FFMPEG to the rescue, again

Kalle Tolonen — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 05:03:35 +0000

LinkedIn is going to be one of my direct integrations, if it's possible, so that I can write an article once and publish it on my own platform and do external distribution. Who has a non-svg logo available in 2026? I don't so I need to fix it.

Better and smarter ways exist, but we're Linux-neckbeards

It would be easy to use some ad-ridden page to convert my svg-logo to a png for LinkedIn's consumption, but no, we're not doing that. We're doing it the only way we should, which is via cli.

1st we encountered an esoteric err:

ffmpeg -i logo.svg -width 1920 logo.png
ffmpeg version 8.1 Copyright (c) 2000-2026 the FFmpeg developers
  built with Apple clang version 17.0.0 (clang-1700.6.4.2)
  configuration: --prefix=/opt/homebrew/Cellar/ffmpeg/8.1_1 --enable-shared --enable-pthreads --enable-version3 --cc=clang --host-cflags= --host-ldflags= --enable-ffplay --enable-gpl --enable-libsvtav1 --enable-libopus --enable-libx264 --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libdav1d --enable-libvmaf --enable-libvpx --enable-libx265 --enable-openssl --enable-videotoolbox --enable-audiotoolbox --enable-neon
  libavutil      60. 26.100 / 60. 26.100
  libavcodec     62. 28.100 / 62. 28.100
  libavformat    62. 12.100 / 62. 12.100
  libavdevice    62.  3.100 / 62.  3.100
  libavfilter    11. 14.100 / 11. 14.100
  libswscale      9.  5.100 /  9.  5.100
  libswresample   6.  3.100 /  6.  3.100
[in#0/svg_pipe @ 0x825014000] Could not find codec parameters for stream 0 (Video: svg, none): unspecified size
Consider increasing the value for the 'analyzeduration' (0) and 'probesize' (5000000) options
Input #0, svg_pipe, from 'logo.svg':
  Duration: N/A, bitrate: N/A
  Stream #0:0: Video: svg, none, 25 fps, 25 tbr, 25 tbn
[vist#0:0/svg @ 0x824c1c180] Decoding requested, but no decoder found for: svg
Error opening output file logo.png.
Error opening output files: Invalid argument

So that told us that we're missing a decoder, which means we'll need to install said codec.

brew uninstall ffmpeg
brew tap homebrew-ffmpeg/ffmpeg
brew install homebrew-ffmpeg/ffmpeg/ffmpeg --with-librsvg

Running brew made it feel like it's the 1990's all over again with a package manager that's moar sluggish than Linux running on a 386.

Ffmpeg did do this chore like a boss, and we we're done in 30 minutes for a 5 second job.

ffmpeg -i logo.svg -vf "scale=1920:-1" logo.png
ffmpeg version 9.0.1 Copyright (c) 2000-2026 the FFmpeg developers
  built with Apple clang version 21.0.0 (clang-2100.1.1.101)
  configuration: --prefix=/opt/homebrew/Cellar/ffmpeg/9.0.1 --enable-shared --cc=clang --host-cflags= --host-ldflags= --enable-gpl --enable-libaom --enable-libdav1d --enable-libharfbuzz --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopus --enable-libsnappy --enable-libsvtav1 --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis --enable-libvpx --enable-libx264 --enable-libx265 --enable-libfontconfig --enable-libfreetype --enable-frei0r --enable-libass --enable-demuxer=dash --enable-neon --enable-opencl --enable-audiotoolbox --enable-videotoolbox --disable-htmlpages --enable-librsvg
  libavutil      61.  1.101 / 61.  1.101
  libavcodec     63.  1.101 / 63.  1.101
  libavformat    63.  1.101 / 63.  1.101
  libavdevice    63.  1.101 / 63.  1.101
  libavfilter    12.  1.101 / 12.  1.101
  libswscale     10.  1.101 / 10.  1.101
  libswresample   7.  1.101 /  7.  1.101
Input #0, svg_pipe, from 'logo.svg':
  Duration: N/A, bitrate: N/A
  Stream #0:0: Video: svg (librsvg), bgra, 100x100, 25 fps, 25 tbr, 25 tbn
Stream mapping:
  Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (svg (librsvg) -> png (native))
Press [q] to stop, [?] for help
Output #0, image2, to 'logo.png':
  Metadata:
    encoder         : Lavf63.1.101
  Stream #0:0: Video: png, rgba(pc, gbr/unknown/unknown, progressive), 1920x1920, q=2-31, 200 kb/s, 25 fps, 25 tbn
    Metadata:
      encoder         : Lavc63.1.101 png
[image2 @ 0x9fe804280] The specified filename 'logo.png' does not contain an image sequence pattern or a pattern is invalid.
[image2 @ 0x9fe804280] Use a pattern such as %03d for an image sequence or use the -update option (with -frames:v 1 if needed) to write a single image.
[out#0/image2 @ 0x9fec0c780] video:140KiB audio:0KiB subtitle:0KiB other streams:0KiB global headers:0KiB muxing overhead: unknown
frame=    1 fps=0.0 q=-0.0 Lsize=N/A time=00:00:00.04 bitrate=N/A speed=0.478x elapsed=0:00:00.08

DEV Community: Kalle Tolonen

FFMPEG to the rescue, again

Better and smarter ways exist, but we're Linux-neckbeards