opusenc(1) opus-tools opusenc(1)

NAME

opusenc - encode audio into the Opus format

SYNOPSIS

opusenc [ -h ] [ -V ] [ --help-picture ] [ --quiet ] [ --bitrate
kbit/s ] [ --vbr ] [ --cvbr ] [ --hard-cbr ] [ --music ] [ --speech ]
[ --comp complexity ] [ --framesize 2.5, 5, 10, 20, 40, 60 ] [
--expect-loss pct ] [ --downmix-mono ] [ --downmix-stereo ] [
--no-phase-inv ] [ --max-delay ms ] [ --title 'track title' ] [
--artist author ] [ --album 'album title' ] [ --tracknumber 'track
number' ] [ --genre genre ] [ --date YYYY-MM-DD ] [ --comment
tag=value ] [ --picture filename|specification ] [ --padding n ] [
--discard-comments ] [ --discard-pictures ] [ --raw ] [ --raw-bits
bits/sample ] [ --raw-rate Hz ] [ --raw-chan N ] [ --raw-endianness
flag ] [ --ignorelength ] [ --serial serial number ] [ --save-range
file ] [ --set-ctl-int ctl=value ] input.wav output.opus

DESCRIPTION

opusenc reads audio data in Wave, AIFF, FLAC, Ogg/FLAC, or raw PCM
format and encodes it into an Ogg Opus stream. If the input file is
"-" audio data is read from stdin. Likewise, if the output file is
"-" the Ogg Opus stream is written to stdout.

Unless quieted opusenc displays fancy statistics about the encoding
progress.

OPTIONS

General options

-h, --help
Show command help

-V, --version
Show the version number

--help-picture
Show help on attaching album art

--quiet
Enable quiet mode. No messages are displayed.

Encoding options

--bitrate N.nnn
Set target bitrate in kbit/s (6-256 per channel)

In VBR mode this specifies the average rate for a large and
diverse collection of audio. In CVBR and Hard-CBR mode it
specifies the specific output bitrate.

The default for input with a sample rate of 44.1 kHz or higher
is 64 kbit/s per mono stream and 96 kbit/s per coupled pair.

--vbr Use variable bitrate encoding (default)

In VBR mode the bitrate may go up and down freely depending on
the content to achieve more consistent quality.

--cvbr Use constrained variable bitrate encoding.

Outputs to a specific bitrate. This mode is analogous to CBR
in AAC/MP3 encoders and managed mode in Vorbis coders. This
delivers less consistent quality than VBR mode but consistent
bitrate.

--hard-cbr
Use hard constant bitrate encoding.

With hard-cbr every frame will be exactly the same size,
similar to how speech codecs work. This delivers lower overall
quality but is useful where bitrate changes might leak data in
encrypted channels or on synchronous transports.

--music
Override automatic detection and tune low bitrate encoding for
music. By default, music is detected automatically and the
classification may vary over time.

Tuning impacts lower bitrates that involve tradeoffs between
speech clarity and musical accuracy, and has no impact at
bitrates typically used for high quality music encoding.

--speech
Override automatic detection and tune low bitrate encoding for
speech. By default, speech is detected automatically and the
classification may vary over time.

Tuning impacts lower bitrates that involve tradeoffs between
speech clarity and musical accuracy, and has no impact at
bitrates typically used for high quality music encoding.

--comp N
Set encoding computational complexity (0-10, default: 10).
Zero gives the fastest encodes but lower quality, while 10
gives the highest quality but slower encoding.

--framesize N
Set maximum frame size in milliseconds (2.5, 5, 10, 20, 40,
60, default: 20)
Smaller framesizes achieve lower latency but less quality at a
given bitrate.
Sizes greater than 20ms are only interesting at fairly low
bitrates.

--expect-loss N
Set expected packet loss in percent (default: 0)

--downmix-mono
Downmix to mono

--downmix-stereo
Downmix to stereo (if >2 channels input)

--no-phase-inv
Disable use of phase inversion for intensity stereo. This
trades some stereo quality for a higher quality mono downmix,
and is useful when encoding stereo audio that is likely to be
downmixed to mono after decoding.

--max-delay N
Set maximum container delay in milliseconds (0-1000, default:
1000)

Metadata options

--title title
Set the track title comment field to title

--artist artist
Set the artist comment field to artist. This may be used
multiple times to list contributing artists individually.
Note that some playback software does not display multiple
artists gracefully.

