How to Install and Use mpgtx in 5 Minutes

How to Install and Use mpgtx in 5 Minutes

What mpgtx is

mpgtx is a lightweight command-line tool for manipulating MPEG program streams (MPEG-PS) and MPEG transport streams (MPEG-TS). It’s commonly used to extract, remux, cut, or analyze audio and video streams without re-encoding.

Quick requirements

• A Unix-like environment (Linux or macOS). Windows users can use Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) or Cygwin.
• Basic command-line familiarity.
• ~2 MB disk space.

1. Install (approx. 2 minutes)

• On Debian/Ubuntu:

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  sudo apt update sudo apt install mpgtx 

• On Fedora:

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  sudo dnf install mpgtx 

• On macOS with Homebrew:

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  brew install mpgtx 

• From source (if your distro lacks a package):

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  wget https://download.savannah.gnu.org/releases/mpgtx/mpgtx-1.6.2.tar.gz
  tar xzf mpgtx-1.6.2.tar.gz cd mpgtx-1.6.2 ./configure make sudo make install 

2. Verify installation

Run:

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mpgtx –version 

You should see version info and available options.

3. Common tasks (each ~30–60 seconds)

• Extract audio (e.g., MP2) from an MPEG-PS:

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  mpgtx –demux 1 input.mpg 

  This writes stream01.mp2 (stream number may vary).

• Extract elementary streams from MPEG-TS:

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  mpgtx –demux 0 input.ts 

  Use mpgtx –demux without an index to list streams first.

• Remux MPEG-PS to MPEG-TS:

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  mpgtx –mpeg2ts input.mpg 

  Output is input.mpg.ts.

• Cut a segment (copy without re-encoding) by specifying start and duration in frames:

  1. Find GOP/frame numbers:

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     mpgtx –info input.mpg 

  2. Cut by frame range:

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     mpgtx –startframe 1000 –endframe 2000 input.mpg 

  (Frame-based cutting preserves quality; you may need to adjust to nearest GOP boundaries.)

• Convert system stream to elementary stream:

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  mpgtx –demux:2 input.mpg 

  (Use the colon syntax to target specific stream numbers.)