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FFmpeg

FFmpeg running on Microsoft Windows
Developer(s)	FFmpeg team
Initial release	December 20, 2000 (2000-12-20) [1]
Stable release	0.11.1  (June 7, 2012; 16 days ago (2012-06-07)) [±]
Preview release	Git snapshot
Development status	Active
Written in	C[2]
Operating system	Cross-platform[3]
Platform	Multi-platform
Type	Multimedia framework
License	GNU LGPL 2.1+ GNU GPL 2+ Unredistributable if compiled as such[4]
Website	ffmpeg.org

FFmpeg is a free software project that produces libraries and programs for handling multimedia data. The most notable parts of FFmpeg are libavcodec, an audio/video codec library used by several other projects, libavformat, an audio/video container mux and demux library, and the ffmpeg command line program for transcoding multimedia files. FFmpeg is published under the GNU Lesser General Public License 2.1+ or GNU General Public License 2+ (depending on which options are enabled).^[5]

  History

The project was started by Fabrice Bellard^[5] (using the pseudonym "Gerard Lantau"), and has been maintained by Michael Niedermayer since 2004. Many FFmpeg developers are also part of the MPlayer project. The name of the project comes from the MPEG video standards group, together with "FF" for "fast forward".^[6] The logo uses a zigzag pattern that shows how MPEG video codecs handle entropy encoding.

FFmpeg is developed under GNU/Linux, but it can be compiled under most operating systems, including Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, AmigaOS and its heir MorphOS. Most computing platforms and microprocessor instruction set architectures are also supported, like x86 (IA-32 and x86-64), PPC (PowerPC), ARM, DEC Alpha, SPARC, and MIPS.^[7]

FFmpeg version 0.5 appeared after a long time without formal releases. FFmpeg developers still always recommend using the latest neutral build from their source code Git version control system.

There are two video codecs and one video container invented in the FFmpeg project during its development. The two video codecs are the lossless "FFV1", and the lossless and lossy Snow codec, the development of which has stalled, while its bitstream format hasn't been finalized yet, making it experimental for now (February 2011), and the multimedia container is "NUT" which is also not being actively developed anymore, but is still maintained.

On June 17, 2010, with version 0.6 FFmpeg also supports WebM and VP8.^[8]

On July 23, 2010 Jason Garrett-Glaser, Ronald Bultje, and David Conrad of the FFmpeg Team announced the ffvp8 decoder. Through testing they determined that ffvp8 was faster than Google's own libvpx decoder.^[9][10]

On March 13, 2011 a group of FFmpeg developers decided to fork the project under the name "Libav".^[11][12][13] The event seems related to a recent issue in project management.^[14][15] Since then, the maintainer of Debian^[16] and Ubuntu^[17] packages has switched them to the fork.

  Components

The project is made of several components:

• ffmpeg is a command-line tool to convert one video file format to another. It can also grab and encode in real-time from a TV card.
• ffserver is an HTTP and RTSP multimedia streaming server for live broadcasts. It can also time shift live broadcast.
• ffplay is a simple media player based on SDL and on the FFmpeg libraries.
• ffprobe is a command-line tool to show media information.
• libswresample is a library containing audio resampling routines.
• libavresample is a library containing audio resampling routines from the Libav project, completely different from libswresample from ffmpeg.
• 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. This library includes adler32, crc, md5, sha1, lzo decompressor, Base64 encoder/decoder, des encrypter/decrypter, rc4 encrypter/decrypter and aes encrypter/decrypter.
• libpostproc is a library containing video postprocessing routines.
• libswscale is a library containing video image scaling and colorspace/pixelformat conversion routines.
• libavfilter is the substitute for vhook which allows the video/audio to be modified or examined between the decoder and the encoder.

  Codecs, formats and protocols supported

  Codecs

Codecs which originated from within the FFmpeg project:

• Snow
• FFV1

The FFmpeg developers have implemented among others:

