#496 – FFmpeg: The Incredible Technology Behind Video on the Internet

Jean-Baptiste Kempf is lead developer of VLC and president of VideoLAN. Kieran Kunhya is a longtime FFmpeg contributor, codec engineer, and the person behind the now-infamous FFmpeg account on X. Thank you for listening ❤ Check out our sponsors: https://lexfridman.com/sponsors/ep496-sc See below for timestamps, transcript, and to give feedback, submit questions, contact Lex, etc.

Transcript: https://lexfridman.com/ffmpeg-transcript

CONTACT LEX: Feedback – give feedback to Lex: https://lexfridman.com/survey AMA – submit questions, videos or call-in: https://lexfridman.com/ama Hiring – join our team: https://lexfridman.com/hiring Other – other ways to get in touch: https://lexfridman.com/contact

EPISODE LINKS: FFmpeg on X: https://x.com/FFmpeg FFmpeg: https://ffmpeg.org/ VideoLAN (VLC): https://www.videolan.org/ VideoLAN on X: https://x.com/videolan Jean-Baptiste’s Website: https://jbkempf.com/ Jean-Baptiste’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jbkempf/ Jean-Baptiste’s GitHub: https://github.com/jbkempf Kieran’s X: https://x.com/kierank_ Kieran’s LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3OORhmC Kieran’s GitHub: https://github.com/kierank

SPONSORS: To support this podcast, check out our sponsors & get discounts: Larridin: Measure AI adoption in your business. Go to https://larridin.com Blitzy: AI agent for large enterprise codebases. Go to https://blitzy.com/lex BetterHelp: Online therapy and counseling. Go to https://betterhelp.com/lex Fin: AI agent for customer service. Go to https://fin.ai/lex LMNT: Zero-sugar electrolyte drink mix. Go to https://drinkLMNT.com/lex Perplexity: AI-powered answer engine. Go to https://perplexity.ai/

OUTLINE: (00:00) – Introduction (03:00) – Sponsors, Comments, and Reflections (10:48) – Weirdest things VLC opens (15:12) – How video playback works (24:33) – Video codecs and containers (35:20) – FFmpeg explained (56:20) – Linus Torvalds (1:00:59) – Turning down millions to keep VLC ad-free (1:15:17) – FFmpeg & Google drama (1:34:31) – FFmpeg developers (1:41:08) – VLC and FFmpeg (1:45:42) – History of FFmpeg (1:48:59) – Reverse engineering codecs (2:02:14) – FFmpeg testing (2:06:21) – Assembly code (handwritten) (2:30:39) – Rust programming language (2:39:55) – FFmpeg and Libav fork (2:48:17) – Open source burnout (2:56:04) – x264 and internet video (3:09:20) – Video compression basics (3:16:17) – CIA and fake VLC (3:26:52) – Ultra low latency streaming (3:44:20) – AV2 codec and video patents (3:54:12) – VLC backdoors (4:04:27) – Video archiving (4:11:04) – Future of FFmpeg and VLC