The eight flags behind most broken MP4s
Faststart, timestamps, pixel formats and the order of -map. Each one with the file it breaks and the inspector view that shows it.
MOMara OdumReading a master playlist, line by line
BANDWIDTH versus AVERAGE-BANDWIDTH, CODECS strings, and why the order of variants still matters to some players.
MOMara OdumWhat ffmpeg.wasm can and cannot do in 2026
Threads, memory limits, hardware encoders, and where we decided the desktop app had to exist.
SFSam FerreiraHow many rungs does a bitrate ladder need?
Fewer than you think, and the ones you keep depend on your audience’s worst network, not its best.
JPJordan PikeWhy every lesson is a running tool
A picture of a filter graph teaches you what one looks like. Editing one teaches you what it does. We chose the second, and it shaped the whole product.
JPJordan PikeRound-tripping a command through a graph
Parsing FFmpeg’s grammar is the easy half. Turning an edited graph back into a command a human would have written is the hard one.
SFSam FerreiraRoughly two posts a month
Release notes go in the changelog. This is for the longer explanations: how a format works, why a flag does what it does, what we learned building the tool.