4VCellular
          PresetAppleM4ViPod
          PresetAppleM4VWiFi
          PresetAppleM4VAppleTV
          PresetAppleM4V480pSD
          PresetAppleM4V720pHD
          PresetAppleM4V1080pHD
          PresetAppleM4A