`ffmpeg -i <input video file/stream> -vcodec rawvideo -acodec pcm_s16le pipe:1 | ffmpeg -i - -vcodec <video output codec> -acodec <audio output codec> -vb <video bitrate if applicable> -ab <audio bitrate if applicable> <final-output-filename>`

example:

This pipes a video from ffmpeg to another instance as raw video output and 16 bit little-endian PCM (both lossless unless you have 24 bit PCM, then substitute `pcm_s24le`.) It then converts them to h.264 in the second instance, with the fraunhoefer AAC library from the Android project (`libfaac` is more commonly included in ffmpeg builds. You can replace it with this instead.)

`ffmpeg -i montypythonsflyingcircus-s1e1.avi -vcodec rawvideo -acodec pcm_s16le pipe:1 | ffmpeg -i - -vcodec libx264 -acodec libfdk_aac -vb 1200k -ab 96k mpfc-s1e01-output.mkv`

The one problem with the other answer is that it is pcm_s16le, not s16le. Also, it includes a lot of redundant parameters.



If this doesn't pipe the subtitles, you can always rip them to SRT's and then mux them back in later, or add them to the pipes above easily.