 | |
 FFmpeg being used to convert a file from thePNG file format to theWebP format | |
| Original author(s) | Fabrice Bellard Bobby Bingham (libavfilter)[1] |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | FFmpeg team |
| Initial release | December 20, 2000; 24 years ago (2000-12-20)[2] |
| Stable release | 7.1.1[3]  / 3 March 2025 |
| Repository | git |
| Written in | C andAssembly[4] |
| Operating system | Various, includingWindows,macOS, andLinux (executable programs are only available from third parties, as the project only distributessource code)[5][6] |
| Platform | x86,ARM,PowerPC,MIPS,RISC-V,DEC Alpha,Blackfin,AVR32,SH-4, andSPARC; may becompiled for otherdesktop computers |
| Type | Multimedia framework |
| License | LGPL-2.1-or-later,GPL-2.0-or-later Unredistributable if compiled with any software with a license incompatible with the GPL[7] |
| Website | ffmpeg.org |
FFmpeg is afree and open-source software project consisting of a suite oflibraries andprograms for handling video, audio, and othermultimedia files and streams. At its core is thecommand-lineffmpeg tool itself, designed for processing video and audio files. It is widely used for formattranscoding, basic editing (trimming andconcatenation),video scaling, videopost-production effects, and standards compliance (SMPTE,ITU).
FFmpeg also includes other tools:ffplay, a simple media player, andffprobe, a command-line tool to display media information. Among included libraries arelibavcodec, an audio/videocodec library used by many commercial and free software products,libavformat (Lavf),[8] an audio/videocontainermux and demux library, and libavfilter, a library for enhancing and editing filters through aGStreamer-like filtergraph.[9]
FFmpeg is part of the workflow of many other software projects, and its libraries are a core part of software media players such asVLC, and has been included in core processing forYouTube andBilibili.[10] Encoders and decoders for many audio and video file formats are included, making it highly useful for the transcoding of common and uncommon media files.
FFmpeg is published under theLGPL-2.1-or-later orGPL-2.0-or-later, depending on which options are enabled.[11]
The project was started byFabrice Bellard[11] (using thepseudonym "Gérard Lantau") in 2000, and was led by Michael Niedermayer from 2004 until 2015.[12] Some FFmpeg developers were also part of theMPlayer project.
The name of the project is inspired by theMPEG video standards group, together with "FF" for "fast forward", so FFmpeg stands for "Fast Forward Moving Picture Experts Group".[13] The logo represents azigzag scan pattern that shows how MPEG video codecs handleentropy encoding.[14]
On March 13, 2011, a group of FFmpeg developers decided tofork the project under the name Libav.[15][16][17] The group decided to fork the project due to a disagreement with the leadership of FFmpeg.[clarification needed][18][19][20]Despite an initial push in Debian and derived distributions, Libav was considered inferior to FFmpeg in both technical merit and popularity,[21] prompting Debian and Gentoo to switch back to FFmpeg in 2015.Libav was declared abandoned in 2020.[22]
On January 10, 2014, two Google employees announced that over 1000 bugs had been fixed in FFmpeg during the previous two years by means offuzz testing.[23]
In January 2018, theffserver command-line program – a long-time component of FFmpeg – was removed.[24] The developers had previously deprecated the program citing high maintenance efforts due to its use of internalapplication programming interfaces.[25]
