How do I convert anamorphic hdv video to normal h.264 video with ffmpeg? How to ensure square pixels in output?
You can use a combo of the scale and setsar filters.

ffmpeg -i hdv-input.m2t -vf "scale=iw*sar:ih,setsar=1" -crf 28 -c:a aac -b:a 80k -ac 1 -movflags +faststart h-264-out.mp4


The scaler width to set to current width x sample/pixel aspect. If it's already 1, it amounts to new width = old width. I've added a setsar afterwards to ensure the output SAR is 1.

For MP4 format, default video codec is H.264. If that's what you want, no need to explicitly set c:v.

(For bitrates &lt; 128k, libfdk_aac is better than the native AAC encoder.)

-strict -2 is not needed for using native AAC encoder if your ffmpeg is from after Dec 2015.