What is the difference between ffmpeg and ffmbc now?

Question

Two years ago I've used ffmbc to encode videos to prores, but nowadays ffmpeg also supports prores and avchd. What is the difference between ffmpeg and ffmbc now?

Answer 1

Usage differences

_{Note: ffmbc/ffmpeg will refer to the tools, while FFmbc/FFmpeg will refer to the projects themselves and/or each whole collection of tools and libraries.}

• There are syntax differences including:

  • ffmbc uses the old, confusing -newaudio option while ffmpeg can just use -map.

  • ffmbc does not support -codec or -c, so instead all stream types must be explicitly defined if you do not want to rely on the defaults. For example -vcodec copy -acodec copy -scodec copy vs just -c copy.

  • Probably lots more that I didn't think of. Feel free to edit answer and add more.

• ffmbc will automatically relocate some data after encoding to MOV, MP4, etc while ffmpeg requires the -movflags +faststart option.

• ffmbc does not support -filter_complex so filtering is different. For example, using the overlay video filter:

  • ffmbc: -i video.mp4 -vf "movie='overlay.png' [movie]; [in][movie] overlay [out]"
  • ffmpeg: -i video.mp4 -i image.png -filter_complex "[0:v][1:v]overlay"

• FFmbc seems to support more broadcast formats.

• FFmpeg has more features and filters.

• FFmbc dropped ffplay and ffserver.

Development differences

• FFmbc is GPL, and FFmpeg is mostly LGPL which makes porting features from FFmbc to FFmpeg more difficult.

• FFmbc is basically the project of a former FFmpeg developer with a few contributions from others. FFmpeg has many developers and contributors.

• FFmpeg often merges things form Libav, while FFmbc ignores Libav. Libav cherry-picks occasionally from FFmpeg, but ignores most stuff from FFmpeg (Libav is often joked to have "NIH syndrome").

Answer 2

One difference at least :

-target xdcamhd422

is supported by FFmbc but not by FFmpeg.

Very useful in a professional broadcast environment.

the -target option allows to specify several parameters at once. The -target option value must be one supported by FFm**. In the case of the xdcamhd422 value, it specifies the video codec to be used (mpeg2video), the frame size (1920 x 1080), and other parameters in order to have an output file conform to the XDCam HD standard.