FFMPEG/AVCONV BENCHMARKS 2020 3/6/20 Comparing the ffmpeg.exe and avconv.exe win64 versions

OVERVIEW
These are run times of ffmpeg.exe v5.1 (static build) and avconv.exe v13 dev (dll build). If you are not aware of why there are now two different web sites (ffmpeg.org and libav.org) and two different converters (ffmpeg.exe and avconv.exe), see the FFmpeg section of my useful utilities page. Note that at this point the split between FFmpeg and libav is old news and it appears libav has not been touched for over four years whereas FFmpeg is still being actively developed. This may be the last time I compare the two.

DETAILS

I used just one source video this time--a 23-second, high-def (720p) video (.mts file) directly from a Panasonic Lumix camera. I'm figuring that the encoding is the dominant part of the conversion time.
Run times are wall-clock time.
I'm running Windows 10 Pro 64-bit.
I have results for two CPUs: One is a core i9-9900 (3.10 GHz base clock) with 8 cores and 2 threads per core, so it can take advantage of up to 16 threads, but in my experience, going beyond 8 threads is counterproductive. The other is a core i5-670 (3.47 GHz) with 2 cores and 2 threads per core.

RESULTS

Detailed results are in the table below.
The FFmpeg windows builds are up to date while avconv seems to have stopped development since 2018. FFmpeg also has more download options (e.g. an all-in-one statically-compiled exe), is compiled with a more modern version of GCC, has efficient encoders for every major format, and is faster than (or at least equivalent to) the avconv windows build in every single case where both of them have encoders except for the Core i5 .mp4 conversions, interestingly. The avconv.exe VP8 has shown great improvement from 2017, but VP9 conversions remain slow, and there is no HEVC or Ogg Theora encoder.

CONVERSIONS

I converted a 23-second .mts (h264-encoded) video from my Panasonic camera to these formats using these command lines:

Encoder	Command line
(All encoders)	`-i myfile.mts -threads <n> -s 640x360 -b:v 1250k -b:a 56k -ar 22050 -qmax 63`
x264 (.mp4)	`-vcodec libx264 -i_qfactor 0.71 -qcomp 0.6 -qmin 10 -qdiff 4 -trellis 0 out.mp4`
x265 (hevc)	`-vcodec libx265 -i_qfactor 0.71 -qcomp 0.6 -qmin 10 -qdiff 4 -trellis 0 out.avi`
vp8 (.webm)	`-vcodec libvpx -acodec libvorbis outfile.webm`
vp9 (.webm)	`-vcodec libvpx-vp9 -acodec libvorbis outfile.webm`
theora (.ogv)	`-vcodec libtheora -acodec libvorbis outfile.ogv`

Run Times from March 6, 2020 Downloads

Command

Type

Version

gcc ver

Encoder

Encoder Version

Core i9 -threads 1

Core i5 -threads 1

Core i9 -threads 2

Core i5 -threads 2

Core i9 -threads 3

Core i5 -threads 3

Core i9 -threads 4

Core i5 -threads 4

ffmpeg.exe

win64 static

4.2

9.2.0

x264 (.mp4)

11.4 s

28.0 s

6.4 s

20.1 s

4.4 s

22.4 s

2.8 s

19.0 s

avconv.exe

win64 w/DLLs

13_dev0-1440

4.8.3

x264 (.mp4)

Lavc58.8.0

11.3 s

21.0 s

6.4 s

13.7 s

3.8 s

11.2 s

2.7 s

11.3 s

ffmpeg.exe

win64 static

4.2

9.2.0

x265 (hevc)

11.6 s

39.0 s

10.4 s

36.0 s

10.4 s

59.4 s

10.3 s

36.1 s

avconv.exe

win64 w/DLLs

13_dev0-1440

4.8.3

x265 (hevc)

Lavc58.8.0

(no encoder)

ffmpeg.exe

win64 static

4.2

9.2.0

vp8 (.webm)

28.4 s

50.0 s

15.9 s

33.8 s

9.8 s

28.5 s

8.8 s

29.8 s

avconv.exe

win64 w/DLLs

13_dev0-1440

4.8.3

vp8 (.webm)

Lavc58.8.0

135.0 s

213.4 s

76.7 s

138.2 s

48.0 s

112.2 s

44.3 s

108.9 s

ffmpeg.exe

win64 static

4.2

9.2.0

vp9 (.webm)

84.2 s

147.3 s

47.3 s

104.7 s

49.1 s

104.1 s

48.6 s

109.2 s

avconv.exe

win64 w/DLLs

13_dev0-1440

4.8.3

vp9 (.webm)

Lavc58.8.0

935 s

1307 s

939 s

1326 s

932 s

1296 s

929 s

1290 s

ffmpeg.exe

win64 static

4.2

9.2.0

theora (.ogv)

7.6 s

21.2 s

7.6 s

23.3 s

7.7 s

23.6 s

7.7 s

19.1 s

avconv.exe

win64 w/DLLs

13_dev0-1440

4.8.3

theora (.ogv)

Lavc58.8.0

(no encoder)