FFmpeg in Production: A Practical Guide to Codecs, Performance, and Licensing

If you've ever built a product that handles video uploads, screen recordings, or live streams, you've probably encountered FFmpeg. Most teams start using it for quick conversions and six months later find it running their entire media pipeline.

Once you're in production, you can't just run ffmpeg -i input.mp4 output.webm and walk away. You need to decide which codec plays on which devices. You need to figure out how much CPU time you're burning per video. Sometimes you even need a lawyer to help you understand patent licensing. These choices compound as soon as you add multiple renditions, thumbnails, previews, and device compatibility requirements.

This guide will help you understand the production constraints and tradeoffs so you can make informed decisions about codec selection, hardware acceleration, and licensing.

What FFmpeg is (and why it ends up everywhere)

FFmpeg describes itself as a "complete, cross-platform solution to record, convert and stream audio and video" on the official about page.

In practice, developers rely on:

• CLI tools
  • ffmpeg for transforming media (convert, encode, filter)
  • ffprobe for inspecting streams, codecs, and metadata
• Libraries (libavcodec, libavformat, libavfilter, etc.) for embedding media pipelines into applications and services

Production takeaway: FFmpeg is powerful because it's format-agnostic—ideal for ingest pipelines where you don't control what users upload.

Containers vs codecs (the most common issue in production)

This distinction trips people up constantly. A container like MP4 or MKV is just the wrapper around your video. The actual video and audio data uses a codec like H.264 or VP9. You can have a perfectly valid MP4 file that refuses to play anywhere because the codec inside is obscure or unsupported. Mozilla's guide on media containers is one of the clearest public references on how containers and codecs fit together.

Quick reference: containers in the real world

For browser-centric constraints, see MDN's video codec guide.

Codec choice is a four-way tradeoff

Picking a codec involves more than just video quality. You're making simultaneous tradeoffs between how many devices can play it back, how much bandwidth and storage it consumes, how long encoding takes, and whether you need to worry about patent licensing.

FFmpeg's AV1 guide notes that AV1 is typically more efficient than older codecs—often cited as roughly ~30% better than VP9 and ~50% better than H.264 in relevant scenarios (FFmpeg Wiki: Encode/AV1).

"We've seen file size reductions of 20-40% when moving from VP9 to AV1 for the same perceptual quality." — Netflix Tech Blog on AV1 deployment (2021)

Codec decision matrix

Real-world encoding speeds (1080p30 content)

Encoding rate control: CRF, presets, and predictable output

For x264 (H.264), FFmpeg's official guide recommends two commonly used approaches: CRF (quality-based) and two-pass ABR (bitrate/size-targeted) (FFmpeg Wiki: Encode/H.264).

Rate control options

"For most use cases, CRF is the recommended rate control mode. It provides the best quality per bit, and unlike target bitrate encoding, every frame gets the bits it deserves." — Handbrake's video encoding settings guide

Default (H.264 + AAC, CRF-based):

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ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:v libx264 -preset medium -crf 23 -c:a aac -b:a 128k output.mp4

For deeper intuition about CRF, see slhck's CRF guide.

Hardware acceleration

FFmpeg's canonical intro is HWAccelIntro.

"Hardware encoders trade some quality for speed. For user-generated content where encode time matters more than squeezing out the last bit of efficiency, hardware acceleration is often the right call." — FFmpeg Hardware Acceleration Guide

Throughput example: 1080p → 720p H.264 transcoding

Media economics

Cloudflare explains why video is economically different from typical web assets in its overview of delivering videos.

Storage impact example (60-minute 1080p video)

For a platform with 100,000 hours of content, AV1 vs H.264 could mean ~$2,300/month in storage savings.

Licensing

FFmpeg licensing is documented on the project's Legal page and its LICENSE doc. Codec patent licensing is separate (examples: Via LA AVC/H.264, Access Advance HEVC). AV1 is positioned as royalty-free by the Alliance for Open Media.

What good production FFmpeg looks like

1. Inspect first with ffprobe
2. Be explicit with codecs/containers/settings
3. Measure encode time, output size, and playback failures

FAQs

These FAQs cover the most common questions developers ask when moving FFmpeg from experimentation to production.

1. What is FFmpeg?
   FFmpeg is a toolkit for recording, converting, filtering, and streaming audio/video, described on the official site as a "complete, cross-platform solution to record, convert and stream audio and video" (FFmpeg About).

2. How to use FFmpeg to convert MKV to MP4
   If streams are compatible, stream copy:

   bash

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   ffmpeg -i input.mkv -c copy output.mp4

   If needed, map all streams:

   bash

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   ffmpeg -i input.mkv -map 0 -c copy output.mp4

   If it fails, it's usually container/codec mismatch—see MDN containers.

3. How to convert WebM to MP4 using FFmpeg
   Inspect:

   bash

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   ffprobe -hide_banner -i input.webm

   Encode:

   bash

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   ffmpeg -i input.webm -c:v libx264 -preset medium -crf 23 -c:a aac -b:a 128k output.mp4

   References: FFmpeg Encode/H.264, MDN codecs.

4. What is CRF in FFmpeg?
   CRF is quality-based rate control recommended in FFmpeg Encode/H.264. Deeper explanation: slhck CRF guide.

5. How to set bitrate in FFmpeg

   bash

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   ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:v libx264 -b:v 2500k -c:a aac -b:a 128k output.mp4

   See also two-pass ABR in FFmpeg Encode/H.264.

6. FFmpeg default audio codec when converting to MP4
   Check:

   bash

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   ffmpeg -h muxer=mp4

   Reference discussion: Stack Overflow muxer defaults. AAC notes: FFmpeg Encode/AAC.

7. Why doesn't FFmpeg support feature [xyz]?
   See the official FFmpeg FAQ.

8. I cannot read this file although this format seems to be supported by FFmpeg
   This is commonly container/codec mismatch—see the FFmpeg FAQ. Debug:

   bash

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   ffprobe -hide_banner -i input_file
   ffmpeg -v error -i input_file -f null -

9. Are there examples illustrating how to use the FFmpeg libraries?
   Start with Using libav* and the ffmpeg-codecs docs.