The project publishes a new release every three months on average. While release versions are available from the website for download, FFmpeg developers recommend that users compile the software from source using the latest build from theirsource code, using theGitversion control system.[26]
Twovideo coding formats with corresponding codecs and onecontainer format have been created within the FFmpeg project so far. The two video codecs are the losslessFFV1, and the lossless and lossy Snow codec. Development of Snow has stalled, while its bit-stream format has not been finalized yet, making it experimental since 2011. The multimedia container format called NUT is no longer being actively developed, but still maintained.[27]
In summer 2010, FFmpeg developers Fiona Glaser, Ronald Bultje, and David Conrad, announced the ffvp8 decoder. Through testing, they determined that ffvp8 was faster than Google's ownlibvpx decoder.[28][29] Starting with version 0.6, FFmpeg also supportedWebM andVP8.[30]
In October 2013, a nativeVP9[31] decoder and OpenHEVC, an open sourceHigh Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) decoder, were added to FFmpeg.[32] In 2016 the nativeAAC encoder was considered stable, removing support for the two external AAC encoders fromVisualOn andFAAC. FFmpeg 3.0 (nicknamed"Einstein") retained build support for theFraunhofer FDK AAC encoder.[33] Since version 3.4"Cantor" FFmpeg supported theFITS image format.[34] Since November 2018 in version 4.1"al-Khwarizmi"AV1 can be muxed inMP4 andMatroska, includingWebM.[35][36]
FFmpeg encompasses software implementations of video and audio compressing and decompressing algorithms. These can be compiled and run on many different instruction sets, includingx86 (IA-32 andx86-64), PPC (PowerPC),ARM,DEC Alpha,SPARC, andMIPS.[38]
There are a variety ofapplication-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) for audio/video compression and decompression. These ASICs can partially or completely offload the computation from the host CPU. Instead of a complete implementation of an algorithm, only theAPI is required to use such an ASIC.[39]
| Firm | ASIC | purpose | supported by FFmpeg | Details |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AMD | UVD | decoding |  | viaVDPAU API andVAAPI |
| VCE | encoding | | viaVAAPI, considered experimental[40] | |
| Amlogic | Amlogic Video Engine | decoding | ? | |
| BlackMagic | DeckLink | encoding/decoding | | real-time ingest and playout |
| Broadcom | Crystal HD | decoding | | |
| Qualcomm | Hexagon | encoding/decoding | | hwaccel[41] |
| Intel | Intel Clear Video | decoding | | (libmfx, VAAPI) |
| Intel Quick Sync Video | encoding/decoding | | (libmfx, VAAPI) | |
| Nvidia | PureVideo / NVDEC | decoding | | via theVDPAU API as of FFmpeg v1.2 (deprecated) viaCUVID API as of FFmpeg v3.1[42] |
| NVENC | encoding | | as of FFmpeg v2.6 |
The following APIs are also supported:DirectX Video Acceleration (DXVA2, Windows),Direct3D 11 (D3D11VA, Windows),Media Foundation (Windows),Vulkan (VKVA), VideoToolbox (iOS, iPadOS, macOS), RockChip MPP,OpenCL,OpenMAX, MMAL (Raspberry Pi), MediaCodec (Android OS), V4L2 (Linux). Depending on the environment, these APIs may lead to specific ASICs, toGPGPU routines, or toSIMD CPU code.[43]
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FFmpeg supports many common and some uncommon image formats.
