Mastering FFmpeg: From Installation to Streaming with Ant Media Server [2025 Update]

FFmpeg is the go-to open-source multimedia framework for anyone working with video, audio, or live streams. It allows you to decode, encode, transcode, mux, demux, stream, filter, and play virtually any media format—making it the Swiss Army knife of media processing.

It supports nearly every known codec—including modern ones like H.265/HEVC, VP9, AAC, and Opus. It also handles a wide range of file formats like MP4, MKV, FLV, WebM, and more, along with a robust suite of streaming protocols such as RTMP, HLS, RTSP, and MPEG-DASH.

What sets FFmpeg apart is its flexibility. You can use it as a simple command-line tool, or integrate its powerful libraries—like libavcodec and libavformat—into your own applications. This makes it ideal for developers, engineers, and creators building anything from video editing platforms to streaming automation tools.

Many well-known media projects such as VLC, YouTube, MPlayer, and OBS Studio rely on FFmpeg behind the scenes—proof of its speed, stability, and sheer capability.

What is FFmpeg?

FFmpeg is the de-facto open-source multimedia framework that lets you decode, encode, transcode, mux, demux, stream, filter and play virtually any audio or video format. It powers tools like VLC, OBS Studio and countless streaming backends—making it the Swiss Army knife of media processing.

History Of FFmpeg

The project was started by Fabrice Bellard in 2000 and was led by Michael Niedermayer from 2004 until 2015. Some FFmpeg developers were also part of the MPlayer project.

On January 10, 2014, two Google employees announced that over 1000 bugs had been fixed in FFmpeg during the previous two years.

In January 2018, the ffserver command-line program, a long-running component of FFmpeg, was removed. Developers had previously deprecated the program, citing high maintenance efforts due to its use of internal application programming interfaces.

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 the source using the latest build from their source code Git version control system.

History of Codecs

Two video coding formats with corresponding codecs and one container format have been created within the FFmpeg project so far.

The two video codecs are the lossless FFV1, and the lossless and lossy Snow codec. The 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 is still maintained.

In the summer of 2010, Fiona Glaser, Ronald Bultje, and David Conrad of the FFmpeg Team announced the ffvp8 decoder. Through testing, they determined that ffvp8 was faster than Google’s own libvpx decoder. Starting with version 0.6, FFmpeg also supported WebM and VP8.

In October 2013, a native VP9 and the OpenHEVC decoder, an open-source High-Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) decoder, were added to FFmpeg. In 2016 the native AAC encoder was considered stable, removing support for the two external AAC encoders from VisualOn and FAAC. FFmpeg 3.0 (nicknamed “Einstein”) retained build support for the Fraunhofer FDK AAC encoder. Since version 3.4 “Cantor” FFmpeg supported the FITS image format. Since November 2018 in version 4.1 “al-Khwarizmi” AV1 can be muxed in MP4 and Matroska incl. WebM.

Why Use FFmpeg?

Universal Codec Support

From H.264/H.265 to VP8/9, AAC to Opus, MP4 to WebM, FFmpeg has built-in support for 200+ codecs and containers.

Automation & Scripting

Fully scriptable via CLI—ideal for batch conversions, CI/CD pipelines, and headless servers.

Embeddable Libraries

Use libavcodec, libavformat, and related libraries in C/C++/Python/Go apps.

FFmpeg Architecture

The core FFmpeg pipeline has five stages:

1. Demux: Split container into audio/video streams.
2. Decode: Decompress packets into raw frames.
3. Filter: Apply scaling, cropping, watermarking.
4. Encode: Compress frames back into target codec.
5. Mux: Package encoded streams into a new container.

Installing & Verifying FFmpeg

FFmpeg is open-source and available for free at ffmpeg.org. You can either download precompiled binaries or compile it from source on any major OS including Windows, Linux, macOS, Android, or iOS.

Installation (Quick Options)

• Ubuntu/Debian: sudo apt install ffmpeg
• macOS (Homebrew): brew install ffmpeg
• Windows (via Chocolatey): choco install ffmpeg

Verify Installation

To make sure FFmpeg is installed correctly, run:

ffmpeg

You should see output showing FFmpeg version and available codecs.

Example: Convert FLV to MP4

Let’s convert a video file from FLV to MP4:

ffmpeg -i input.flv output.mp4

This command takes an input file (-i) and transcodes it into MP4 using default audio and video codecs.

Example: Convert Without Re-Encoding

ffmpeg -i input.flv -acodec copy -vcodec copy output.mp4

This is faster because it just repackages the audio and video streams into a new container without changing the codecs. The key flags are -acodec copy and -vcodec copy.

There are endless things you can do with FFmpeg, but we’ll keep it simple in this guide. For advanced use cases, check the official documentation.

