FFmpeg User Guide
General FFmpeg Usage
Introduction to FFmpeg
FFmpeg is a collection of open-source multimedia processing tools and libraries. It can parse, convert, encode, decode, filter, mux, and transmit video, audio, subtitles, and metadata.
Common FFmpeg command-line tools include:
| Tool | Purpose |
|---|---|
ffmpeg | Transcoding, remuxing, capture, filtering, and streaming |
ffprobe | Inspecting media containers, streams, frames, and metadata |
ffplay | A simple player for testing and debugging |
The main libraries are:
| Library | Purpose |
|---|---|
libavcodec | Video and audio encoding and decoding |
libavformat | Media containers, demuxing, muxing, and network protocols |
libavfilter | Audio and video filter graphs |
libavutil | Pixel formats, time bases, data structures, and common utilities |
libswscale | Software image scaling and pixel-format conversion |
libswresample | Audio resampling, channel conversion, and mixing |
libavdevice | Input and output for cameras, sound devices, and displays |
An FFmpeg processing pipeline can be simplified as follows:
Input file / camera / network stream
│
▼
Demuxing
│
▼
Decoding
│
▼
Video or audio filters
│
▼
Encoding
│
▼
Muxing
│
▼
Output file / network streamRemuxing skips decoding, filtering, and encoding, and directly copies the compressed streams. It is fast and does not reduce media quality.