--album album
Set the album or collection title field to album

--tracknumber N
Set the track number comment field to N

--date YYYY-MM-DD
Set the date comment field to YYYY-MM-DD. This may be
shortened to YYYY-MM or YYYY.

--genre genre
Set the genre comment field to genre. This option may be
specified multiple times to tag a track with multiple
overlapping genres.

--comment tag=value
Add an extra comment. This may be used multiple times. The
argument should be in the form "tag=value". See the vorbis-
comment specification for well known tag names:
https://www.xiph.org/vorbis/doc/v-comment.html

--picture filename|specification
Attach album art for the track.

Either a filename for the artwork or a more complete
specification form can be used. The picture is added to a
METADATA_BLOCK_PICTURE comment field similar to what is used
in FLAC. The specification is a string whose parts are
separated by | (pipe) characters. Some parts may be left
empty to invoke default values. Passing a plain filename is
just shorthand for the "||||filename" specification.

The format of specification is [type]|[media-
type]|[description]|[widthxheightxdepth[/colors]]|filename

type is an optional number describing the nature of the
picture. Defined values are from one of:

0: Other
1: 32x32 pixel 'file icon' (PNG only)
2: Other file icon
3: Cover (front)
4: Cover (back)
5: Leaflet page
6: Media (e.g., label side of a CD)
7: Lead artist/lead performer/soloist
8: Artist/performer
9: Conductor
10: Band/Orchestra
11: Composer
12: Lyricist/text writer
13: Recording location
14: During recording
15: During performance
16: Movie/video screen capture
17: A bright colored fish
18: Illustration
19: Band/artist logotype
20: Publisher/studio logotype

The default is 3 (front cover). More than one --picture
option can be specified to attach multiple pictures. There
may only be one picture each of type 1 and 2 in a file.

media-type is optional and is now ignored.

description is optional. The default is an empty string.

The next part specifies the resolution and color information,
but is now ignored.

filename is the path to the picture file to be imported.


--padding n
Reserve n extra bytes for metadata tags. This can make later
tag editing more efficient. Defaults to 512.

--discard-comments
Don't propagate metadata tags from the input file.

--discard-pictures
Don't propagate pictures or art from the input file.

Input options

--raw Interpret input as raw PCM data without headers

--raw-bits N
Set bits/sample for raw input (default: 16)

--raw-rate N
Set sampling rate for raw input (default: 48000)

--raw-chan N
Set number of channels for raw input (default: 2)

--raw-endianness [0/1]
Set the endianness for raw input: 1 for big endian, 0 for
little (default: 0)

--ignorelength
Ignore the data length in Wave headers. Opusenc automatically
ignores the length when its implausible (very small or very
large) but some STDIN usage may still need this option to
avoid truncation.

Diagnostic options

--serial n
Force use of a specific stream serial number, rather than one
that is randomly generated. This is used to make the encoder
deterministic for testing and is not generally recommended.

--save-range file
Save check values for every frame to a file

--set-ctl-int x=y
Pass the encoder control x with value y (advanced). Preface
with s: to direct the ctl to multistream s
This may be used multiple times

EXAMPLES

Simplest usage. Take input as input.wav and produce output as
output.opus:
opusenc input.wav output.opus

Produce a very high quality encode with a target rate of 160 kbit/s:
opusenc --bitrate 160 input.wav output.opus

Record and send a live stream to an Icecast HTTP streaming server
using oggfwd:
arecord -c 2 -r 48000 -twav - | opusenc --bitrate 96 - - |
oggfwd icecast.somewhere.org 8000 password /stream.opus

NOTES

While it is possible to use opusenc for low latency streaming (e.g.
with --max-delay set to 0 and netcat instead of Icecast) it's not
really designed for this, and the Ogg container and TCP transport
aren't the best tools for that application. Shell pipelines
themselves will often have high buffering. The ability to set
framesizes as low as 2.5 ms in opusenc mostly exists to try out the
quality of the format with low latency settings, but not really for
actual low latency usage.
Interactive usage should use UDP/RTP directly.

AUTHORS

Gregory Maxwell <greg@xiph.org>

SEE ALSO

opusdec(1), opusinfo(1), oggfwd(1)

Xiph.Org Foundation 2012-08-31 opusenc(1)