Re: Convert foreign videos to h.264

With ffmpeg 0.10.0 I get 4.4MB and 4.3MB

This is with -acodec copy added. You have not specified anything for -acodec, so it will just use whatever is the default audio codec for your version of ffmpeg.

Without providing the terminal output, I can only guess that they problem might be with the audio codec, or a broken build of ffmpeg.

Also, be aware that if you update to a more recent version, the "-vpre" option for libx264 is no longer used and has been replaced by "-preset" which grabs the preset from libx264 directly, rather than using an ffpreset file.

With a more recent version of ffmpeg you might want to use something like this:

for compatibility with older devices:
ffmpeg -i [source.ext] -s [width]x[height] -vcodec libx264 -preset slow -vprofile baseline -crf 20 -pix_fmt yuv420p -acodec libaacplus -ar 44.1k -ab 32k -ac 1 -f mp4 -y [target].mp4

for newer devices that can support main/high profile:
ffmpeg -i [source.ext] -s [width]x[height] -vcodec libx264 -preset slow -vprofile high -trellis 2 -crf 20 -pix_fmt yuv420p -acodec libaacplus -ar 44.1k -ab 32k -ac 1 -f mp4 -y [target].mp4

for stereo rather than mono change "-ab" to 64 and "-ac" to 2.

The settings above assume ffmpeg is built with libaacplus support turned on which allows high quality audio at very low bitrates. (HE-AAC)