1 Introduction

FFmpeg is a record that can be used, converting the digital audio, video, and can open it into a computer program stream. Under the LGPL or GPL license. It provides a record, convert and stream audio and complete solution for video. It contains a very advanced audio / video codec library libavcodec, in order to ensure high portability and codec quality, libavcodec in a lot of code developed from scratch.

FFmpeg in the Linux platform, but it also can be compiled to run other operating system environments, including Windows, Mac OS X and so on. The project was first initiated by Fabrice Bellard, between 2004 and 2015 by the Michael Niedermayer is responsible for maintenance. Many FFmpeg developers are from the MPlayer project, and FFmpeg is currently on the server MPlayer project team. The name of the item from the MPEG video coding standard , the front of "FF" representative of "Fast Forward".

ffmpegThe official website address is: https://www.ffmpeg.org/
ffmpegGithub project's address is: https://github.com/FFmpeg/FFmpeg

2. Composition

There are three main constituting FFmpeg,

2.1 the first portion is different from the role of four tools, namely: ffmpeg.exe, ffplay.exe, ffserver.exe and ffprobe.exe.

ffmpeg.exe: audio and video transcoder, converter
ffplay.exe: simple audio and video player
ffserver.exe: streaming media server
ffprobe.exe: simple multimedia stream analyzer

2.2 The second part is for developers to use the SDK, libraries compiled for the various platforms. If the above four tools are complete finished product in the form of toys, these libraries is equivalent to Lego, we can use these libraries to develop their own applications according to their needs. These libraries are:

libavcodec: comprising a video encoder and audio decoder
libavutil: The simplified programming tool contains multimedia applications, such as a random number generator, data structures, functions and other mathematical functions
libavformat: package comprising a plurality of multimedia container format, tools decapsulation
libavfilter: contains conventional multimedia processing filter function
libavdevice: apparatus for audio and video data capture and rendering functions associated
libswscale: an image scaling, and color space and pixel format conversion function
libswresample: resampling, and audio format conversion functions

2.3 The third part is the source code for the entire project, whether it is compiled executable program or SDK, is compiled from the source code out. FFmpeg source code from the implementation of the C language, the major development on the Linux platform . FFmpeg is not an isolated project, there is also more dependent on third-party engineering to enhance its own capabilities. In the current series of blog / video, we do not involve too much source code related content, to call the main FFmpeg tools and SDK based.

3. Download & install (Windows version)

Download compiled Windows version: http://ffmpeg.zeranoe.com/builds/
FFmpeg is divided into three Staticversions: Shared, ,Dev
The first two versions can be used directly from the command line. Consists of three exe: ffmpeg.exe, ffplay.exe,ffprobe.exe
StaticVersions of exelarger, because it is related to Dllhave been compiled into the exeinside.
SharedVersion exevolume is relatively much smaller, because when they also need to run the relevant dll call the appropriate function
DevVersion for developers, which contains libraries xxx.liband header filesxxx.h

The static version downloaded, extract to C: \ ffmpeg

Add the environment variable (win10): Right My Computer -> Properties - "Advanced System Settings -" Environment Variables, add the path C: \ ffmpeg \ bin