ThePGMYUV image format is a homebrew variant of the binary (P5) PGMNetpbm format. FFmpeg also supports 16-bit depths of the PGM and PPM formats, and the binary (P7)PAM format with or without alpha channel, depth 8 bit or 16 bit forpix_fmtsmonob, gray, gray16be, rgb24, rgb48be, ya8, rgba, rgb64be.
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In addition toFFV1 and Snow formats, which were created and developed from within FFmpeg, the project also supports the following formats:
| Group | Format type | Format name |
|---|---|---|
| ISO/IEC/ITU-T | Video | MPEG-1 Part 2,H.261 (Px64),[44]H.262/MPEG-2 Part 2,H.263,[44]MPEG-4 Part 2,H.264/MPEG-4 AVC,HEVC/H.265[32] (MPEG-H Part 2),MPEG-4 VCB (a.k.a. VP8),Motion JPEG, IECDV video andCD+G |
| Audio | MP1,MP2,MP3,AAC,HE-AAC,MPEG-4 ALS,G.711 μ-law,G.711 A-law,G.721 (a.k.a.G.726 32k),G.722,G.722.2 (a.k.a. AMR-WB),G.723 (a.k.a.G.726 24k and 40k),G.723.1,G.726,G.729,G.729D, IECDV audio andDirect Stream Transfer | |
| Subtitle | MPEG-4 Timed Text (a.k.a. 3GPP Timed Text) | |
| Image | JPEG,Lossless JPEG,JPEG-LS,JPEG 2000,JPEG XL,[45]PNG,CCITT G3 andCCITT G4 | |
| Alliance for Open Media | Video | AV1[46] |
| Image | AVIF[47] | |
| EIA | Subtitle | EIA-608 |
| CEA | Subtitle | CEA-708 |
| SMPTE | Video | SMPTE 314M (a.k.a.DVCAM andDVCPRO), SMPTE 370M (a.k.a.DVCPRO HD),VC-1 (a.k.a. WMV3),VC-2 (a.k.a. Dirac Pro),VC-3 (a.k.a. AVIDDNxHD) |
| Audio | SMPTE 302M | |
| Image | DPX | |
| ATSC/ETSI/DVB | Audio | Full Rate (GSM 06.10), AC-3 (Dolby Digital), Enhanced AC-3 (Dolby Digital Plus) andDTS Coherent Acoustics (a.k.a. DTS or DCA) |
| Subtitle | DVB Subtitling (ETSI 300 743) | |
| DVD Forum/Dolby | Audio | MLP /Dolby TrueHD |
| Subtitle | DVD-Video subtitles | |
| Xperi/DTS, Inc/QDesign | Audio | DTS Coherent Acoustics (a.k.a. DTS or DCA),DTS Extended Surround (a.k.a. DTS-ES),DTS 96/24,DTS-HD High Resolution Audio, DTS Express (a.k.a. DTS-HD LBR),DTS-HD Master Audio,QDesign Music Codec 1 and 2 |
| Blu-ray Disc Association | Subtitle | PGS (Presentation Graphics Stream) |
| 3GPP | Audio | AMR-NB,AMR-WB (a.k.a. G.722.2) |
| 3GPP2 | Audio | QCELP-8 (a.k.a. SmartRate or IS-96C), QCELP-13 (a.k.a. PureVoice or IS-733) andEnhanced Variable Rate Codec (EVRC. a.k.a. IS-127) |
| World Wide Web Consortium | Video | Animated GIF[48] |
| Subtitle | WebVTT | |
| Image | GIF, andSVG (vialibrsvg) | |
| IETF | Video | FFV1 |
| Audio | iLBC (via libilbc),Opus andComfort noise | |
| International Voice Association | Audio | DSS-SP |
| SAC | Video | AVS video, AVS2 video[49] (via libdavs2), and AVS3 video (via libuavs3d) |
| Microsoft | Video | MicrosoftRLE,Microsoft Video 1,Cinepak, MicrosoftMPEG-4 v1, v2 and v3,Windows Media Video (WMV1, WMV2, WMV3/VC-1),WMV Screen and Mimic codec |
| Audio | Windows Media Audio (WMA1, WMA2, WMA Pro and WMA Lossless),XMA (XMA1 and XMA2),[50] MSNSiren, MS-GSM and MS-ADPCM | |
| Subtitle | SAMI | |
| Image | Windows Bitmap,WMV Image (WMV9 Image and WMV9 Image v2),DirectDraw Surface, andMSP[51] | |
| Interactive Multimedia Association | Audio | IMA ADPCM |
| Intel /Digital Video Interactive | Video | RTV 2.1 (Indeo 2), Indeo 3, 4 and 5,[44] and Intel H.263 |
| Audio | DVI4 (a.k.a. IMA DVI ADPCM), Intel Music Coder, and Indeo Audio Coder | |
| RealNetworks | Video | RealVideo Fractal Codec (a.k.a. Iterated Systems ClearVideo), 1, 2, 3 and 4 |
| Audio | RealAudio v1 – v10, and RealAudio Lossless[52] | |
| Subtitle | RealText | |
