unable to find a suitable output format for 'ΓÇô'

Question

I'm trying to encode videos for mpeg dash streaming, I used the following command (I bring it from this article: http://blog.streamroot.io/encode-multi-bitrate-videos-mpeg-dash-mse-based-media-players/) :

cd c:\ffmpeg\bin
set inputFile="C:\park.mp4"
set outputFile="C:\content\park"

ffmpeg -y -i %inputFile% -c:a libfdk_aac -ac 2 -ab 128k -c:v libx264 -r 24 – g 24 -b:v 1500k -maxrate 1500k -bufsize 1000k -vf "scale=-1:720" %outputFile%_720.mp4

after run the command the following issue appear:

[NULL @ 0000000002f43dc0] Unable to find a suitable output format for 'ΓÇô' ΓÇô: Invalid argument

I tried other videos but the error is the same.

How do I resolve this?

Answer 1

The problem is that you have a "special" hyphen followed by a space before the "g" in the middle of your command line, it is known as an "en dash" and it is confusing your parser.

To compare:

Hyphen:  -
Em dash: —
En dash: –

Your script should be (to the best of my knowledge):

cd c:\ffmpeg\bin
set inputFile="C:\park.mp4"
set outputFile="C:\content\park"

ffmpeg -y -i %inputFile% -c:a libfdk_aac -ac 2 -ab 128k -c:v libx264 -r 24 -g 24 -b:v 1500k -maxrate 1500k -bufsize 1000k -vf "scale=-1:720" %outputFile%_720.mp4

I would assume that the article you copied the script from was created using some kind of word processor which automatically substituted the em-dash after a space was accidentally typed before the "g" and from there it got copied and pasted into the rest of the article.

Hint garnered from this SO question

Answer 2

First thing I see: you have a space between the dash and the g for specifying gop length. I think FFmpeg believes you are trying to save an output with the name "-". Try deleting the space.