FFmpeg: The Incredible Technology Behind Video on the Internet | Lex Fridman Podcast #496

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

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*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

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*OUTLINE:*
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 VLC

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