| Apple / Spruce Technologies | Video | Cinepak (Apple Compact Video),ProRes,Sorenson 3 Codec,QuickTime Animation (Apple Animation),QuickTime Graphics (Apple Graphics),Apple Video,Apple Intermediate Codec andPixlet[53] |
| Audio | ALAC | |
| Image | QuickDrawPICT | |
| Subtitle | Spruce subtitle (STL) | |
| Adobe Flash Player (SWF) | Video | Screen video, Screen video 2,Sorenson Spark andVP6 |
| Audio | Adobe SWFADPCM andNellymoser Asao | |
| Adobe /Aldus | Image | TIFF,PSD,[53] andDNG |
| Xiph.Org | Video | Theora |
| Audio | Speex,[54]Vorbis,Opus andFLAC | |
| Subtitle | Ogg Writ | |
| Sony | Audio | Adaptive Transform Acoustic Coding (ATRAC1, ATRAC3, ATRAC3Plus,[55] and ATRAC9[49])[44] and PSX ADPCM |
| NTT | Audio | TwinVQ |
| Google /On2 /GIPS | Video | Duck TrueMotion 1, Duck TrueMotion 2, Duck TrueMotion 2.0 Real Time,VP3,VP4,[56]VP5,[44]VP6,[44]VP7,VP8,[57]VP9[31] and animated WebP |
| Audio | DK ADPCM Audio 3/4,On2 AVC andiLBC (via libilbc) | |
| Image | WebP[58] | |
| Epic Games / RAD Game Tools | Video | Smacker video andBink video |
| Audio | Bink audio | |
| CRI Middleware | Audio | ADX ADPCM, and HCA |
| Nintendo /NERD | Video | Mobiclip video |
| Audio | GCADPCM (a.k.a. ADPCM THP), FastAudio, and ADPCM IMA MOFLEX | |
| Synaptics /DSP Group | Audio | Truespeech |
| Electronic Arts /Criterion Games /Black Box Games /Westwood Studios | Video | RenderWare TXD,[59] Madcow, CMV, TGV, TGQ, TQI, Midivid VQ (MVDV), MidiVid 3.0 (MV30), Midivid Archival (MVHA), and Vector Quantized Animation (VQA) |
| Audio | Electronic Arts ADPCM variants | |
| Netpbm | Image | PBM, PGM, PPM, PNM, PAM, PFM and PHM |
| MIT/X Consortium/The Open Group | Image | XBM,[52]XPM andxwd |
| HPE /SGI /Silicon Graphics | Video | Silicon Graphics RLE 8-bit video,[48] Silicon Graphics MVC1/2[48] |
| Image | Silicon Graphics Image | |
| Oracle/Sun Microsystems | Image | Sun Raster |
| IBM | Video | IBM UltiMotion |
| Avid Technology /Truevision | Video | Avid 1:1x, Avid Meridien,[52] AvidDNxHD, Avid DNx444,[55] andDNxHR |
| Image | Targa[48] | |
| Autodesk /Alias | Video | Autodesk Animator Studio Codec andFLIC |
| Image | Alias PIX | |
| Activision Blizzard /Activision /Infocom | Audio | ADPCMZork |
| Konami /Hudson Soft | Video | HVQM4 Video |
| Audio | Konami MTAF, and ADPCM IMA HVQM4 | |
| Grass Valley /Canopus | Video | HQ, HQA, HQX and Lossless |
| Vizrt /NewTek | Video | SpeedHQ |
| Image | Vizrt Binary Image[47] | |
| Academy Software Foundation /ILM | Image | OpenEXR[52] |
| Mozilla Corporation | Video | APNG[58] |
| Matrox | Video | Matrox Uncompressed SD (M101) / HD (M102) |
| AMD/ATI | Video | ATI VCR1/VCR2 |
| Asus | Video | ASUS V1/V2 codec |
| Commodore | Video | CDXL codec |
| Kodak | Image | Photo CD |
| Blackmagic Design /Cintel | Image | Cintel RAW |
| Houghton Mifflin Harcourt /The Learning Company / ZSoft Corporation | Image | PCX |
| Australian National University | Image | X-Face[48] |
| Bluetooth Special Interest Group | Audio | SBC, and mSBC |
| Qualcomm /CSR | Audio | QCELP,aptX, andaptX HD |
| Open Mobile Alliance / WAP Forum | Image | Wireless Bitmap |
Output formats (container formats and other ways of creating output streams) in FFmpeg are called "muxers". FFmpeg supports, among others, the following:
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| Type | Color | Packed | Planar | Palette | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Without alpha | Withalpha | Without alpha | With alpha | Chroma-interleaved | With alpha | ||
| Monochrome | Binary (1-bit monochrome) | monoblack, monowhite | — | — | — | — | — |
