How to specify how lossy/lossless a .webm conversion will be (in ffmpeg)?

Question

I can't seem to understand how to make the conversion lossless (or at least visually lossless)? The outputs have some fast moving parts at times, and the output would become blocky; I would like to keep it as lossless as possible, while still maintaining some compression. What would I have to tweak at the command line? Thanks you~

ffmpeg -c:v libvpx-vp9 -i in.webm -c:v libvpx -vf scale=400:416,hue=h=45:s=1 -auto-alt-ref 0 out.webm

Answer 1

According to FFmpeg Wiki: VP9, "two-pass is the recommended encoding method for libvpx-vp9 as some quality-enhancing encoder features are only available in 2-pass mode". Example of your command:

ffmpeg -c:v libvpx-vp9 -i in.webm -c:v libvpx-vp9 -vf scale=400:416,hue=h=45:s=1 -b:v 0 -crf 30 -pass 1 -an -f null /dev/null
ffmpeg -c:v libvpx-vp9 -i in.webm -c:v libvpx-vp9 -vf scale=400:416,hue=h=45:s=1 -b:v 0 -crf 30 -pass 2 -c:a copy output.webm

The CRF value can be from 0–63. Lower values mean better quality. Recommended values range from 15–35, with 31 being recommended for 1080p HD video. For more info see Google - Getting Started with VP9.