ffmpeg

FFmpeg is a widely-used and highly versatile command line tool for handling multimedia files and streams. It is a free and open-source software that supports a vast number of audio, video, and image formats, making it a powerful tool for media manipulation.

Here are some key features and capabilities of FFmpeg:

1. Video and audio transcoding: FFmpeg allows you to convert multimedia files from one format to another. You can change codecs, bitrates, resolutions, and other parameters during the transcoding process.

2. Multimedia manipulation: It provides various tools to process and manipulate media files, such as cutting, merging, cropping, scaling, rotating, and applying filters and effects.

3. Streaming: FFmpeg can handle streaming protocols and assist in creating live streams or broadcasting media over networks.

4. Recording and capturing: It enables capturing audio and video from various sources, including webcams and desktop screens. It can also record streams and save them to files.

5. Multimedia analysis: FFmpeg offers tools to extract metadata, retrieve detailed information about media files, and generate visualizations like waveform or spectrogram.

6. Subtitles and captions: It supports various subtitle formats and allows embedding, extracting, or modifying subtitles in multimedia files.

7. Cross-platform: FFmpeg is available for Linux, macOS, and Windows, making it widely accessible.

8. Extensibility: It can be extended with additional libraries and codecs to support more formats and features.

FFmpeg is a command line tool, so it is typically used by executing commands in a terminal or command prompt. The commands involve specifying input and output files and providing various options to control the desired operations. Its extensive functionality and wide format support have made it a popular choice in the multimedia field by both professionals and enthusiasts.