Here's my conversation all about FFmpeg, the legendary open-source software powering most video on the Internet. In the episode, I talk with Jean-Baptiste Kempf and Kieran Kunhya. JB is lead developer of VLC and Kieran is FFmpeg contributor, codec engineer, and the person behind the now-infamous FFmpeg account on... X. VLC (VideoLAN), by the way, is also a legendary piece of open-source software: it's a video player that can open basically anything & has been downloaded over 6 billion times. I think both FFmpeg and VLC are two of the most important and impactful software systems ever created, both open source, and both created & maintained by volunteers: brilliant engineers from all walks of life. Thank you to everyone who contributed to FFmpeg and VLC, and in general to all engineers giving their heart & soul to building systems used by millions (or billions) of people, and often doing so not for money, status, or fame, but purely for the love of building great software and doing good for the world. Thank you to the builders! 🙏❤️ Shoutouts in this chat to John Carmack Andrej Karpathy Elon Musk Tim Sweeney and everyone who is a contributor & fan of open source! It's here on X in full and is up everywhere else (see comment). Timestamps: 0:00 - Episode highlight 2:17 - Introduction 5:35 - Weirdest things VLC opens 9:59 - How video playback works 19:20 - Video codecs and containers 30:07 - FFmpeg explained 51:07 - Linus Torvalds 55:46 - Turning down millions to keep VLC ad-free 1:10:04 - FFmpeg & Google drama 1:29:18 - FFmpeg developers 1:35:55 - VLC and FFmpeg 1:40:29 - History of FFmpeg 1:43:46 - Reverse engineering codecs 1:57:01 - FFmpeg testing 2:01:08 - Assembly code (handwritten) 2:25:26 - Rust programming language 2:34:42 - FFmpeg and Libav fork 2:43:04 - Open source burnout 2:50:51 - x264 and internet video 3:04:07 - Video compression basics 3:11:04 - CIA and fake VLC 3:21:39 - Ultra low latency streaming 3:39:07 - AV2 codec and video patents 3:48:59 - VLC backdoors 3:59:14 - Video archiving 4:05:51 - Future of FFmpeg and VLCshow more

Here's the links for my conversation all about @FFmpeg : YouTube: Spotify: Podcast:

@FFmpeg Sad that we don't have Nobel equivalent awards to honour such developers.

@FFmpeg This is a really fantastic episode, thanks for doing this!

@FFmpeg This is 100% exactly what I imagined the @FFmpeg guys would be like

@FFmpeg Can't wait to listen!

@FFmpeg should have made it 256 min length instead off 258:21 :D

@FFmpeg over 258 minutes? Need another parallel life.

@FFmpeg This entire interview felt FRADULENT. Unless you are interviewing FABRICE BELLARD, FFmpeg should not be misleadingly labeled alongside the guest.

@Duane1024 @FFmpeg This is the first time I’ve ever been interested in listening to a lex Friedman podcast lol

@FFmpeg Fun fact, thanks to @FFmpeg, I discovered my Intel i5-11400 processor was a faulty unit. The PC crashed when running a simple video conversion task, it was not happening doing Windows 11 common tasks. I opened a warranty support case and Intel sent me a new unit. #TrueStory

@FFmpeg Lex! You should become a whale bro

@FFmpeg FFmpeg is the dependency where billions in revenue rest on a small number of mostly unpaid maintainers. Pulling the curtain back on the people keeping that infrastructure alive is more important than another model release interview.

@FFmpeg Legendary tool. Hard to believe VLC’s been around for 25 years. Back in my government digital forensics days, at times, there were files that only VLC could open and play during analysis. Still the GOAT. Love hearing the backstory.

@FFmpeg I absolutely love 😻 this disclaimer form @lexfridman @FFmpeg and Jean-Baptiste Kempf - Super interesting inteview BTW

@FFmpeg turning down millions to keep vlc ad-free while knowing you could've cashed out is the real flex most builders won't admit they'd fail.

@FFmpeg Legendary tool. Excited for the episode!

@FFmpeg No argument on the legendary part, but 'most video' seems generous, enterprise/streaming still runs proprietary encoders. FFmpeg's the dev tools king though.

@FFmpeg Looks like a great episode! Loaded up to listen on my next run!

@FFmpeg 😍❤️

@FFmpeg Why do I not see Fabrice Bellard anywhere on this post?

@FFmpeg FFMpeg is amazingly useful. We use it in our products

@FFmpeg Have to watch this episode!! The hat killed me 😂

@FFmpeg finally, a 3 hour guide to understanding a single ffmpeg command

@FFmpeg

@FFmpeg 0:05 "like, maybe you're a dog" yes and thank you doginme:native

@FFmpeg Good call on bringing in these giants. We are all standing in their shoulders. Thank you @FFmpeg and VLC.

@FFmpeg Thank you!

@FFmpeg Is this English?

@FFmpeg 😎💧

@FFmpeg is the khabib talk going to happen/air?

@FFmpeg Also @ffmpeg talking about the Sinclair C5 😂 Here is one in pretty good shape. Next to a Cray.

@FFmpeg Nice! I used FFmpeg it to make truthreel. Hey @TruthReeldotnet make a video on this post please

@FFmpeg No one else available?

@FFmpeg @lexfridman @FFmpeg 6 billion VLC downloads, zero VC funding, maintained by volunteers — and it runs more reliably than most enterprise software with 500 engineers behind it. the open source model doesn't get enough credit as the greatest proof of intrinsic motivation ever run.

@FFmpeg ffmpeg still does the actual work of turning video into tokens. models only train on whatever the decode layer already delivered.