ffmpeg h264 problem: "File for preset ... not found" on XP

Question

i have xp and since i'm not familiar with compiling i downloaded win32-static version of ffmpeg, svn-r26251. i want to resize an mp4 (1280x720 originally) video to get a smaller file size with approximately same quality. My command is:

ffmpeg -i ma.mp4 -vcodec libx264 -vpre hq -s 640x360 ma2.mp4

however it says "file for preset 'hq' not found". i tried -fpre, made no difference. without libx264, the resulting file, ma2.mp4, won't play in jwplayer, you just hear audio. (the reason is that it is not "mpeg4(h264)", it is just "mpeg4"). what should i do?

Answer 1

For x264 preset, instead of using "-vpre", the new builds will work with "-preset", as this will call the x264 preset directly.

Answer 2

This problem seems to be related to XP, it works on Win2K. I checked with filemon and it shows that it's looking in X:\usr\local\share\ffmpeg for files libx264-veryslow.ffpreset or veryslow.ffpreset - where X is the drive you are running ffmpeg from. I created the path on the drive, copied all presets in and now it works!