Convert mp4 from color to black-and-white with linux terminal

Question

I have an mp4 which I want to convert from color to black and white using the terminal.

How?

EDIT: My question is NOT a duplicate because I want to do this with an mp4 (video, not image).

Possible duplicate of [How can I convert an image to grayscale via the command line?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7708368/how-can-i-convert-an-image-to-grayscale-via-the-command-line) — Natalie Hedström, Mar 15 '16 at 12:29

hemisphire · Answer 1 · 2019-01-28T15:15:28.530

2

If you install ffmpeg (cross-platform video converter), you can do it with a one line command by filtering the saturation to 0.

ffmpeg -i <inputfile> -vf hue=s=0 -acodec copy <outputfile>

edited Jan 28 '19 at 15:15

answered Jan 25 '19 at 17:26

hemisphire

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please consider adding a comment to your answer, which seems to do it, but without explanation, it's not really useful – Jean-François Fabre Jan 25 '19 at 20:03

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 16 '16 at 00:29

0

Maybe overkill but GStreamer could probably achieve that. It's mainly for streaming media but you can use it to manipulate local files also.

https://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/

It can either be executed as a command taking your mp4 as argument along with a long series of other arguments directly from the terminal or the framework can be imported in a project. Takes some time to get the hang of it tho and it's probably an easier way.

answered Mar 16 '16 at 00:29

flott

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Thanks I might try this. I will be doing my video editing on a Windows boot tho. – Mar 16 '16 at 12:10

Convert mp4 from color to black-and-white with linux terminal

2 Answers2