Infinite stream from a video file (in a loop)

Question

Is there any way howto create an infinite h264 stream from a video file (eg. mp4, avi, ...). I'd like to use ffmpeg to transcode avi file to h264 but there's no loop option for output.

Answer 1

You should be able to use the -stream_loop -1 flag before the input (-i):

ffmpeg -threads 2 -re -fflags +genpts -stream_loop -1 -i ./test.mp4 -c copy ./test.m3u8

The -fflags +genpts will regenerate the pts timestamps so it loops smoothly, otherwise the time sequence will be incorrect as it loops.

Answer 2

No you can't. There is no such command in ffmpeg to loop video. You can use -loop for image only. If you are interested you can use concat demuxer. Create a playlist file e.g. playlist.txt

Inside playlist.txt add the video location

file '/path/to/video/video.mp4'
file '/path/to/video/video.mp4'
file '/path/to/video/video.mp4'
file '/path/to/video/video.mp4'
file '/path/to/video/video.mp4'

Run ffmpeg

ffmpeg -f concat -i playlist.txt -c copy output.mp4

See here