Converting Video Formats

[The Little Guy]

I know you can use a tool to convert video from one format to another format, but how does that tool convert the video?

 

For example, we have FFmpeg, it can convert avi to mpg, mpg to avi, vob to avi, vob to mpg, etc. all sorts of video conversions, my question is, how does it convert from one video format to another?

[corbin]

Video formats are essentially just how the pixel data is stored.  (It's not nearly that simple since there are various compression algorithms, different packing methods in each format and so on....)

 

 

 

 

Anyway, I would imagine how it works is that the data is simply extracted into something useful and then recoded.

 

 

The most basic process would be to extract each frame, then reformat it in the new format.

 

 

 

Edit:  By the way, you could always look at the ffmpeg source code, but it's probably not exactly the easiest code in the world to understand.