FFmpeg tutorial - Develop a video application in less than 1000 lines of code

FFmpeg is a library which can be used to build applications that record, convert and stream audio and video. It includes libavcodec, the leading audio/video codec library. FFmpeg is developed under Linux, but it can compiled under most operating systems, including Windows.

The FFmpeg toolkit consists of a number of programs them being :

• ffmpeg - which can be used to convert one video format to another. Say you want to convert a YouTube video in flv format to mpeg format, this tool will help you convert it.
• ffserver - This is a HTTP server which can be used to stream audio and video across the web.
• ffplay - is a simple media player based on SDL and on the FFmpeg libraries.
• libavcodec - a library containing all the FFmpeg audio/video encoders and decoders. Most codecs were developped from scratch to ensure best performances and high code reusability and ...
  
• libavformat - which is a library containing parsers and generators for all common audio/video formats.
  

I came across this excellent tutorial on Ffmpeg where the author demonstrates how to develop a video player in less than 1000 lines of code. Just so you know, one of the prerequisites of understanding the tutorial is some knowledge of the C language.

While on the subject of videos, you may also be interested in the different ways of creating screencasts in Linux.