• ITU-T video standards: H.261,^[18] H.262/MPEG-2 Part 2, H.263^[18] and H.264/MPEG-4 AVC^[18]
• ITU-T vocoder standards: G.711 µ-law, G.711 A-law, G.721 (aka G.726 32k), G.722, G.722.2 (aka AMR-WB), G.723 (aka G.726 24k and 40k), G.723.1, G.726, G.729 and G.729D
• ISO/IEC MPEG video standards: MPEG-1 Part 2, H.262/MPEG-2 Part 2, MPEG-4 Part 2 and H.264/MPEG-4 AVC
• ISO/IEC MPEG audio standards: MP1, MP2, MP3, AAC, HE-AAC and MPEG-4 ALS
• ISO/IEC/ITU-T JPEG image standards: JPEG, JPEG-LS and JPEG 2000
• SMPTE video standards: VC-1 (aka WMV3), VC-2 (aka Dirac), VC-3 (aka AVID DNxHD) and DPX image
• SMPTE audio standards: SMPTE 302M
• DVD Forum standards related / Dolby audio codecs: MLP (aka TrueHD) and AC-3
• 3GPP vocoder standards: AMR-NB, AMR-WB (aka G.722.2)
• GSM-related voice codecs: Full Rate
• Windows Media Player related video codecs: Microsoft RLE, Microsoft Video 1, Cinepak, Indeo 2, 3 and 5,^[18] Motion JPEG, Microsoft MPEG-4 v1, v2 and v3, WMV1, WMV2 and WMV3 (aka VC-1)
• Windows Media Player related audio codecs: WMA1, WMA2 and WMA Pro
• Windows Media Player related voice codecs: WMA Voice and MS-GSM
• RealPlayer-related video codecs: RealVideo 1, 2, 3 and 4
• RealPlayer-related audio codecs: RealAudio 3, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10
• RealPlayer-related voice codecs: RealAudio 1, 2 (variant of G.728), 4 and 5
• QuickTime-related video codecs: Cinepak, Motion JPEG, ProRes, Sorenson 3 Codec, Animation_codec
• QuickTime-related audio codecs: QDesign Music Codec 2 and ALAC
• Adobe Flash Player related video codecs: Screen video, Screen video 2, Sorenson 3 Codec, VP6 and Flash Video (FLV)
• Adobe Flash Player related audio codecs: Adobe SWF ADPCM and Nellymoser Asao
• Xiph.Org: Theora, Speex (via libspeex), Vorbis and FLAC
• Sony: ATRAC1 and ATRAC3^[18]
• NTT: TwinVQ
• On2: Duck TrueMotion 1, Duck TrueMotion 2, VP3, VP5,^[18] VP6^[18] and VP8
• RAD Game Tools: Smacker video and Bink video
• Truespeech
• RenderWare: TXD^[19]

The default MPEG-4 codec used by FFmpeg for encoding has the FourCC of FMP4.

  Container formats

• ASF
• AVI and also input from AviSynth
• BFI^[20]
• CAF
• FLV
• GXF, General eXchange Format, SMPTE 360M
• IFF^[21]
• RL2^[22]
• ISO base media file format (including QuickTime, 3GP and MP4)
• Matroska (including WebM)
• Maxis XA^[23]
• MPEG program stream
• MPEG transport stream (including AVCHD)
• MXF, Material eXchange Format, SMPTE 377M
• MSN Webcam stream^[24]
• Ogg
• OMA^[25]
• TXD^[19]
• WTV

  Protocols

• IETF standards: TCP, UDP, Gopher, HTTP, RTP, RTSP and SDP
• Apple-related protocols: HTTP Live Streaming
• RealMedia-related protocols: RealMedia RTSP/RDT
• Adobe-related protocols: RTMP, RTMPT (via librtmp), RTMPE (via librtmp), RTMPTE (via librtmp) and RTMPS (via librtmp)
• Microsoft-related protocols: MMS over TCP and MMS over HTTP

  Projects using FFmpeg

FFmpeg is used by many open source (and proprietary) projects, including ffmpeg2theora, VLC, MPlayer, HandBrake, Blender, Google Chrome, YouTube^[26], FaceBook^[27], and others.^[28]

FFmpeg handles the HTML5 Video and Audio media content in the Origyn Web Browser for MorphOS Operating System.^[29][30]

A number of graphical user interfaces for FFmpeg have been developed, including Avanti,^[31] Winff,^[32] and the Miro Video Converter.^[33]

  Multimedia frameworks using FFmpeg

• DirectShow/VFW
  • ffdshow (external project)
• QuickTime
  • Perian (external project)
• GStreamer
  • GStreamer FFmpeg plug-in (external project)
• OpenMAX

  Legal status of codecs

FFmpeg contains more than 100 codecs ^[34] most of which do not just store uncompressed data. At least all codecs that compress information could be claimed by patent holders.^[35] Such claims may be enforceable in countries like the United States which have implemented software patents, but are considered unenforceable or void in countries that have not implemented software patents. Furthermore, many of these codecs are only released under terms that forbid reverse engineering, even for purposes of interoperability. These terms of use are forbidden in certain countries. For example, some European Union nations have not implemented software patents and have laws expressly allowing reverse engineering for purposes of interoperability.^[36]

  See also

Free software portal

• Libav FFmpeg fork
• MPlayer, the media player that takes much of its source code from FFmpeg
• MEncoder, the encoder variant of MPlayer, which is similar to FFmpeg
• Plex (software), a media player for Mac OS that incorporates the source code and codecs
• VLC media player uses FFmpeg as its codec base, adds other codecs, cross platform
• RetroCode, an open source encoder/decoder for proprietary mobile content formats, based in parts on FFmpeg
• Open source codecs and containers

  References

  External links

• FFmpeg homepage
• FFmpeg man page
• List of supported formats
• FFmpeg builds for Windows