Resize video while live streaming with ffmpeg

Question

My server uses this command to stream a video (1280x544):

ffmpeg -re -i c:\ffmpeg\This.mp4 -vcodec copy -acodec copy -movflags faststart -f mpegts tcp://192.168.1.82:1234?listen

Now, I would like to reduce the original resolution while streaming. I tried this:

ffmpeg -re -y -i this.mp4 -vf scale="480:-1" this480.mp4 -vcodec copy -acodec copy -movflags faststart -f mpegts tcp://192.168.1.82:1235?listen

but the resolution does not change.

Can this be done or I am asking the impossible? Thanks.

Answer 1

You wanted to resize your video (-vf scale="480:-1"), and at the same time you wanted don't to use a video codec for encoding such resized video (-vcodec copy).

It's impssible — video codec copy means no decoding, no encoding, no filtering - simply copying without any change. It is not a real codec.

Try omitting -vcodec copy to enable FFmpeg to choose an appropriate codec.