FFmpeg Hosting Guide
So you’re looking to start a video website or a YouTube style clone and the term FFmpeg comes up. Today I’ll explain what FFmpeg is, how it works and where you can find a reliable FFmpeg Hosting provider. FFmpeg is a free library of tools however not all hosting companies support it because of the demand it puts on their servers. In this post I’ll include some of the Best FFmpeg Hosting companies you can find that fully support FFmpeg. Let’s get started!
What is FFmpeg?
FFmpeg is tool that has a decoder and an encoder. The main purpose of FFmpeg is to allow you to convert video from one format to another. Specifically it let’s you convert a video format for online use and viewing. In layman terms FFmpeg provides a solution which lets you record, convert and stream audio and video content.
FFmpeg example 1: Let’s say you took a video on your phone or camera and want to stream it online. You can use FFmpeg converters to upload your video file to the web and make your video compatible for web viewing. People will be able to stream your video without needed any special programs just as they would on a site such as YouTube.
FFmpeg example 2: If you have a DVD you can use a DVD Ripper which is a tool that will extract the DVD content in to .VOB files. This file type is not something you can just upload to your website. You need to first convert the .VOB files to a compatible streaming format and this is where FFmpeg comes in. FFmpeg converts will take your .VOB and convert it to a streaming format for online use.
With either of the above scenarios if you don’t use FFmpeg then your video file would be huge. The file size would be massive and not web-friendly. FFmpeg will also compress your video or audio file. This will allow people who are viewing your video to have a clean stream without buffering.
FFmpeg Tools:
FFmpeg is essentially a lirbary of converts and compression tools. Here is a list of some of the tools that FFmpeg includes:
FLVtool2 – Macromedia Flash Video (FLV) is a very popular format for video and delivery. FLVTool2 is a command-line tool that allows user to manipulate and extract information from FLV files.
MPBox4 – MP4Box is a multimedia packager, with a vast number of functionalities: conversion, splitting, hinting, dumping and others. It is a command-line tool. It can import MPEG-4 video, DivX, XviD, 3ivx, h264 etc, audio streams and subtitles into the .mp4 container. The end result is a compliant MP4 stream.
XviD – The XviD codec makes it possible to compress a full-length DVD-quality movie enough to fit on a single CD (might require 2 CDs depending on the length of the movie), while still maintaining the original image quality. Despite the fact that XviD movies offer higher quality video at smaller file sizes they take less time to encode than MPEG-2 due to the incredible compression technology. The video is usually combined with MP3 or AC3 audio to enable both high quality video and audio.
MPlayer – MPlayer is a free and open-source media player. The program is available for all major operating systems, including Linux, Mac OS X and other Unix-like systems, as well as for Microsoft Windows.
Find FFmpeg Hosting
Now that you have a basic idea of what FFmpeg is you’ll need to find a hosting company compatible with FFmpeg. The majority of hosting providers do not support FFmpeg mainly because of the high load and demand it puts on their servers. Don’t worry though, we’ve asked around and even tested a bunch of hosting companies that include FFmpeg with their hosting plans. If you’re looking for FFmpeg compatible hosting you’ve come to the right place. Below are the Top 3 FFmpeg Web Hosts voted by over 3000 of our readers over the past 5 years.
Best FFmpeg Hosting Providers – 2016