FFmpeg
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| FFmpeg | |
| Image:Ffmpeg-logo.jpg
<tr><td colspan="2" style="text-align: center;">Image:FFmpeg.svg | |
| Use: | Multimedia framework |
|---|---|
| Website: | ffmpeg.mplayerhq.hu |
FFmpeg is a collection of free software that can record, convert and stream digital audio and video. It includes libavcodec, a leading audio/video codec library. FFmpeg is developed under Linux, but it can be compiled under most operating systems, including Windows. The project was started by Gerard Lantau, an alterego of Fabrice Bellard, and is now maintained by Michael Niedermayer. It is notable that most FFmpeg developers are also part of the MPlayer project, plus one member of the xine project, and that FFmpeg is hosted at the MPlayer project server.
The project is made of several components:
- ffmpeg is a command line tool to convert one video file format to another. It also supports grabbing and encoding in real time from a TV card.
- ffserver is an HTTP (RTSP is being developed) multimedia streaming server for live broadcasts. Time shifting of live broadcast is also supported. Note that this is very buggy and unlikely to work.
- ffplay is a simple media player based on SDL and on the FFmpeg libraries.
- libavcodec is a library containing all the FFmpeg audio/video encoders and decoders. Most codecs were developed from scratch to ensure best performance and high code reusability.
- libavformat is a library containing demuxers and muxers for audio/video container formats.
- libavutil is a helper library containing routines common to different parts of FFmpeg.
- libpostproc is a library containing video postprocessing routines.
- libswscale is a library containing video scaling routines.
FFmpeg is released under GNU Lesser General Public License or GNU General Public License (depending on which sub-libraries one would include). There are no formal releases. Instead, FFmpeg developers recommend using the latest Subversion snapshot as development maintains a constantly stable trunk.
The FFmpeg developers have reverse-engineered and reimplemented, among others:
- The Sorenson 3 Codec used by many QuickTime movies
- Advanced Streaming Format
- Windows Media Audio
- Windows Media Video (and thereby also the associated DivX hack)
- QDesign Music Codec 2, used by many QuickTime movies prior to QuickTime 7.
The default MPEG-4 codec used by FFmpeg for encoding has the FourCC of FMP4.
[edit] See also
</div>- Comparison of media players
- MPlayer and MEncoder (uses libavcodec and libavformat)
- ffdshow (uses libavcodec)
- xine (uses libavcodec)
- VLC media player (uses libavcodec)
- Screencast or Screen Recording
- List of Screen Recording Software
