Turn raw product footage into a TikTok ad with FFmpeg

Input: footage of a product (a creator clip, an unboxing, a demo, last month's winning ad). Output: a 1080×1920 MP4 that opens on the product and the payoff, says the hook in text inside the safe zone, has no dead air, ends on one CTA, and plays at the loudness the apps expect. You also get one file per hook for testing, a 4:5 feed cut and a cover frame.

All commands were run on test media (FFmpeg 6.0 static and 8.1). Run one step at a time and look at a frame before going on.

0. Ask before cutting

1. What is the one thing the viewer must see? The product doing its job, or the result. It goes in the first 1–2 seconds.
2. Where does it run? TikTok Shop and organic content: 15–45 s. Paid TikTok and Meta: 15–30 s for cold traffic, up to 60 s for a story that holds. One video, many hooks, beats one video per idea.
3. What claims are allowed? Only what the brand can prove. Edit out "cures", "guaranteed", fake prices and before/after shots on health or weight products.
4. Sound: the creator's voice, licensed music (TikTok Commercial Music Library for ads), or both with ducking. Trending sounds from organic posts are not cleared for ads.

1. Probe

ffprobe -v error -show_entries stream=codec_type,codec_name,width,height,r_frame_rate -show_entries format=duration -of compact=p=0 input.mp4