# mpenkov/ffmpeg-tutorial

A set of tutorials that demonstrates how to write a video player based on FFmpeg

Repository: https://github.com/mpenkov/ffmpeg-tutorial
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/ffmpeg-tutorial
Homepage: http://www.ffmpeg.org/documentation.html
Language: C
License Family: other
Archived: true
Last push: 2016-05-28T15:13:49+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 10/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 0, release rhythm 35, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 5131, "days_push": 3749, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_releases, archived, no_license
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1243, forks 389 (observed 2026-08-28T04:04:06.657056+00:00)

## What it is
A set of C tutorial programs, updated from Stephen Dranger's classic FFmpeg tutorial, demonstrating how to build a video player using the FFmpeg libraries. The repository is kept for historical reasons and is no longer maintained.

## Use cases
- learn how to write a video player with ffmpeg
- understand ffmpeg libavcodec and libavformat api usage
- tutorial for decoding video frames in c
- learn audio and video playback with sdl and ffmpeg
- example code for avformat_open_input and avcodec
- study how media demuxing and decoding works

## When to choose
- you want a step-by-step code walkthrough of building a media player on FFmpeg
- you are learning the FFmpeg C API for the first time and want minimal examples
- you need historical reference code matching the original dranger.com tutorial

## When to avoid
- you need up-to-date code for current FFmpeg releases, since the project is unmaintained
- you want a production-ready video player or library
- you prefer official examples, which are available in the FFmpeg source tree under doc/examples

## Facets
- artifact type: learning-resource
- maturity: abandoned
- function: video-processing, developer-tools
- domain: developer-tools, tutorials, media
- platform: cross-platform, cpp
- tags: ffmpeg, c, tutorial, video-player, libavcodec, multimedia, archived, video, linux, macos

## Member repositories
- mpenkov/ffmpeg-tutorial (main) score 10

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:04:06.657056+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T05:08:20.129823+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/mpenkov/ffmpeg-tutorial (fetched 2026-08-28T04:04:06.657056+00:00, sha 2f7379e11ed5)
  - homepage: http://www.ffmpeg.org/documentation.html (fetched 2026-08-29T12:20:12.071566+00:00, sha 9ef82c819e37)
  - site_page: https://www.ffmpeg.org/about.html (fetched 2026-08-29T12:20:12.074211+00:00, sha f032bb905765)
  - site_page: https://www.ffmpeg.org/faq.html (fetched 2026-08-29T12:20:12.076193+00:00, sha 4530935faed9)
  - site_page: https://www.ffmpeg.org/general.html (fetched 2026-08-29T12:20:12.078785+00:00, sha 60f621599ef2)
  - site_page: https://www.ffmpeg.org/developer.html (fetched 2026-08-29T12:20:12.081577+00:00, sha c2593310b76a)
  - site_page: https://www.ffmpeg.org/doxygen/trunk/index.html (fetched 2026-08-29T12:20:12.084660+00:00, sha ad7f42863ab8)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.