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Comment by ghusto | Hacker News Reader

You're being modest in describing it as an FFmpeg "wrapper". Although technically true, I can see a lot of thought and effort went into the UX, and I think that's where the value lies. Good job!

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Thanks, I just want to make it clear upfront to avoid any confusion

Yes that's exactly right, the extremely complex and clever code in ffmpeg that's understood by about 12 people in the world and is the basis for the entire media consumption in the world isn't where the value is, some gui frontend is.

Do you work for microsoft?

I agree with the GP here. Yes, you can do all this with just FFMPEG, but now you have to wade through all the docs, flags, values to craft your CLI args with a bit of trial and error. The value add here is a coherent front-end that abstracts away all the complexity and lets you cut right to what you want. Further, if it's something you do infrequently, or your workflow changes, you have to rerun the gaunlet of figuring out what flags/values you need. FFMPEG can do a ton, but most people just need to crunch the file size, transcode, and occasionally convert a snippet into a gif

> …you can do all this with just FFMPEG, but now you have to wade through all the docs, flags, values to craft your CLI args with a bit of trial and error. The value add here is a coherent front-end that abstracts away all the complexity and lets you cut right to what you want.

Very true, but just want to note that ChatGPT is also great at creating CLI input for ffmpeg, yt-dlp, etc. And of course, Handbrake remains the O.G. for open source, cross-platform video encoding.

I had to transcode some files recently. I’m extremely proficient with the ClI, but I would have loved to have a GUI version.

Handbrake...

Right, the value add should obviously remain locked in the hands of a few elite professionals and the rest of the world should have to beg and grovel at their feet to get anything done. Any attempts to simplify workflows should be looked at with scorn and an aura of arrogance.

Do you work at Oracle?

You can craft script for ffmpeg using any of the AI chat providers, even a badger can do it. UI is nice, but we have handbrake already.

Do you work for local government?

There are things that are simple to use and user-friendly, but Handbrake is not one of those. Personally I use the command line, but different people have different needs, and it looks like there is a market for some video conversion software that does not scare a normal person.

> that's where the value lies

If you're not trying to pick a fight, the more sensical reading of this is "where the value [of this tool] lies".

I don't think ffmpeg is actually _extremely_ complex. A lot of the complexity (all the flags) you feel belonging to ffmpeg actually belongs to encoders (libx264, libx265, aomenc, libvpx, all the hardware encoders from each vendor). They each have various options meaning different things. ffmpeg is just an interface for them.

And it's a genuinely complex problem space. ffmpeg supports some pretty wild audio/video transformations, especially once you start getting into filter graphs (e.g. combining multiple audio/video streams into a single output); its command-line interface reflects that complexity.

That's fair, although the stuff I can do with ffmpeg filters amazes me, and I barely scratch the surface

I tend to include the codec developers in the "ffmpeg developers" for simplicity as there are many that work in both areas.

The complexity in using those codecs isn't the ffmpeg command line, it's knowing which options to use.

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