Over the years, multimedia content has been advancing in terms of use on the computers that we all have at home, something that directly influences videos. Just a few years ago, being able to treat and edit These specific contents were limited to professionals who had what was necessary for all of this. But both the world of hardware and software have evolved greatly. That is why we currently have more than powerful equipment for these tasks. At the same time, we cannot forget about the software projects that we can also use.
And that is precisely where these codecs we are talking about come into play, the ones that form part of the FFMMPEG framework. Thanks to the union of all of them, programs both directly related to video, as well as those that sometimes use it, allows us to have a experience more than satisfied with these files. Otherwise both playing and working with videos would be somewhat more complex in most cases.
Components, codecs and formats
Broadly speaking, this multimedia framework is made up of several components:
- ffmpeg: the tool to use the framework from the command line.
- ffserver: server for streaming media.
- ffplay: integrated media player.
- libavcodec: library with all FFMPEG audio and video codecs.
- libavformat: library containing the multiplexers and demultiplexers.
- libavutil: support library.
- libpostproc: library that handles video post-processing.
- libswscale: the video scaling library.
Furthermore, within the libavcodec librarywe will find the following multimedia codecs:
Video codecs:
- MPEG-1.
- MPEG-2.
- MPEG-4.
- H.261.
- H.263.
- H.264/MPEG-4 AVC.
- x264.
- H.265/HEVC/x265
- WMV.
- Sorenson codec.
- Cinepak.
- MJPEG.
- Huffyuv.
- Snow.
- Theora.
- VP3 / VP5 / VP6.
- VP8/WebM.
Audio codecs:
- Apple Lossless.
- AAC LC.
- Cook Codec.
- FLAC.
- MP2.
- MP3.
- Shorten.
- QDM2.
- RealAudio.
- vorbis.
- WavPack.
- WMA.
FFMPEG does not have an interface (although we can put it)
The FFMPEG framework as such does not have a graphical interface. This means that, when we install it, we can only use it from a terminal (CMD, PowerShell, etc). The program is not very complicated to use either, since the commands are very simple and very well documented.
For example, we can convert a video from MP4 to AVI by simply running the following command:
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 output.avi
However, if we like applications with a graphical interface, we can find a series of unofficial GUIs that will help us to use FFMPEG more easily. Some of the most popular are:
- Handbrake.
- QWinFF
- AVANTI – FFmpeg/AviSynth GUI
- WinFF
- mpeg streamclip
- ffmpegYAG
These GUIs help us to more easily use all the FFMPEG libraries and tools. However, we must take into account that, when the interface is displayed, we are not seeing all the commands that are executed, so we can fall into errors.
Download and install FFMPEG on Windows
We can download FFMPEG for Windows, macOS and Linux for free from the . In our case we are going to focus a little more on Windows, since the process to get it ready can be a little more complicated than it should be.
In the new web that will appear, we select the version that we want to download, the architecture and the link and we will download a ZIP to our computer. We unzip it and inside the folder that we just extracted we will find other folders. The one that interests us is the “bin” folder, since the “ffmpeg.exe” file is inside it. And through this will be the one we will work from.
It has no interface, so even if we double-click on it, nothing will open. What we must do is open a CMD window inside this directory (bin), and execute from it the “ffmpeg” command followed by the parameters that we want to execute.
We can also add this tool to the Windows PATH to be able to access FFMPEG more quickly from CMD without having to navigate to the folder with the CD command.
To do this, the first thing we will do is place the FFMPEG path in a directory that we can access quickly and that we are not going to delete by mistake. For example, in C:FFMPEG.
Once this is done, we go to the Control Panel> System and security> System, and from here we will open the advanced settings.
In the window that appears we move to “Advanced options> Environment variables”.
In the new window we will create a new user variable with the FFMPEG command, and the directory to the “ffmpeg.exe” file.
We accept all the changes and that’s it. From now on we can use FFMPEG without having to go to any folder with CD. And if we later change the path (C:/FFMPEG, for example), to another, we simply have to edit the path of the user variable.
Does FFMPEG exist on Linux?
We have already been able to see first-hand the usefulness that this set of utilities and codecs offer us, among other things, allow us to work with and convert between all kinds of multimedia files. But we have focused on the Microsoft operating system, windowsso some may wonder if they can still use this set of tools on open source Linux systems.
Well, at this point it is interesting to know that we can also use all this that we have mentioned with their respective utilities, also in these alternative operating systems. In fact, in many of the distributions Currently we already find all of this installed by default. In order to check first hand if we have FFMPEG installed on our Linux-based computer, we can use the following command:
ffmpeg-version
Otherwise, we can always do an installation of these codecs and tools ourselves manually through the command that we show you below and that we type in the Linux Terminal:
apt-get install ffmpeg
Thus we can benefit from all the advantages that this software element offers us also in these open source operating systems.
Worth?
It depends. If we like the command line, this application is fantastic for working with all kinds of audio and video files. But, if the command interface seems very complicated and reminds us of Linux (although in the most modern versions it is no longer necessary to use commands for almost anything), FFMPEG is most likely not to our liking. Fortunately, this is not the only application that is compatible with each and every one of the most widely used codecs in audio and video files and with which we can convert videos into different formats. One of the best applications to convert videos between formats is Handbrake, an open source application whose only difference from FFMPEG is that it includes a graphical interface that will guide us through the necessary steps to convert audio or video files to other formats in a much simpler way and without the need to resort to commands.
Another interesting option to consider is Avidemux, another fantastic open source application, compatible with all audio and video formats ever and ever. In addition, it includes a video editor that allows us to cut the audio and video files, a very basic function that can sometimes come in very handy depending on certain videos. Avidemux and Handbrake use a graphical interface (GUI) to allow all the actions it offers. Furthermore, it’s translated into Spanish (although not the entire application) so using it to convert videos won’t be a problem if we don’t have the necessary knowledge.
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