Key Features

Common Use Cases

• File Conversion: `.avi` → `.mp4`, `.mov` → `.webm`
• Audio Extraction: Rip audio track from video
• Live Streaming: Push to YouTube, Twitch, or custom RTMP
• Thumbnail Generation: Capture stills at specific timestamps
• Video Stitching: Concatenate clips without re-encoding

Commands Cheat Sheet

1. Get File Info:
   ffmpeg -i video.mp4
   Displays codec, format, bitrate, duration, etc.
2. Convert MP4 → AVI:
   ffmpeg -i video.mp4 video.avi
3. Convert FLV → MPEG:
   ffmpeg -i video.flv video.mpeg
4. High-Quality Conversion:
   ffmpeg -i input.webm -qscale 0 output.mp4
   Preserves original quality using -qscale 0.
5. List Supported Formats:
   ffmpeg -formats
6. Convert Video → Audio (MP3):
   ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vn output.mp3
7. Advanced Audio Transcode:
   ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vn -ar 44100 -ac 2 -ab 320k -f mp3 output.mp3
   Sets sample rate, channels, bitrate and format.
8. Decrease Audio Volume:
   ffmpeg -i input.mp3 -af "volume=0.5" output.mp3
9. Increase Audio Volume:
   ffmpeg -i input.mp3 -af "volume=1.5" output.mp3
10. Change Resolution:
    ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -filter:v scale=1280:720 -c:a copy output.mp4
    Or use -s 1280x720.
11. Compress Video:
    ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf scale=1280:-1 -c:v libx264 -preset veryslow -crf 24 output.mp4
    Add -ac 2 -c:a aac -b:a 128k to compress audio.
12. Compress Audio:
    ffmpeg -i input.mp3 -ab 128 output.mp3
    Typical bitrates: 96, 112, 128, 160, 192, 256, 320 kbps.
13. Remove Audio Stream:
    ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -an output.mp4
14. Remove Video Stream:
    ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vn output.mp3
    Use -ab to set audio bitrate if needed.
15. Extract Images:
    ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -r 1 -f image2 image-%2d.png
    1 frame/sec saved as image-01.png, image-02.png, …
16. Crop Video:
    ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -filter:v "crop=640:480:200:150" output.mp4
    Crops 640×480 at x=200, y=150.
17. Convert Specific Duration:
    ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -t 20 output.avi
    Converts first 20 seconds (also hh:mm:ss).
18. Set Aspect Ratio:
    ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -aspect 16:9 output.mp4
19. Add Poster Image (Audio):
    ffmpeg -loop 1 -i cover.jpg -i audio.mp3 -c:v libx264 -c:a aac -shortest out.mp4
20. Trim with Start & Stop:
    ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -ss 00:00:50 -c copy -t 50 clip.mp4
    Use -to instead of -t for end time.
21. Split into Parts:
    ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -t 30 -c copy part1.mp4 -ss 30 -c copy part2.mp4
22. Merge Files (concat):
    ffmpeg -f concat -safe 0 -i join.txt -c copy out.mp4
    join.txt lists each file path.
23. Concat with “|”:
    ffmpeg -i "concat:audio1.mp3|audio2.mp3|audio3.mp3" -c copy out.mp3
24. Stream to RTMP:
    ffmpeg -re -i file.mp4 -c:v libx264 -f flv rtmp://your-ams/live/stream
25. Burn Subtitles:
    ffmpeg -i video.mp4 -vf subtitles=subtitle.srt out.mp4
26. Create GIF:
    ffmpeg -i video.mp4 -vf "fps=10,scale=320:-1" out.gif
27. Images → Video:
    ffmpeg -framerate 1 -i img%d.png -c:v libx264 -r 30 out.mp4
28. Slow Motion:
    ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -filter:v "setpts=2.0*PTS" slow.mp4
    Use 0.5*PTS for double speed.
29. Play in Terminal:
    ffplay video.mp4
30. Speed Up Video:
    ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf "setpts=0.5*PTS" fast.mp4
31. Speed Up Audio:
    ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -filter:a "atempo=2.0" -vn fast-audio.mp3

Integrating with Ant Media Server

Push your FFmpeg output directly into AMS’ RTMP endpoint:

ffmpeg -re -i your-video.mp4 \
-c:v libx264 -preset veryfast -b:v 1M \
-c:a aac -b:a 128k \
-f mpegts "srt://your-ams-host:4200?streamid=publish/live/streamKey"

AMS will auto-transmux to HLS, DASH, WebRTC—no extra steps. Full guide →

Performance Tips

• Use hardware encoders (e.g., -c:v h264_nvenc) when available.
• Choose -preset based on quality vs. speed (ultrafast, veryfast, medium).
• Limit threads: -threads 2 to avoid CPU contention on co-hosted servers.
• Monitor bit-rate ladder and adapt live bitrates for fluctuating networks.

Pros & Cons

FAQs