rAV1ator CLI

ultimaxx/rav1ator-cli

No commits since Jul 2025

An easy-to-use CLI utility for working with Av1an, written in Bash.

Latest release

v0.4.0Feb 2, 2025

Last commit

Jul 19, 2025

License

BSD-3-Clause

Stars

32

rAV1ator CLI (rav1ator-cli) is a Bash script that puts an interactive terminal interface in front of Av1an. It asks for the encoder (SVT-AV1, aomenc, rav1e, x265 or x264), speed preset, quality and any extra FFmpeg or encoder options using menus and prompts, then builds and runs the Av1an command. It is aimed at people who want Av1an’s scene-based parallel encoding without memorising its options.

The original project by Gianni Rosato was archived in January 2025. Development moved to the Ultimaxx fork, whose latest release is v0.4.0 (February 2025); it has had no commits since July 2025.

Install it

It runs on Linux, and on Windows through WSL; macOS is not supported. The script must live in /usr/local/bin, from where it updates itself:

curl -sOJ https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ultimaxx/rav1ator-cli/main/rav1ator-cli
chmod +x rav1ator-cli
sudo cp rav1ator-cli /usr/local/bin

On Arch Linux, the dependencies are openssl ffmpeg python mkvtoolnix-cli vapoursynth gum numactl av1an ffms2, installable with an AUR helper such as yay. On other distributions, running it inside an Arch Distrobox container is the easiest way to get the same packages. Note that the Arch av1an release package does not work with current VapourSynth (see Av1an); use av1an-git instead.

rav1ator-cli -b offers to download prebuilt encoder binaries into ~/rav1ator_cli_encoders and copy them to /usr/local/bin.

Use it

rav1ator-cli input.mkv output.mkv
rav1ator-cli --batch /path/to/folder

Option	Effect
-a, --batch	Encode every video in a directory with the same settings.
-l, --last-used	Show the settings of the last encode.
-f, --full-history	Show the full encode history.
-b, --binaries	Download and install encoder binaries, then exit.
-x, --offline	Skip the update check.
-v, --version	Print the version.

At the final prompt you can start the encode, start it with Av1an’s --resume, or print the generated Av1an command instead of running it.