| Grayscale | 8/9/10/12/14/16bpp | — | — | 16/32bpp | — | — | |
| RGB | RGB 1:2:1 (4-bit color) | 4bpp | — | — | — | — | — |
| RGB 3:3:2 (8-bit color) | 8bpp | — | — | — | — | — | |
| RGB 5:5:5 (High color) | 16bpp | — | — | — | — | — | |
| RGB 5:6:5 (High color) | 16bpp | — | — | — | — | — | |
| RGB/BGR | 24/30[p 1]/48bpp | 32[p 2]/64bpp | — | — | — | 8bit->32bpp | |
| GBR[p 3] | — | — | 8/9/10/12/14/16bpc | 8/10/12/16bpc | — | — | |
| RGBFloat | RGB | 32bpc | 16/32bpc | — | — | — | — |
| GBR | — | — | 32bpc | 32bpc | — | — | |
| YUV | YVU 4:1:0 | — | — | (9bpp (YVU9))[p 4] | — | — | — |
| YUV 4:1:0 | — | — | 9bpp | — | — | — | |
| YUV 4:1:1 | 8bpc (UYYVYY) | — | 8bpc | — | (8bpc (NV11)) | — | |
| YVU 4:2:0 | — | — | (8bpc (YV12))[p 4] | — | 8 (NV21) | — | |
| YUV 4:2:0 | — | — | 8[p 5]/9/10/12/14/16bpc | 8/9/10/16bpc | 8 (NV12)/10 (P010)/12 (P012)/16bpc (P016) | — | |
| YVU 4:2:2 | — | — | (8bpc (YV16))[p 4] | — | (8bpc (NV61)) | — | |
| YUV 4:2:2 | 8 (YUYV[p 6] and UYVY)/10 (Y210)/12bpc (Y212)[p 7] | — | 8[p 8]/9/10/12/14/16bpc | 8/9/10/12/16bpc | 8 (NV16)/10 (NV20 and P210)/16bpc (P216) | — | |
| YUV 4:4:0 | — | — | 8/10/12bpc | — | — | — | |
| YVU 4:4:4 | — | — | (8bpc (YV24))[p 4] | — | 8bpc (NV42) | — | |
| YUV 4:4:4 | 8 (VUYX)/10[p 9]/12bpc[p 10] | 8[p 11] / 16bpc (AYUV64)[p 12] | 8[p 13]/9/10/12/14/16bpc | 8/9/10/12/16bpc | 8 (NV24)/10 (P410)/ 16bpc (P416) | — | |
| XYZ | XYZ 4:4:4[p 14] | 12bpc | — | — | — | — | — |
| Bayer | BGGR/RGGB/GBRG/GRBG | 8/16bpp | — | — | — | — | — |
FFmpeg does not support IMC1-IMC4, AI44, CYMK,RGBE, Log RGB and other formats. It also does not yet supportARGB1:5:5:5,2:10:10:10, or otherBMP bitfield formats that are not commonly used.
FFmpeg supports, among others, the following filters.[70]
FFmpeg supports the following devices via external libraries.[72]
FFmpeg contains more than 100 codecs,[73] most of which use compression techniques of one kind or another. Many such compression techniques may be subject to legal claims relating tosoftware patents.[74] Such claims may be enforceable in countries like the United States which have implemented software patents, but are considered unenforceable or void in member countries of theEuropean Union, for example.[75][original research] Patents for many older codecs, including AC3 and all MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 codecs, have expired.[citation needed]
FFmpeg is licensed under the LGPL license, but if a particular build of FFmpeg is linked against any GPL libraries (notablyx264), then the entire binary is licensed under the GPL.
FFmpeg is used by software such asBlender,Cinelerra-GG Infinity,HandBrake,Kodi,MPC-HC,Plex,Shotcut,VirtualDub2 (aVirtualDub fork),[76]VLC media player,xine andYouTube.[77][78] It handles video and audio playback inGoogle Chrome[78] and the Linux version of Firefox.[79]GUIfront-ends for FFmpeg have been developed, including Multimedia Xpert[80] and XMedia Recode.
FFmpeg is used byffdshow, FFmpegInterop, theGStreamer FFmpeg plug-in, LAV Filters andOpenMAX IL to expand the encoding and decoding capabilities of their respective multimedia platforms.
As part ofNASA'sMars 2020 mission, FFmpeg is used by thePerseverance rover on Mars for image and video compression before footage is sent to Earth.[81]
Zig-Zag Scan[dead link]Alt URLArchived 2012-07-03 at theWayback Machine
...withVLC,Boxee,MythTV,Handbrake andMPlayer being some of the more popular projects utilizing FFmpeg...
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